Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN | COLTEN
Whatever oxygen is filling the rooms on both sides of the glass seems to be sucked out rapidly. Taryn stills beside me, her eyes wide. The air in my lungs dispels, my eyes shifting into slits to glare at my father, who doesn’t appear to be breathing.
“What do you mean you never found her?” I question the man who I look like in more ways than I care to admit.
My jawline and dark hair are identical to his. Before he was arrested, his muscular frame rivaled what mine is now. Working out was as effective as alcohol when it came to stress.
It’s the eyes, though. That’s the major transformation. They’re haunting. Buzzing with lies behind the layer of confusion, attempting to muddle my focus and distract me.
He’s playing me.
“Do you remember that morning? The morning I came back to the house. You never left the porch—”
“Yes, I remember it quite well.” The memory is branded into my brain permanently, seared into the bone of my skull, where even my corpse someday will never be rid of the horrific recollections.
Taryn’s thumb rubs in circular, rotating motions on my leg. Her attempt to soothe me tenses my muscles, but the reminder that she is here is all I need.
Christian’s fingers adjust their grip on the phone, and he sighs, closing his eyes.
When they open, they hold Taryn and me in place.
“After she ran out, I chased after her. I thought she was headed to her parents’, but when I pulled in front of their house, her car wasn’t there, and they said they hadn’t seen her.
When I returned that next morning, it was because I searched for Jane all night, but I never found her. ”
“I don’t believe you,” I mutter through gritted teeth.
Lies. Lies piled on top of fucking lies.
“What do you remember?” he asks, my heart plummeting into my stomach, creating a commotion that leaves me struggling to breathe. “When you first walked into our room… What do you remember?”
My jaw pops. The wrath circulates through my veins. I don’t want to do this. But it’s why I’m here, isn’t it? To get answers. To relive the past because it has already haunted me every single fucking day since it happened.
“It’s okay,” Taryn croons from beside me. “I’m here.”
The warmth of her fingertips caressing my thigh works to dissolve some of the boiling rage. If I erupt in this visitor’s room, they’ll toss me out and leave me feeling as empty as when I came in. I want to move on. I owe it to her to try to settle the past.
The images flash behind my eyes.
The bloody glass in one of my father’s hands.
The bottle of liquor in the other.
The broken shards of mirror scattered on the floor.
The blood soaked into the carpet.
My mother clenching her hands to her bloody stomach.
“When I walked in, I saw—she was holding her stomach where you stabbed her. I saw you try to murder her!”
Another tear falls from his dead eyes, and it makes me want to send my fist flying through this glass partition to smack it off his face. He doesn’t deserve to cry for her.
“It was her wrists…”
My heart just fucking stopped beating. Taryn holds her other hand up to cover her mouth, inhaling an audible breath beside me.
I stare at him expectantly. “What do you mean by ‘her wrists’?”
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t her stomach, Colten. It was her wrists.”
Sweat seeps through my pores, chilling instantly. “So you slit her—” His head moves from side to side again, and my mouth falls shut.
No. No. No. She wouldn’t willingly leave us that way. She wouldn’t.
He clears his throat, his eyes holding mine. “After Tristan was born, something changed. It was gradual, something festering day by day. It also started happening around the same time the company picked up, increasing my hours away from home…away from her.”
I listen intently, the room blurring around me as his story becomes my focus.
“God, I used to love touching her,” he whispers, closing his eyes.
“The way she would melt into me. She was the love of my life, and back then, when I met her, I knew it instantly.” Taryn stirs beside me, leaning closer to the phone gripped in my hand.
“She started looking more exhausted than usual. There was this physical distance that started growing, and whenever I would touch her—hug her—she would push me away.” He shakes his head.
“I didn’t understand it, but I never bothered to ask her what was wrong.
I ignored it… Ignored her. Life was so good until it suddenly wasn’t. ”
My heart thumps aggressively in my chest.
I remember it—the beautiful days when Mom and Dad would take Cam, Bren, Jess, baby Tristan, and me to our grandparents or on the boat. The family dinners at the table were full of laughter and vibrancy. Those days, I always felt warm, thinking nothing would ever change. But I was naive then.
“When Tristan was around one,” he continues, “your mother would disappear randomly for hours at a time. Some nights, she wouldn’t even come home.” That timeline slides through my mind. Around that time, Dad started to find refuge at the bottom of a bottle. That’s when his addiction began.
“I thought she was having an affair,” he mutters.
He rubs a palm over his cropped hair. “After a few months, I confronted her about it. She screamed at me—she was defensive. Jane turned the blame on me, claiming she would leave for hours because she was burnt out from caring for our five children alone and needed time to herself. I didn’t understand it at the time.
For years, there were good days and really low days.
She would be fine one moment and breaking down the next.
But when she got pregnant with Elena, things got worse.
She started disappearing again. Around you kids, her mask was flawless, but alone…
her and I.” Another tear cascades down his cheek.
“She was withdrawn and resented me for focusing more on the company than our family.”
The correctional officer steps behind him. “You have ten more minutes.” Their voice trickles through the phone enough for me to hear.
My dad nods, glancing back at me.
I tilt my head, acid rolling in my stomach. “Was she having an affair?”
He inhales, his chest rising heavily before dropping.
“No.” Chills run up my arms, my hair standing on end.
“One night, when you boys were alone with the kids, and Elena was a newborn, I followed her. She pulled into a parking lot—” His voice catches in his throat.
“All those years, she was seeing a therapist, and I didn’t even know. ”
A lump lodges in my throat. “Did she ever find out you followed her?”
He nods. “I was drunk when I drove there. She saw my truck out the window and confronted me about it later that night. I begged to do counseling with her. We were so off the rails, Colten. If she was trying to better herself, I wanted to do it alongside her. I wanted our old selves back…I wanted the woman I fell in love with, and I wanted to be the man she married again.”
Taryn’s hand vanishes from my lap. “What did she do when she found out you followed her?” she stutters from nerves.
His tired and red eyes flit to hers. “She said I didn’t trust her.
That week, I tried harder. I would get home early and make dinner; I would take you, boys, out with the bow.
I would clean and do little things around the house that I thought she would appreciate.
She told me she would be home late one night, so when she came home and saw we were eating dinner together without her, something inside her broke. ”
Another memory resurfaces from earlier that evening, seizing my body until it’s all I can fixate on.
Reaching for my beer, I take a sip, scanning everyone at the table as we all lounge around with full stomachs from the steaks Dad made.
I smile at Jess, holding my new sister, Elena, across from me with my dad.
Cameron sits on one end of the table while Tristan sits beside me in his high chair, and Brennan sits on my other side.
It’s the first time in months we’ve had Cameron here since he’s visiting from school.
Mom walks through the front door, her sad eyes settling on us as my dad sips his scotch.
“Honey, you’re back.” Dad smiles at her, but she stares at him blankly.
“Mom, I got an A on my math test today!” Jessica beams, rocking Elena in her arms.
“That’s awesome,” she tells her, but her tone is void of emotion.
Why is she so sad? Shouldn’t she be happy to see us? She’s been gone all afternoon.
“I left you some dinner in the fridge,” Dad says. “And I got most of the chores done on your list in the kitchen.”
She raises a brow, pushing a section of hair behind her shoulder. “You touched my list?”
My dad stills in the chair beside me. “Yeah, I came home early and wanted to—”
A fake smile barely touches her lips. “Well, it looks like you all are doing just fine without me.”
“Jane,” Dad exhales, pushing his chair away from the table.
She raises a hand, stopping him, disappearing out of the room without another word.
When she left the room while we were all sitting there, my dad didn’t run after her. He just snatched his glass off the dining table, draining all his scotch. He walked into the kitchen, returned with the bottle, and poured himself more.
I can still feel the uncomfortable silence clinging to my skin and the bitter taste of the beer I was drinking plastered on my tongue. I pushed the beer away, acid swirling in my gut because whenever he grabbed a bottle, chaos was sure to follow.
The air crackles with energy, electrifying my skin. It’s funny how traumatic experiences can erase everything, all the other essential details, until the only thing displayed in your vision is the horrific parts playing before your eyes.
That night shifts. My memory warps and twists until the puzzle pieces settle into place. My throat burns, and the center of my heart tears directly down the middle. Is it possible to throw up your vital organs?
My father lifts a hand to his face, his soft and broken voice drifting through the phone. “I ignored the signs…I should’ve seen the goddamn signs and gotten her help.”
Looking up from his lap, his face is red and puffy. He sniffles, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
“She wouldn’t just—” The words die on my tongue. I can’t say them. I swallow. “Why then? Why right after Elena was born?”
His eyes fall from mine. “After Tristan was born, we wanted to be done.”
“What do you mean?” I say through gritted teeth. “Your marriage?”
He shakes his head, the simple gesture confusing me more than anything he has said thus far. “Kids. We didn’t want any more kids.”
“But Elena—”
“Was an accident.”
Motherfucker. My baby sister will never fucking hear those words. I will never allow the truth to be embedded in her little brain like a parasite.
He continues. “Around the time Tristan turned one, Jane told me she didn’t feel right.
Her hormone levels were all over the place.
We were completely in love one moment, and it was as if we had completely lost everything the next.
She told me she couldn’t handle another pregnancy, but…
” His mouth shuts briefly, his chest rising and falling.
“Being pregnant again while we already had you five exhausted her. And by that time…” He swallows.
“I was already an alcoholic and was around less and less. Then Elena was born, and whatever was holding her together snapped.”
Taryn moves her hand back to my lap, her warmth battling the cold air blanketing my skin.
“When I heard glass shatter that night, I ran to her. But I was too late. There was so much blood. She…” he stutters through tears.
Inhaling a deep breath, he peers up at the ceiling.
“She had the piece of glass in her hand. I tried to stop her, but I had drunk too much, and instead, I grabbed it out of her hand out of anger. I wanted to ask her why. Why hurting herself was the only answer, but you opened the door before I could get the words out…”
My raspy voice barely emerges. “You tried to stop her.”
“After you caught us, I chased after her. She must have lost control or died before—” My dad slams his eyes shut. “I looked all night, Colten, but I never found her.”
Taryn stirs beside me, her brain probably going haywire since her truck went off that same cliff.
My blood simmers, bubbling below my skin. “Why didn’t you defend yourself in court? You both left us completely, and I had to pick up all the fucking pieces and keep this family—my family—together!”
I thought he killed her. But she did it to herself because we were all too negligent to see the signs.
And I can’t help but feel like part of her death was my fault, too.
I was old enough to know that something was wrong.
But I thought it was their marriage. I thought it was my alcoholic father driving her away.
I thought my dad fell so far off the deep end that he wanted to dispose of her, but when she went off that cliff, he, in a way, was with her.
He flattens his lips, the movement pulling at something deep inside my chest. “I didn’t kill her, but I’m responsible for her death in every way. She may have cut her wrists, but I was the blade of the glass.”