Christine stroked his arm.
“He didn’t answer when I got home. His door, this door, was pulled closed, but not latched. I pushed it open.” Slade put his hand flat on the locked door. “He’d used a belt. On the closet rod.” Slade’s fingernails dug into the wood. “I can blur those minutes and forget the horror and whatever else the room looked like. But not his face.” The eyes that stared calmly toward the door, as if he was finally at peace. “I’d lost everything then. My parents, my livelihood, my family.” He dragged in air. “And then I saw the note.”
Christine slipped an arm around his waist, closed the loop with her other arm, clasping her hands over his hip. He wanted to stay cocooned in her arms forever.
“He wrote, ‘It’s not worth waiting. Come with me.’” Slade tried to swallow. He couldn’t manage, so he continued hoarsely, “In that moment, when I saw no hope, no point in going on, it was as if I’d been programmed to...end it. I saw the other belt at my father’s feet.”
Slade sank to the floor, taking Christine with him. “I started the process in a numb, dark fog, with silence roaring in my ears. Not knowing, not thinking. But then the sun broke through the clouds and I saw my mother’s face. In a picture on the bureau. I realized I didn’t want to die. Nothing was as hopeless as my dad made it seem.”
Too late, his mind had crooned. It was the last thing he remembered before being saved by Evy, who hadn’t been able to stop screaming.
He’d said enough to satisfy her curiosity. More and she’d know. She’d know and she’d leave.
“I was fortunate. I stared beyond the brink of death, but it left its mark on me.” He kicked his legs out in front of him, letting the anger build, as it often did when he thought about the extremes his father had gone to, how fragile his own mental state had been. He’d never consider doing such a thing today. He’d seek professional help or a good listener, like Christine. “My dad is the reason I refuse to fail. He’s the reason I’m a millionaire. Every dollar I make, every goal I achieve proves to him that life is worth living.” That Slade could achieve his dreams. If only his father hadn’t stopped believing. “That’s why I have to sell the permit when the best bid comes in, to silence my father’s voice forever.”
He’d told her. He’d confessed. He waited to see if history would repeat itself, if Christine would leave. He had to brace himself for it, for the pain and the crumpling loss. They sat silently. He couldn’t see her face in the shadows. Did she look upon him in disgust? In horror? With pity?
Christine got to her knees. But instead of leaving, she sat in his lap. Her hands loosened his tie, slid the silky fabric free. She set his tie aside and went to work on his buttons, spreading the cotton across his collarbones.
She smelled of vanilla and redemption. False redemption, since he hadn’t told her the entire story. He gripped her wrists and held her hands still. “Do you think he forgave me?”
“For not going through with killing yourself? I’m certain he did.” She curled her hands up around his neck and slid her palms down to rest within his shirt at the base of his neck. She traced his scar with one finger. “The question is...do you forgive yourself? After all, you didn’t go through with it.”
Her caring touch made him feel as though he’d been redeemed. But he hadn’t earned it.
His hands traveled up her arms, down her shoulders, to rest on her hips. “I’ll never forgive myself. It wasn’t that I wanted to die. It was just that everything I’d taken for granted and worked so hard for were taken away. It was a moment of weakness. I learned the hard way that when things fall apart, you have to pick up the pieces and start over, not give up.”