“You were shipped across the world,” she supplied.
“I deserved it.” He frowned down at her.
“Why?” She shook her head.
He glanced back out at the darkness beyond his deck and thought about the day that had changed his life.
“I was twelve years old. I was stoked about my upcoming thirteenth birthday party. I’d been told I could invite girls.” He looked down at her. “I was really excited.”
She nodded with a slight smile. “I get that.”
“Well, the parents had asked me to watch Kelly for a few hours while they ran to the country club for lunch. They often did that. Even though they loved Kelly, they liked socializing without a five-year-old asking them a million questions. I was on the phone with my friends, trying to come up with a list of girls we were going to ask to the party. Kelly wanted to play outside on the new swing set the folks had gotten her for her birthday. You know, one of those tree fort things with swings, slides, and a little fort on top.”
She nodded. “I know the kind.”
He took a deep breath. “I just ran inside for some paper and a pen. To make the list of everyone my friends and I wanted to invite. When I came back out… well, I thought she was still up in the fort part. It wasn’t until I got off the phone and started looking around that I realized she wasn’t in the yard.”
“What happened?” she asked with a frown.
Instead of answering, he took her hands and walked them over to sit on a swing closer to the house so the rain, which had grown heavier, wouldn’t splash them. After they sat down, he continued.
“I searched everywhere. I got my little brother, who had been inside playing video games, to help me search the house, the yard, and even run to a few neighbors to make sure she hadn’t wandered over there to play. When we didn’t find her, we called the folks. At first, they were upset that I’d interrupted their lunch date.” He laughed, remembering how annoyed his father had been. “Then I told them Kelly was missing.” He closed his eyes and shivered at the memory. “The police came and started searching. I must have told my story more than a dozen times. At one point, they even hauled me into the police station, separated me from my folks, and grilled me.” He took a deep breath. “I had never been more afraid in my life.”
He glanced over at Bella and could tell she was hanging on his every word.
“It took less than a week to find her body across town in a dumpster. Someone had…” His voice broke and he shut his eyes again as another fresh tear slipped down his cheek. “They’d abused her and left her like a piece of trash. At first, everyone was blaming me for not watching her. Some even believed I had something to do with her disappearance.”
“Calvin.” She wrapped her arms around him and held on. “I’m so sorry.”
Just feeling her next to him eased the pain of the memories. “I should have…”
She surprised him by pulling away and taking his face in her hands.
“They left a preteen boy in charge of a five-year-old to go socialize,” she said, her eyes burning into his. “Predators will always find a way. You couldn’t have known. Did they catch the person?”
He nodded. “Thanks to DNA. It was a worker my parents used a few times around the house. They had hired him to paint Kelly’s bedroom for her birthday, and he even installed her new swing set. The one he took her from that day.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said again. Then she tilted her head. “They shipped you off to boarding school after that?”
He nodded and looked down at their joined hands. Suddenly, she stood up and started pacing in front of him. Then after a moment of that, she turned on him.
“They shipped you off after someone they let into their home stalked, kidnapped, then murdered your little sister.” Her voice rose and he watched her cross her arms over her chest. “They blamed you?”
He swallowed and nodded slightly. “It was my…”
“Don’t you dare say it was your fault.” She moved closer to you. “You are as much a victim as your sister was. You were twelve,” she said, dragging out the word as if it would explain everything. “You didn’t kidnap her. You didn’t let your sister go willingly with the man. You didn’t murder her. You were just a kid. A boy who had just lost his little sister and blamed himself for not watching her. Then they shipped you off like… like…” She threw up her hands. “Like you were a murderer yourself.”
He sighed. “I was, in some way.”
“Calvin Winters, you are no more responsible for your sister’s death than I am. Your parents shipped you away because they couldn’t stand their own guilt. They threw the blame solely on your shoulders and then pushed you away to cover it up.”
He stood up and wrapped his arms around her, then placed a kiss on the top of her head. “You’re amazing.” He took in the feeling of her, the scent of her and knew that it would probably be the last time he’d hold her. After everything he’d just confessed, he knew that with her life, they couldn’t be together. Part of his heart broke, just like it had the day they’d found Kelly’s body.
Chapter Twenty-One
She could tell that Calvin was struggling with what he’d told her. He didn’t see it the same way she did. The more she thought about it, the angrier she was at his parents. How could parents let a kid believe he was at fault for something so far out of his control?
Did they still treat him as if his sister’s death was on him?
The way he was holding her as the rain fell a few feet away from them told her that he believed she was going to leave him. That thought broke her heart.
He was so damaged by his selfish parents that all of her problems with her own self-absorbed parents seemed minuscule.
“Calvin.” She pulled back and leaned up on her toes to place a soft kiss on his lips. “Know that I don’t blame you at all. In fact, if I ever get a chance, I’m going to have a serious talk with your parents about their treatment of you.” She touched his face, enjoying the softness of the light beard he’d grown out. “I’d be happy to set them straight. We all have things in our past. Albeit yours is pretty… heavy. But as I said, I don’t believe your sister’s death was on you at all. I’m sorry your parents made you believe you’d done something wrong.”
He sighed and nodded. “As a rational adult—which I would like to think that I have become—I agree with you. But it’s taken me years to finally come to terms with that.” He shook his head again. “I found it easier to never talk to my parents about it since we don’t see eye to eye on the topic.” He shrugged and glanced over as lightning filled the sky. “Come on, we’d better go inside.”
She took his hand and tugged him inside. He locked the door and shut the blinds behind them. Before he could move away, she wrapped her arms around him again.
“You aren’t going to use this as an excuse to not allow me to move in here with you, are you?” She smiled up at him.
He looked a little shocked, then asked. “Are you sure you want to? I didn’t mean to pressure you into moving in with me. I had planned on asking you… before blurting it out to Ben.”