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“Yes, he did! I read the words on her suicide note,” she screamed, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. “I know, Claire!” Strangling out a heaving breath, she sobbed, “I know what he did to her!”
“You don’t know anything!” I shouted back, losing my cool. “You don’t have a fucking clue about what actually happened, Lizzie.”
“And you do?”
“Yes,” I screamed back at her. “Your sister is not the victim in this story. She was never Mark’s victim. She was his fucking accomplice!”
You could have heard a pin drop.
Everyone’s eyes landed on me.
“What are you saying, Claire?” Hugh demanded, making a beeline for me. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It wasn’t Caoimhe, Hugh,” I cried when my brother’s hands clamped down on my shoulders. “It was Gerard.”
“What?” My brother staggered backwards, clutching his chest “What do you mean it was Gibs?”
“There’s a note from Caoimhe,” I tried to explain, feeling my entire frame rack with tremors. “Gerard kept it all along.” Shuddering, I squeezed out, “It explains everything.”
“How dare you!” Lizzie choked out, eyes full of horror and betrayal. “There’s no other letter.”
“How dare you,” I challenged right back at her. “How fucking dare you treat him like you have all these years.” I couldn’t stop my tears from falling or my voice from rising. “And yes there is another letter, the real fucking letter, and I suggest that you read it, Liz. And then, once you have, you might want to start directing your anger at the right people.” Narrowing my eyes, I spat out, “Because Gerard Gibson was never your target!”
“No, no, no, I know the truth.” She desperately refuted my claims, tears streaming down her cheeks, looking more vulnerable than I’d seen her look since her sister’s funeral.
She looked so broken, so utterly lost, that for a moment I had the strongest urge to fold her into my arms and make her feel better.
But I couldn’t do it.
Not this time.
I couldn’t bow to her anger.
Her pain belonged to her. Passing it around to the rest of us wasn’t fair.
She wasn’t the same little girl I’d grown up with, and while my heart truly broke for all the heartache she had endured, I couldn’t live my life with this level of toxicity in it.
“I know what really happened,” she continued to cry.
“You weren’t there,” I replied, striving for calmness when I felt anything but. “You don’t know the whole story. You never did. None of us knew.” Straightening my spine, I forced myself to add, “But we do now.”
“He’s trying to change the narrative.”
“Of what?”
“Of my sister’s death!”
“No, he’s not,” I shouted back. “Gerard has never done anything other than try to survive the horrendous hand of cards life dealt him.”
“I don’t believe you,” she cried, roughly pushing Patrick away when he tried to hug her. “God, I fucking hate you so much right now, Claire!”
“Fine,” I snapped back. “Don’t believe me. Label me as a liar. If hating me fills a hole in your heart, then you go right ahead and hate me, but don’t expect me to wait around and take your shit anymore. Because I’m done with it all. Including you.”
“Claire.” Shannon hurried to intervene. “You don’t mean that.”
“Oh, I’ve never meant anything more, Shannon,” I ground out. “I can’t do this with her anymore. I won’t.”
“I’m not doing this with you,” Lizzie sobbed.
