Lexi looks at me like I’ve grown a second head as she says, “Evie, are you kidding me? Evelyn’s not here now. You don’t owe her anything. She became you, and that means that you’re the only person who can take matters into your own hands. You guys are alike, but there are also some differences. Listen, believe me when I say that I hate your parents for what they did. I hate them for threatening me to throw me out of college if I ever told you the truth, and I absolutely hate how they arranged your marriage with that jerk Adrien since before you were even born, but I also watched you as Evangeline with your parents, Evie. I know that you love them, and I’ve seen how much they love you. I’m not saying you should forgive them- not at all- but what I’m saying is that if you, Evangeline, believe that you should give them a second chance, do it. If you don’t believe they deserve it then don’t.”
She places her hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently as she continues, “But don’t let Evelyn’s thoughts overtake your own because, yes, you may think that by not offering your parents a second chance you’ll be avenging Evelyn, but Evelyn’s not here now. You are. Your thoughts are not like Evelyn’s and they will never be, so just don’t lose your parents for Evelyn’s sake because she won’t be the one regretting it. You will.”
Her words sink in slowly, and I nod my head, agreeing with what she said. She’s right. If I don’t want to forgive my parents, it has to be one hundred percent my decision.
“Yeah, you’re rig—”
My sentence is interrupted by a sudden knock, so I state out loud, “Come on in.”
Adam enters my room wearing his pyjamas and gives us a small smile as he greets us. “Hey.”
After greeting him back, Lexi’s expression suddenly turns into a nervous one. She eyes Adam weirdly as if contemplating whether or not to bring a certain topic up. In the end, she seems to have made up her mind when she asks casually, “So, did you tell her what we spoke about the last time I came?”
Puzzlement swirls in my eyes as I look at Lexi. “Tell me what?”
“No.” Adam’s jaw clenches tightly as if mad at Lexi for bringing up this anonymous subject before his eyes avert to the parquet of the floor as if it’s the most interesting view in the room.
“Adam.” Lexi’s anxious eyes morph into an angrily accusing one as she states for a fact, “We’ve spoken about this ever since she learnt about her memory loss. You’ve constantly asked me to wait a little bit more before you tell her, claiming that we should give her more time to learn everything first. Well, here she is. She knows everything now; when are you going to tell her? This is the only secret she’ll never know unless you tell her, and if you won’t do it, I will.”
“Lexi, what the hell are you talking about?” I ask.
“Fine, I’ll tell her.” She snaps her fingers angrily at him.
Once Lexi looks anxiously at me, once she slowly forms the words, once the words get out and once they vibrate in my eardrums, my eyes widen in horror at what she said and angry tears, that were full of hurt, stream down my cheeks while my hands cover my mouth in disbelief because even though I’ve learned some horrible twisted actions people are capable of, this has to be the worst I’ve heard of so far.
I have to say that this one hit the hardest.
Chapter 20
Friday morning came by real quick. It’s been two days since Lexi came over, meaning two complete days full of disturbing thoughts. Ever since Lexi announced the- hopefully- final and last secret, which only Adam and her knew about, let’s just say my thoughts started turning a little bit violent, and I’m not usually a violent person. If anything at all, I hate it, but I couldn’t stop them.
I couldn’t stop these bloody murderous images from sliding into my mind.
Starting from the moment she blurted out this horrid truth up till this exact minute, I’ve done something I never thought I would actually do: I’ve been avoiding Adam. It’s not like he actually did something to hurt me nor did he turn his back on me like how my parents so easily did, but he did something that caused me to be not quite sure about how I feel about it. Knowing that he knew this from the very start, knowing that he knew this since the day of our accident, knowing that he made this decision, knowing that he decided to keep it his little secret and knowing that he had a chance to retrieve us some justice, yet he didn’t, I can’t help but hold a small grudge against him because if he didn’t choose to ignore this fact, all of our problems could’ve been non-existent.
Our lives could’ve been normal.
If Adam hadn’t chosen to seal his lips and if he hadn’t decided to cage this dark truth, the darkest one of all, there might’ve been a great chance for me to never cross path with Adrien. There might’ve been a very high chance that Adrien wouldn’t have been able to step foot in my college just to make me fall right into his trap. There might’ve been an extremely grand chance that my parents would’ve been forced to come clean to me about my memory loss and their shameful abuse of my
