Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 80689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“All this time I’ve blamed myself for Father’s death,” I say, my fury so quiet.
“You are to blame!”
“No, I’m not. You are. For taking this to him, then lying about what you saw that day. You had Father believe in his last moments on this earth that I was a liar and deceived him about why Kieran killed himself.”
“Jonas, you have to read this.” He heads toward us, but Jonas throws his hand up, promptly rejecting it. “You have to see what a monster he is.” He winces, his forehead creasing. “Or are you as bad as he is? Is that it?”
“Simon, I did want Kieran. I wanted him even more than what’s in that journal. But the day that happened, I didn’t. Don’t you get that that’s all that matters? And when he did that to me, I realized he wasn’t the man I believed him to be; that the man in that journal didn’t exist. Because the man I wrote about would have never done that to me. I buried it because I was burying the memory of the man I created in my own mind.”
Simon bares his teeth like an animal as he charges me. “Stop it with your lies!” He strikes me in the face with the journal and tackles me to the bed. In my periphery, I see Jonas heading over to intervene, but our struggle ends with me on top of Simon, pinning his wrists to the mattress. He struggles in vain against my hold before screaming out, “Someone has to stop you! Someone has to fucking stop you! He loved me. He loved us.”
“No, he didn’t,” I say as a tear escapes my eyes and falls onto his cheek.
There’s a flash of something in his eyes. It’s the first time I’ve seen this vulnerability, this pain in him, as though he’s finally allowing himself to consider an unbearable reality. But then his face twists up, and he fights violently, thrusting his hips in an effort to buck me off him, but I’m too strong. And too fucking pissed.
“I’m glad you shared this with me, Simon. All these years I believed I was responsible for Father’s death, but now I know that’s not true. And I know he did believe me, and that’s why you did this. That’s why you had to turn him against me. And in doing so, you killed him.”
His chin quivers, his cheeks tremble. “No, I didn’t. No…no…”
“You don’t have to take responsibility for what Father did, but you have to take responsibility for what you did.”
He erupts into a fit of tears, giving up his struggle against me. “Why won’t you stop lying?”
It’s not the demand of before, but a plea.
I release him and slide off the bed, and he flies into a fit, crying out and bashing his fists against the mattress as he flails about.
It’s the tantrum of a child.
I let him have this as I retrieve my phone off the nightstand and take my journal from where it landed on the foot of the bed.
Jonas rests his hand on my shoulder, and I turn to him. Without words, I know that despite Simon’s attempt to turn him against me, just like he did with Father all those years ago, it didn’t work. And that despite the shame I carried about these pages for so long, he understands the truth. By the time I put my journal in the suitcase and zip it up, Simon finally wears himself down, now a sobbing mess on my sheets.
“Let’s go get your things,” I tell Jonas. “Anything I haven’t packed already can be replaced.”
Taking my suitcase in one hand and Jonas’s hand in the other, we start for the door.
“Ryan, you can’t leave me here!” Simon calls out. “You have to pay for what you did!”
As we reach the door, I stop and turn to him.
My brother’s still on his back, breathing heavily like all the events of tonight have finally caught up with him.
“Earlier today when I told Jonas I’d leave with him, I felt guilty. Like I needed to remain a ghost, suffering in this house to atone for my sins. But now that I know the truth, I realize this guilt hasn’t been mine to carry. I’m done haunting this house with you, so you’re going to have to haunt it alone now, Simon.”
Despite my anger, there’s sadness too. Just like when Kieran died, though I hated him, I couldn’t escape the mental and emotional chains binding us. And it’s so much stronger with Simon.
“Ryan, no,” he says, all that fury a whimper now.
I close the door.
Not just to this room, but to this part of my life.
33
JONAS
I follow Ryan into our motel room. Compared to the bedrooms at Hawthorne Heights, it’s a closet, struggling to accommodate twin-size beds and a media console. Cramped as it is, there’s relief in knowing we’re away from that place, somewhere Simon can’t see.