Page 98 of Shattered Secrets
I nod vigorously. “Deeply. I didn’t plan on it. I wanted to build a life here on my own, but he kept coming, again and again, until I gave in and fell in love with him.” When I recall our encounters, I smile. I even smacked him in the head, and still, he kept coming.
“He can be stubborn, our son,” his father, Gabriel, says in a soft voice.
“He’s stubborn,” I agree. “Stubborn, beautiful, and noble, and the best person I know.”
Laura shakes her head. “I don’t know how to reach him. He never agrees to share anything with us. He’s completely cut us off. He didn’t even allow us to visit him after that horrible incident.” Tears come to her eyes. “He’s our only son, the only child we have left.”
“You made him feel guilty for his sister’s death. He can’t shake it off. He can’t get over it. And every time you talk to him, you only reinforce that belief.”
Gabriel scoffs. “We took him for treatment for years. All he did was destroy everything he touched. Do you know how hard it was when he was a teenager? How much trouble he got into? He broke into stores just to show he could. Every day I would worry about what I would have to do to get him out of trouble. He was almost killed once. Did he tell you about that? It’s a miracle he’s alive and well and not in jail.”
Does this man truly not understand? How can he not see what is so obvious?
“Ethan didn’t break into shops to show he could. He broke into stores because he wanted your attention. Because he was crying out for your love. A psychologist cannot give him the forgiveness he needs from you.”
“Excuse me?” Laura asks.
“Did either of you ever tell him he wasn’t to blame for what happened to Anna? That she didn’t kill herself because of him?”
“But it’s obvious,” Laura says. “It’s obvious he’s not guilty. He didn’t do it.”
“It’s not obvious to him! He thinks you blame him for the party and for her death. All you did was send him to more and more therapists. You never talked to him about what happened. About how he found her. Do you know what a trauma it is to see such a thing?”
“Do you think it’s easy for us to talk about this?” Gabriel raises his voice, and I panic and take a step back. He lowers his tone. “Do you think it was easy to come home and see our daughter lying in a pool of blood?” His voice breaks.
“No. I think it was terrible. That it was terrible for all of you. And especially for a seventeen-year-old boy who thinks that everything rests on his shoulders.”
Gabriel shakes his head in disbelief. “No.”
“And now, today, I find out that you didn’t even file a report with the police. Ethan couldn’t even get the closure he needed.”
“We didn’t file a report because Laura couldn’t withstand it. You weren’t here. You didn’t see. We were broken. Laura was living on sedatives. If we had opened it to the public, we wouldn’t have survived.”
“But Ethan was broken, too! Do you know he still has nightmares? Over ten years have passed, and he still has nightmares. Everything he does is for her in some way.”
“I didn’t think—”
“Yes. And he became such an amazing person. Everything he does, the company he built. It looks so simple from the outside, but now that I’m working there… Do you know he donates most of his income to keep Savee alive?”
“No.” Laura shakes her head. “What do you mean?”
“Savee is not a profitable company. Ethan invests private money into it. In big numbers.”
“I didn’t know that,” Gabriel murmurs.
“You don’t know many things. But what he did when he was a teenager…? That’s not who he is now. The fact that he could come to his senses and organize his life as it is today without your help is a miracle in my eyes. I know that without my parents, I wouldn’t have been able to get out of the black hole I sank into. Ethan did it alone.”
Gabriel looks at Laura with wet eyes. I might have started some wheels turning.
“I don’t know why Clifford Nightingale did what he did, but I hope they convict him and you all finally get some peace. I know Ethan needs it.”
His parents nod. I see tears glistening in his mother’s eyes. “We pushed Clifford on Ethan all these years. His parents wanted them to be friends, and we agreed. Only it never worked. We always thought Ethan was to blame, that he didn’t accept Clifford as a friend, but it was Clifford. He was too jealous of Ethan for it to work. His parents and the two of us are guilty of his hatred. Everything that happened was because of us. I can’t believe we were friends with this family.”
“Don’t blame yourself or Ethan. Clifford is the only one to blame. I also blamed myself for a long time for what happened to me. I thought I was in the wrong, that I brought the beatings and abuse on myself. But the victim is not the guilty party. Just a victim.”
They nod.
“Invite him again,” I say. “I’ll make sure he comes. Without me.”
