41. Kennedy
Kennedy
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
"I don't need you to tiptoe around me," I tell Amber, Hades' friend's wife and also the owner of the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen. She's the first person I've met with yellow eyes, and when I mentioned it to her, she explained that she inherited them from her mother, as did her siblings.
I've never been one for instant infatuations. On the contrary, Pam's almost forced friendship towards me, to be honest, bothered me. However, it’s only taken a little chat with Amber for me to feel like we've known each other for years.
Maybe it's because she’s done everything she can to make me comfortable and has treated Ernest and King so well. Maybe it's because she doesn't ask questions. She's the kind of person you naturally like without needing to make an effort.
Now, Hades has locked himself in the office with Beau, and Ernest is watching King, who hasn't stopped for a minute, excited to be in a different place. At the same time, my friend is talking to one of Amber's daughters, Lilac, a beautiful girl.
"I don't know how to say what I'm thinking without sounding nosy," says Amber.
"You haven't so far."
"Because I'm holding back."
I laugh, and to my own ears, the sound is strange. How long has it been since I laughed? I smile all the time at my son, but I only laugh when King does something funny.
"What's wrong?" Amber asks.
"I was thinking that I must have forgotten how to laugh, but then I quickly came to the conclusion that I never knew how," I say.
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't have any reason to laugh while growing up."
"Me neither, but my sister, Elodie, is very temperamental, so I ended up laughing at her nonsense."
"Does she live here too?"
"No, I wish. She's married to an Italian and lives in Florence."
"What's it like growing up with siblings?"
She looks at me with a serious expression. "I think I gave you the wrong impression, Kennedy. I didn't have a regular childhood. We were raised in a religious sect, ran away in our teens, and only met our brother, Amos, as adults."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring back sad memories."
"It's okay. It doesn't hurt me. I accepted a long time ago that I can't change the past and that I have to focus on how blessed I am today."
"You sure are. You have beautiful children and a loving husband."
She holds my hand. "I won't pretend I don't know your story, Kennedy, and I'm sorry for everything you've been through."
"How do you know I'm not guilty? In my heart, I think I'd never hurt anyone, you know? But I'll never be sure because of my fingerprints on that statue that injured Pam, according to the evidence."
"You know what I've learned over the years? It may sound like a silly statement, a cliché, but no saying is truer than 'looks can be deceiving.' I've lived with monsters disguised as angels, and every night, I have in my bed a man society would label a psychopath, yet I've never met anyone more honorable than him. You'll only be able to understand the context of your story when the memory returns, no matter what they say you did."
I look at my hands. "You know what I'm most afraid of? To find out that I'm as much of a monster as Pam."
"Pam is the dead girl, right?"
"Yes. Sometimes I lie awake at night, thinking, 'what if?' Ernest believes the best of me, and I cling to the idea that I did nothing wrong and that if I hurt her, it was in self-defense, but there's always a possibility." I pause and run my finger between my eyebrows, massaging where my head hurts a little, I think due to the tension of the day.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, just a bit of a headache, probably due to anxiety about what happened." I notice she hasn't asked me about the incident, and something tells me it's because events like that are not uncommon in her life.
"Do you need a headache pill?"
"No, it's okay."
"Do you want to talk about you and Hades?"
I shrug as if it's no big deal, as if I didn’t commit, about an hour ago, to marry the man who hated me for years. "We have a son together."
She laughs. "And plenty of passion, too."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Well, I won't meddle, but I kind of know your story, and if it helps, my relationship with Beau didn't start out as a fairytale either. I was tasked with seducing him because someone told me to."
I stare at her in amazement, and I understand what Amber meant when she said looks can be deceiving. Looking at the two of them, so in love, I would have sworn their story had been the typical 'boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after.'
"And when he found out?"
"He hated me, but he loved me more than he was capable of hating because we were destined to be together."
"In my case with Hades, I don't think there was time for him to love me. Maybe he had a crush, as I did too, but love takes time, and we didn't have that."
"I think all love starts with passion, physical attraction, but for men like ours, mere physical attraction doesn't last. You know why?"
I shake my head.
"Because they've always had it with a snap of their fingers. Too easy. And I think over time, it kind of loses its appeal. Men, Kennedy, are essentially hunters. They like the taste of excitement. The woman doesn't have to be stunning or have a perfect body to trap them, but she has to be 'the one' that will make them desire more than they've ever had until they find her."
"Hades is still attracted to me, but that's not love. Until recently, he hated me."
"Forgive me for interfering, but I saw this man come to New Orleans for three years."
"What?"
"In the beginning, Beau told me you were missing."
"Yes, Ernest helped me hide. We stayed out in the middle of nowhere, in a cabin in Missouri."
"Hades didn't know that, I'm sure, because he kept coming to New Orleans. He did it even after you went into a coma."
"That doesn't make sense. I was in a hospital-prison in Massachusetts."
"I don't have all the answers. Maybe it was because he wanted to find out about your past; maybe he thought he'd find answers here. The fact is, he kept coming, and he even dined with us a few times. Let me tell you something, dear: I've seen many tormented men, but I've never seen someone dying inside, and that's how he looked."
"Have you ever loved and hated someone at the same time?"
"No. I fell in love with Beau at first sight, and in our situation, I was the one in the wrong. I was the one who approached him with ulterior motives. My love for Beau has always been absolute. I'm not good at trusting, and neither is he, so we butted heads a lot before we understood that we couldn't be happy apart from each other."
"I'm afraid to love Hades. I'm not a liar; I know that the passion is still there, no matter how much I deny it. Just a touch from him and my body ignites. But is that love?"
"You'll never know unless you give it a second chance."
"I’ve agreed to marry him. When we arrived, Hades proposed for the second time, and I said I would accept for King's sake."
"And is it just for your son?"
"I don't know, just as I don't know if I'm capable of forgiving him."
"For doubting you?"
"For not choosing me."
"I don't know where you were hiding, Kennedy, but did you have access to the news?"
I shake my head. "Ernest protected me and didn't let me watch it. Mostly because I soon found out I was pregnant. Only after King was born did he tell me what was happening in the outside world, the repercussions of Pam's death. That's when I decided to turn myself in, even though it was against his wishes. I didn't want my son to grow up thinking his mother was a coward who ran away from her responsibilities. Anyway, Ernest gave me a summary of what had happened. I read some headlines and the name Kostanidis being mentioned, saw Hades' photograph and what they said about him being a sort of protector, an older brother to Pam."
"I followed the story. I usually don't watch the news because I've had my fair share of violence, pain, and wickedness, so I choose to stay in my little bubble with my children and husband, pretending not to know that there are monsters on the loose. However, since the issue involved a well-known family, the Kostanidou, I looked at everything that came out. It was very bad."
I feel my heart contract with fear and curiosity at the same time. "Really?"
She nods. "The Kostanidou are very well-known and respected worldwide. Their connection to the dead girl wasn't given much importance. Perhaps out of fear of Greek retaliation, the newspapers chose to focus on you. They kept mentioning how Pam's death had been a bloodbath, a drug-induced frenzy. It seems that one of the investigators leaked images of the body. The whole country wanted the culprits punished, but as they say, the rope always breaks on the weaker side. The family of that man accusing you of being an accomplice tried everything to prove that you were the murderer, but just as with the images, someone leaked to the press that your fingerprints weren't on the knife. The problem is that his weren't either."
"What?"
"You didn't know that?"
"No. I always assumed that since mine weren't there, only his could be."
"No. In fact, there were no fingerprints on the knife, and Beau thinks someone wiped them off."
"My God! If that’s true and Ryan had time to think about it, to erase evidence, it means he was sober and that the theory of the drug-induced frenzy the prosecution has put forward is nothing but a lie!"
"Yes, or maybe he was drugged but still lucid enough to know what he was doing, which is what I think is more likely to have happened. I'm sure Hades is already checking into that, but I brought up this topic so that you could understand the extent of the scandal that the press created around his ward's death. The grandmother, from what I heard, had a stroke the day the photos of the girl's body leaked to the press."
"I knew Mrs. Vina had had a stroke, and I assumed it was because of Pam's death. I wasn't aware of the photos."
"I think the Kostanidou suppressed the images. If they still exist on the internet, they're probably on secret sites, since the investigator who distributed them was punished, and shortly after, it was announced in the press that anyone who had the images stored or distributed them would also be punished. But my point is that things got out of control. Your fingerprints were on the statue. You were on the run, just like that wretch. Everyone drew the same conclusion."
Of course, I had already guessed some of what she's said, but Amber has given me information that I didn't have before, and looking at it from her side brings a different perspective.
I try to put myself in Hades' shoes. What would I do if someone I loved like a brother was killed in such a sinister way and the two people accused of the crime were fugitives? For the first time, I consider that, despite Ernest's desire to protect me, it wasn't a good idea to remain on the run. It only made everyone think the worst of me. At the same time, I know there was a chance that I could have spent King's entire pregnancy in prison. At least I had a peaceful one.
"Thank you for talking to me, Amber."
"I'm not trying to influence your decision, only saying that we always have a choice, Kennedy: to live our whole lives clinging to pain and resentment or to give ourselves a second chance. I hated my father for many years and also the people I grew up with. I hated that a part of my genetic burden came from such a horrible man," she says, without detailing what she's referring to, and I don't insist. "I dreamed of happiness, but I was afraid of being happy, you know? But there comes a time when we have to decide between the past or the present, resentment or forgiveness, pain or love."