Page 168 of Vows We Never Made

20

ALL THE POOR BASTARDS (ETHAN)

With Hattie gone, there’s nothing left to do but drag my sorry ass home.

Even so, I take my sweet time, seeing her off into the Uber, making sure the jet’s ready for her at the airport, then walking back to my car with that fatal sense of having fucked everything to bits.

Isn’t that what I do best?

The minute life starts handing out bananas, I become the anxious monkey boy. This giddy, reckless little ape who can’t just take what’s being offered without ripping it to pieces and lighting everything on fire.

Hattie left in fuckingtearsbecause of me.

Because I let my emotions burst like a defective pipe.

Because I was so pissed at her for picking at the past, even if she never touched anything related to Taylor.

Yet, the nasty little chatter in the back of my head whispers.She didn’t blab about it yet.

I squash that prick like a bug.

Pages deserves better. I should’ve tried harder to stop my bad mood from escaping and pelting her in the face.

After days of walking around like lovesick kids, I made her feel like a burden, like she’d just get in the way. Like she’s already broken my trust when she hasn’t done a thing.

Fucking. Idiot.

I drive home slowly and get stuck at every stoplight for what feels like hours.

When I finally get back to my parents’ place, the house gleams in the moonlight, this suburban castle hidden in its soaring green hedges that still can’t contain the worst Blackthorn instincts.

All the memories of living here come charging back—how stifling this house could be while looking like a luxury architect’s wet dream—and I have to crush them one by one.

The past is the past.

Over and out.

It won’t control me unless I let it.

The front door opens soundlessly when I shuffle in. No Ares here to greet me with a disinterested sniff or dismissive yawn.

It’s insane how much that disappoints me.

Just silence and bitter memories and—

Noise?

I frown when I hear it for the first time.

Distant sobbing, I think, muffled but unmistakable.

Welcome home. Here’s a nice cuppa piping hot shit to settle in.

I sigh so hard my shoulders drop as I scan the foyer.

Large, imposing oil paintings with abstract faces stare back at me as I lock the door and will myself to breathe. The air feels like syrup.

The house is silent except for the faint crying, which frays the hair on the back of my neck.