“What about Sarah? Your son must be in
elementary school by now.”
He was silent for a moment. “We’re
divorced.”
He told me everything. The financial
struggles, the mounting debt, Sarah’s
constant complaints, her eventual desertion.
broken leg, raising his son alone. He’d tried to sell his music, using his knowledge from
the future, but it had backfired, landing him in legal trouble. His parents had offered to help, but only if he left Sarah. He’d refused. He’d finally opened the café, a fresh start.
I listened, a mixture of pity and satisfaction
swirling within me.
Jason returned, and our conversation ended.
As I was leaving, Ethan stopped me. “Do you…do you still hate me?”
I turned to face him. “Hate you? For what?
For delivering me to those men? For watching
me die?”
He winced. “I was so. twisted Quinn. So
<
arrogant. I blamed you for everything, for
Sarah’s death.”
“I’m sorry.
وو
The apology, eight years too late, meant
nothing.
“I only have one question, Ethan,” I said.
“What?”
“You chose this life, the life with Sarah. Look
where it got you. Do you regret it?”
He hesitated, but I already knew the answer.
I saw Ethan again a few months later, when
my parents were moving. I’d bought them a
nice condo in the city. As the movers were
<
nice condo in the city. As the movers were
packing up, I heard shouting coming from
next door. Mr. and Mrs. Miller were fighting.
Loudly.
“What’s going on over there?” I asked my
mom.
“Oh, you haven’t heard? That girl, your
classmate, the one who ran off and left Ethan
with the baby? She came back.”
“Why?” I frowned.
“To take the kid. Turns out, the kid isn’t even
Ethan’s. She was seeing someone else the
whole time. She went back to him, he got
rich, and now they can’t have kids. So she
wanted hers back.”
<
My jaw dropped. The drama never ended.
“Ethan came home, found out the truth. Went crazy. Stabbed her. Not badly, thank God. But he’s in jail now. The Millers had to sell their house to pay her off, to keep him out of
prison. It was awful. He kept saying how he’d ruined his life for her, how he could’ve been a
famous pianist…”
Life was strange.
The movers were blocking the alleyway. I saw
Ethan standing by the curb, smoking. I tried
to avoid him, but he grabbed my arm.
“Quinn,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I regret it.
All of it. This life…it’s a disaster. I should’ve
listened to you. I was so wrong about you,
about everything.”
く
“I think about what happened, what I did to
you…I’m so sorry.” Tears welled up in his
eyes. “If I could go back, if Sarah had…if
she’d died…”
He was back. Again.
“Why didn’t you stop me this time, Quinn?”
he pleaded. “You…you always liked me, didn’t
you?”
I pulled my arm away. “Don’t flatter yourself,
Ethan. This is the life you chose. You
wouldn’t have been happy no matter what.
People like you…you don’t deserve
happiness.‘
99
“I did like you, once. The boy who played the
piano for me that night, during the power
W
<
“I did like you, once. The boy who played the
piano for me that night, during the power
outage. Not this…this broken, pathetic man.
He let go of my arm, his face crumpling. I
walked away without looking back.
Ethan killed himself that New Year’s Eve. His
parents found him the next morning. He left a note. Just one sentence: “If only I could do it
all over again.”
I don’t know if he got his wish. But I do know
this: someone as selfish as Ethan would never
find happiness, no matter how many chances
he got. Life is full of regrets. He just couldn’t
accept that his were his own fault.
