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Gwen had no clue about the torment I lived with. I missed my father's funeral because of that choice I made, I wasn't able to be there for my family when they needed me. I never got to say goodbye to the one person who believed in me. And I broke the heart of the only woman I ever loved.

That was what I carried with me everyday. All the pain I caused everyone else.

“Then what is it?”

“Can you put the paper down?”

Huffing under her breath, she closed the paper and tossed it onto the coffee table. “There, better?”

“Mom, this is important, and I'm not sure how to tell you.”

“Then just say it, Yuri. There's nothing you can tell me that will surprise me or disappoint me, you've already done that.”

The resentment in her tone for my very existence was point blank. She didn't try to hide how she felt about her oldest son, and she didn't try to hide the fact that she blamed me for every bad thing that has happened to her since.

“I want to talk to you about that night, the night I got arrested.”

Her eyes turned to pinpricks as she glared at me. “There's nothing to talk about, it's done.”

“No, it's not done, I never told you the truth, I want you to know the truth.”

“The truth,” she said, rolling her eyes as she let out a cynical laugh. “I know the truth, and I know how it affected all of us. I know how what you did led your brother down the same road.” Leaning forward, she bared her teeth. “That's why he's in jail right now, because you showed him how to get there.”

Shaking my head, I frowned. “That's where you're wrong and that's what I need to talk to you about. That night, I wasn't there with him to get him to help me, I was there to stop him.”

“Stop him—” she barked, her eyes opening wide in disbelief. “Let me get this straight, now that Ares is locked up, you want to come here and throw him under the bus to downplay your roll?”

“Can you just listen for once?” Biting the inside of my cheek, I was trying so hard to not get up and yell at her. “Just listen and don't talk, can you please just do that, just this time?”

“Fine, keep going.” Pressing her back into the couch, she folded her arms across her chest.

“I was at work that night, and I heard Ares talking on the phone to someone about hitting that liquor store. I tried to talk him out of it, but he laughed it off and said it would be fine, and to mind my own business. I went there to stop him, but when I walked in, Ares was stuffing the cash into a bag and the other kid he was with was holding a knife to the clerk.”

I watched my mother as I spoke, waiting to see if what I was telling her was sinking in or if she had already pulled up her wall and wasn't really listening.

“I surprised them when I walked in, causing the other guy looked away at me. The clerk grabbed a gun from under the counter, aiming it at the kid with the knife. So he took off out the door, leaving Ares alone behind the counter. The clerk turned his gun on Ares and I reacted, I jumped over that counter and knocked him out cold. What I didn't realize was that there was a customer hiding in one of the aisles that had called the cops. The lights hit the windows and Ares panicked, he started freaking out and talking about how he couldn't go to jail and how he was afraid. . .”

Pausing, I hung my head, looking down at my feet.

“Go on,” she said, her tone soft, almost motherly like when I was younger.

Looking back up at her, I searched her face for understanding. “I took the blame for it, I let them arrest me so Ares could go free. I told them I convinced him to come and he had no idea what I was going to do. He was only a kid, I thought he was just being stupid and I wanted to protect him. But he learned nothing, that fear didn't stay with him and now he's in prison for the next twenty years for a rash of robberies.” Dragging my hand across my jaw, my voice lowered. “And I lost everything to save him.”

“Are you really being honest right now, Yuri?” she asked.

“Yeah, Mom. I never told you because Ares was seventeen, I thought I could protect him. But then I saw on the news that he was arrested last month for a string of robberies up in Providence, and it cut me like a serrated blade. There's no point in me carrying this secret anymore, I did it all for nothing.”

Standing up, my mother stepped to my side, resting her hand on my shoulder. “I'm sorry for putting this on you all these years, Yuri. You're my son, and I love you, that never changed. I've just been angry, an anger that as a mother, it hurts to the point you can't even imagine. But I never stopped loving you, and I'm so sorry I've been treating you the way I have. I haven't handled any of this the way I should, I should have been there for you no matter what, and I wasn't.” Squeezing my shoulder, she kissed the top of my head. “I just wish you had told me sooner.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks, falling onto my arm.

“I did it for my little brother, but when I saw Gwen yesterday, she made me realize how much I really lost not being honest in the first place.”

Arching a brow, she tilted her head. “You saw Gwen?” Pulling a handkerchief from her pocket, she wiped her eyes.

“Yeah, I did.”

“I wasn't sure she'd actually come. When her mother told me she was coming, I almost didn't believe her, then again, I didn't expect you to show up either.” A small smile teased her lips as she said, “Sounds like fate to me.”

“Fate—I don't think she sees it that way.”