Page 121 of Poison Vows

“I want you to shed the cloaks of illusion you’ve been garbed in for most of your life and tell me what happened that night,” he says in a grave tone.

This time, a paralyzing fear grips me by the throat as soon as that question is uttered, echoing and bouncing around the bookshelves around us.

Gramps’s death—that I caused—is not something I like recalling. The weight of the guilt, shame, pain, and punishment is what I’ll carry for the rest of my life.

I might forget formulas, simple solutions, and stuff… but the night Gramps died will forever be etched on every brain cell God gave me. And I’ve never talked about that day with anyone.

Even Emmett. I just gave him bits and pieces that night we met… the rest I’ve kept buried in the thorny, torn-up parts of me.

But now, staring into the aged, sharp, and cold eyes of the older man in front of me, who seems to know more than I expected, I can’t help but bow down to the staggering weight of this confession.

So, in the soft glow of the lights of this magical library, I recount everything I remember the night I caused my best friend’s death.

I describe my stupidity, which proves the accuracy of Grandpa Armando’s judgment of my misplaced yearning and fight against abandonment.

I tell this virtual stranger my part in the worst thing I ever caused and how it led to Gramps coming to find me and then attempting to bring me back home.

A fleet of big black SUVs seemed to appear from nowhere, boxing us in.

Gramps swerved the car several times and sped up to get away from them.

He was focused. He was stern. He was giving me instructions…

At least that’s what I thought until years later when my memories came back.

When we got to the sharp curve, one of the SUVs crashed into us, pushing us past the barrier of the steep cliffs.

We plunged into the roaring sea.

“Gramps did everything to save me. As the dark, cold water quickly filled the car, I watched him shatter the rest of the window that wasn’t open with his bare hands. Then he reached over to the backseat to cut me out of the seatbelt, grabbed me topull me to the front where he shoved me out of the window with bleeding, cut hands.”

Emmett’s grandfather doesn’t interrupt. He just sits there, with his hands steepled under his chin, listening attentively, but I sense a tenseness radiating from him.

“The same pocketknife he used to cut me out of my seat, he could’ve used to save himself too, but he didn’t,” I croak, my voice alien and rough to my own ears. “Instead, he used up all his energy to save a petulant, stupid child.”

Tears like a river are streaming silently down my face, but I don’t dare blink or wipe them away. I keep facing the man in front of me, recounting everything.

“That night, there was a woman.”

I’m watching Emmett’s grandfather so intently that I notice his almost imperceptible reaction to those six words.

“This is the memory I have kept locked in my soul, that I haven’t told anyone.” I confess in a low, broken voice, but I don’t stop to clear my throat. “I see her in my nightmares. I see her in my dreams. I hear her screams during the day. The woman with sad, distant green eyes, bandages all over her body. She was in that car with my grandfather and me.”

Silence like a frozen maintain in the dead of winter settles in the room, but I can’t stop there. I continue.

“I’ve been sick ever since I was born,” I admit the sore, unhealed parts of my life to this old man. “Gramps and Grammy tried to keep it a secret from me but as I grew up, I knew there was a reason for their heavy concern for my slow growth and development. Of course that accident traumatized me enough that I forgot some crucial parts, but that broken, bruised woman never let me completely forget her. Not when her son became a part of my life. Gramps saved that lady as well.”

And just like that, the lid over all the secrets has been blown clean off.

“That woman, in her poor state, wrapped me in the crook of her arm and swam us to shore in that freezing water… leaving Gramps to go down into the depth of the sea in that car.”

Grandpa Armando and I stare at each other.

Me, with my tear-streaked face.

Him, with his now livid expression.

What he says next, as if with his last breath, is so unexpected and out of character that I think I misheard him.

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