An image of Lara and her parents in front of that candle-lit cake flashes in my mind. I want to push him. I need to push him. But I’ve known Kurt most of my life. I know when he will bend. I know when he will not. And so, I say, “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he replies, and I stand up, grab my protein drink, and walk toward the stairwell that leads downstairs where my bedroom is at.
Once I’m in my room, I shut the door, walk to the bed, drop to my knees and pull out my memory box. I lift the lid and pick up the photo of me and my mother when I was only a wee child. She was beautiful—blonde with striking eyes, and a smile that lit up the world. And in this photo, she was smiling at me. She loved me. And I loved her. But there is also another photo of her with Kurt, and she is smiling just as broadly at him as she had me, while he’d looked down at her with doe-eyed submission. Yes, submission. He would have done anything for her, even raised me and Kasey.
I try not to think about the obligation that might make me to Kurt.
Instead, I remind myself that he loved her to the moon.
He would never have intentionally put her in danger.
And yet, he did, more than put her in danger.
He got her killed.