Alex's Atonement by Carmen DeSousa

Author:Carmen DeSousa [DeSousa, Carmen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781945143564
Publisher: Written Musings

Chapter 13

~ Irene ~

Irene stared up at Alex. “You said that you’re not suicidal, and yet you set it all up, so what am I supposed to think?”

Alex blew out a breath and headed back to the beach towel. “I don’t know. The same thing everyone thinks about me, I suppose. That I’m a screw up. My own brother doesn’t even trust me to run the business. When he leaves, he puts Vince in charge.” He looked back at her, then plopped down on the ground. “I told you I get everything I deserve. I make my own bed, so I have to sleep in it.”

Irene crossed her arms and stared at him. “I don’t understand. Sam doesn’t know, right?”

Alex shrugged. “He suspects. But mostly, he just holds it over my head that I ran off after my father’s accident. I couldn’t deal with it, so I just left for the coast, stayed out of sight for a few months. I bartended at night, slept and drank all day.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “And yesterday, you were going to run away for real … forever, because you’re upset that Sam holds your running away over your head?”

“That’s about right.” He patted the towel beside him. “Would you sit down, please? Your beautiful bronze hair is like a beacon in the wind. No way would those men miss it if they come back now.”

She lowered herself next to him, pulling the shawl she’d found in the cabin tighter around her shoulders. “If you suspect he knows anyway, why don’t you sit down and talk to him?”

Alex tilted his head and peeked up at her. “This coming from the woman who hasn’t been home in seventeen years?”

“That was different, Alex. I wasn’t the one who lied. I wasn’t the one who took a non-family member’s word that I’d gotten pregnant and had an abortion. My parents didn’t even ask me if it was true; they just blasted me. So yeah, I left. I was leaving anyway. I just left sooner than I’d planned and never looked back.”

He dropped his head against his hands and rested his elbows on his knees. “Sam will never forgive me. My mother will hate me. My baby brother grew up without knowing our father because of me. He’d never look at me the same.”

Irene traced the lines of the sweater he wore. “Would you forgive Sam? Would you hate your mother? Would you look at your brother differently?”

“I don’t know.”

“Alex …” She grazed the new stubble on his face. “You said yesterday that my sister would appreciate my forgiveness. I think that’s because you know it’s what you want … what you need. You can never be forgiven if you don’t tell them the truth. I know you blame yourself, but … couldn’t the accident have happened even if he’d had an ax? Didn’t you try to save him?”

He nodded slightly. “Yes, but I’ll never know the truth.”

“We never know the truth … Not really.

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