“So you opened this gallery.”
“Yes. When I was finally free of that man I was so scared of, I wanted to make sure John’s artwork saw the light of day. H-he gave his life to try and protect me. To try and get me out of trouble. It’s the least I could do. I thought maybe if I tracked his family down, since I knew your name, I could convince you guys to come see the show.”
“That’s why you were at the memorial service,” he said.
“Yes. That’s why I was there. But you seemed like you were still searching for something, and you talked about him so emotionally, like he was still there with you, and all of a sudden I felt like I was invading a place I shouldn’t be in since I was the reason he died, and I thought maybe my presence would’ve been disrespectful and—”
I put my face back into my hands and sobbed. Bryan simply sat there, staring at the wall while my body shook on the stool I was sitting upon. John’s body flashed in my mind, his eyes dead and cold while I held him close to my body. I could still feel my tears dripping onto his lifeless neck, his pulse point still as his chest settled back down for good because of me.
“I never meant to lie. I never meant to run into you again after intruding on that ceremony. I never meant to fall in love with you, and I sure as hell never meant to hurt you, Bryan. I’d hoped to contact you eventually when I wanted to do a gallery show centered around John, but I never expected any of this.”
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
“What?”
“The lying. The maliciousness. The deceit. Why did you do it?” he asked.
“I just didn’t know how to face you. I didn’t know how to look you in the eye after falling in love with you and telling you I was the one who got your brother killed.”
I looked up into Bryan’s eyes, and I was shocked to see tears trickling down his cheeks. I tried to reach out to him, but a searing headache peeled through the front of my forehead. I leaned back in my chair and sighed, placing the heels of my hands deep into my eye sockets as I groaned.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
There was an almost urgent tone to his voice that made me believe for a split second that he cared.
“Nothing. Just headaches. Stressed over this conversation,” I said.
“Everyone’s got a little bit of blame of their shoulders, I guess,” he said.
His words rattled around in my mind while my head continued to pound. I opened my eyes and tried to see him through my shaking vision, but I couldn’t get a read on him. His eyes weren’t angry, and his fists were balled up. His body wasn’t tense, and his shoulders weren’t rolled back. His eyes were on me, but they seemed glazed over.
Almost as if they were very far away.
There was no anger and no sadness. No fury and no shock. All there seemed to be in the eyes of the man I’d loved and hurt desperately was a blankness.
An empty darkness that fully consumed his soul.
Chapter 15
Bryan
Despite the pain and the hatred and the destruction, my heart was strangely calm. Hailey was sobbing in front of me, her face in her hands while I simply sat back in my seat. I finally knew what happened to my brother from beginning to end, the entire story. I allowed her words to sink in as I silently watched her shoulders shake. In all reality, Hailey was sitting in the exact same position I was. She was holding onto guilt for a situation that took place with a man she’d come to know, respect, and love.
“I believe you,” I said.
My eyes went from the wall to her, and the moment she raised her reddened gaze, I felt my guilt overtake my entire system. The way she was looking at me, it was like she was searching for my forgiveness. She felt as if she was a murderer finally confessing her crimes to the family she’d hurt, except none of that was true, not a damn word of it.
“I believe everything you’ve told me,” I said.
“You do?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Even the-the part about how I tried?” she asked.
“Especially that part.”
She sat there, her eyes confused while they danced all along my body. I could tell she was trying to read me and figure out what in the world had changed. All this time I’d spent hating her was under the premise that she was a liar, a manipulator. Someone who used me to get what they wanted. I figured she’d used me to heal herself or to build her gallery for cheap or to simply quell her lonely presence, but none of that was true.