Page 54 of Forever After All

"It was fine, Mum. Can we talk about something else?" Alice tries to redirect the conversation, but Hope continues to ask questions. It isn't her fault, but I really wish she would stop talking.

"Still, though…drugs? I had no idea." Hope carries on asking questions, oblivious to Alice's desire not to answer.

"Mum, enough." Alice loses her temper and her mom is taken back by her sharp outburst. I’m torn between wanting to keep Alice safe and wanting to tell her parents what she’s refusing to. I put my arm around her shoulders and give her a small squeeze.

"Hope, honey, I did tell you to stop asking." Alex shakes his head as Hope seems surprised that Alice raised her voice.

"Oh my, Alice." Hope sounds shocked. "I was simply asking a question. I just can't get over such a nice man ending up with the wrong crowd. Far too young…" She reiterates her earlier point.

"Not young enough," I answer before my brain can catch upwith my mouth.

"Carter, enough," Alice pleads with me to stop talking shoots me a look so furious that if looks could kill, I think I'd be dead.

"What was that?" Alex asks.

"I said, not young enough." And I can't help hammering home my point.

"Carter. Stop it," Alice says again and she tugs on my hand.

"Sorry, what?" Hope asks looking confused.

"Alex, Hope, I'm sorry, but he wasn'tnice.He was the worst," I say, angrier than I intend for the words to come out. "He was a horrible human. He abused your daughter for months and you had no idea. Alice has kept this to herself for all these years to protect you. To protect herself. But it's about time you know what he did to her." I clench my first into a ball to help stem the anger.

"How could you?" Alice whispers, looking down into her palms, and a wave of guilt washes over me instantly.

But I couldn’t listen to it for any longer.

"Alice, I—" I try to speak to her, but Alex cuts me off.

"Alice? What is he talking about?" He sits up straighter in his seat, and under extreme stress the teacup he's holding breaks in pieces in his hand.

Alice clears her throat, trying to prevent tears from forming, but the need takes over, and for the first time since meeting her,I feel like the world's worst fucking person, friend, boyfriend. I made her cry.

"Carter, you need to go and wait outside," Alice says to me so calmly as tears flow down her cheeks that it gives me the chills.

"Alice, you—" I try to speak.

"Go now," she interrupts me. "I need you to leave this room right now and you need to wait outside."

Feeling like I just got told off by my own mother, I rise from my seat and walk towards the door. Ginny's head pops out of her bed, and she watches me.

"Alex, Hope, it was really great to meet you. I'm sorry, but you needed to know." And then I leave the room.

Sitting on an iron bench in front of the Barretta house, I can hear cows in the distance and the sound of birdsong. Their front yard—or garden, as the British call it—is blooming with flowers. I crunch my feet several times on the gravel and bounce my leg up and down in the air.

You're a fucking asshole, Carter,I think to myself as I impatiently wait for Alice to appear from the house.

I hate that I did that to her, but my fury got the better of me when listening to Hope talk about what a great person Dannywas.

It doesn't sit well with me that, for all these years, so many people thought that he was some kind of fucking saint.

In fact, it makes me sick to my stomach to think about the women he may have dated after Alice, and thinking about whether he hurt them is too much to acknowledge.

If any of those women cried on their loved ones like Alice cried on me, or panicked like she panicked, or trembled like she trembled…it makes me want to bring him back to life, just to kill him again.

"Well, you certainly know how to leave an impression on your girlfriend's parents, my boy."

I look up to see Alex walking towards me. He sits next to me on the bench and slaps my back.

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