"We...we should date." Summer said, taking a deep breath and looking up at Lexis.

Lexis only stared at her, his expression unchanged.

"I've never said this before, you guessed it but I never said it out loud. I'm in love with you. I love my boyfriend, but I love you more."

"I thought I told you before that I'm not good for you."

"And I told you that you're not good for anyone. So if its going to be someone, then it should at least be me. I know you Lexis, I know about your past. I know what happened three years ago–"

"I told you to never bring this up again." Lexis quickly cut her off, glaring and clenching his teeth.

"Just give us a chance!" Summer unintentionally begged, feeling desperate. "Once! Just once..."

Lexis kept quiet.

"You need to start feeling again. You have to remember that day. You have to get over it. You'll only really feel for people when you do that."

Lexis' eyes became darker. His expression was as hard as a rock. 

Summer pushed. If she was lucky, she'd get to say it all before he killed her. "That night... Do you remember it?" She tried to make her voice as gentle as possible, hoping it would buy her time. "I came over to your house after school. My mom couldn't pick me up and requested that I sleep over. You thought I fell asleep in the guest suite but—but I followed you. That night. I followed you. It was about eleven o'clock at night. Your sister was at the hospital, and your father was going to go to check on her." 

He was a great man. The best man to ever walk this earth. Many kids think their father's are their superheroes. To Lexis...it was his grandfather. There was no man to ever be equal in stature, leadership or wisdom like William Ellis. He was Lexis' true father figure. He was Lexis' superhero.

"You were walking down the long hall because you heard something downstairs. I did too. I left the guest suite and followed you. You weren't aware that I was following you at that time. Then when you reached the fenced hallway, you looked through the posts down to the salon and..."

When Lexis was five, William Ellis would give him piggy back rides. When he was six, William Ellis would get him what he really wanted. When he was seven, William Ellis taught him how to fish. When he was eight, William Ellis taught him how to flirt with girls. When he was nine, William Ellis taught him how to lead. When he was ten, William Ellis taught him how to use his head before his feelings. When he was eleven, William Ellis taught him how to hunt like a real man and how to get the target from the first bullet. When he was twelve, William Ellis taught him that family is true love, and love is an explosion you can't control.

When Lexis was thirteen, William Ellis taught him to never trust anyone ever again.

"I watched too. There was struggle at first. Things pounding. Things being thrown around. At first, we couldn't see anything. Then your mother appeared, and your grandfather was stumbling behind her. His belt buckle was loose. His pants button was off. He was Grabbing your mother. Her makeup was all over her face as she cried silently and tried to push him away from her. She had bruises everywhere. On her legs, chest. Marks all over her neck."

It was that moment that William's image in Lexis' eyes became muddled with blood. It was then that he saw his grandfather as a completely different person.

Lexis stared at him that night, his eyes wide open, his mouth ajar wondering what was happening, where things went wrong. For a moment he wanted to believe the people in front of him weren't who they actually are. His heart pounded, fear and disgust, disbelief and shock swallowing him whole.

"He was persistent. Before long her white blouse was down and completely off, the buttons ripping and dropping to the ground one after the other. I remember the sound of them. They made me sick. Your grandfather was molesting her with his lips. I still remember your face. It was white as chalk. The color of it draining by the second. Your whole world crashed down before your eyes. I remember it till this day. I have nightmares about it."

Lexis suddenly remembered as he stared at his mother's bruises it wasn't the first time she had them. He had seen her bruised up for the past four years. And he never knew why. When he asked, she would tell him that it was from a gym she joined, or a horse she fell off of. And he believed her. 

Until that night happened. He saw... It's been happening for this long...?

Don't touch her! Get your hands off of my mother! You dirty bastard! DON'T TOUCH HER!

To him, in that single moment, William Ellis was suddenly a stranger. No longer someone Lexis saw as a role model. No longer someone he knew at all.

No longer a person he wanted to believe existed.

"And then there was your father, standing in the other room. Watching, but not moving. Knowing, but pressing his mouth shut with his hand as tears came down his face. He didn't do a single thing. He cared too much about his father's inheritance to care about your mother. Your grandfather's own daughter in law. I had nightmares about that too. That one day, I'll have a father in law like that. Someone who'll treat me the way he treated your mother."

And when Lexis saw his father standing there, not angry, not taking action, that's when anger shot through him. He never looked at his father the same again. He became a stranger too. 

"I remember when it got too far. When your grandfather crossed the line. Your mother was now screaming. Being shoved against tables, chairs, bawling her eyes out with pain as your grandfather began to beat her. In hopes that it will scare her enough to shut her mouth. It was getting too loud and 'there are kids upstairs' he said."

Lexis was nauseous at that. As he watched William treat his mother the way he did, he became no less than a criminal. He became a person that deserved to be sentenced to death.

"He held a glass vase and threatened her with it. She could only coward back in fear at this point. Her eyes were begging for help. Her body was shaking so bad that I began to cry. It was the most terrifying thing anyone could witness. And she was your mother. The only woman you loved more than your sister. And you were watching her getting assaulted, beaten by the man you saw as a role model for the entire human race. On the verge of death with your grandfather holding the glass above her, ready to blow her head with it.

"I remember your eyes. I can never forget them. They changed. And they never changed back since. You stood up. Walked backwards. Got something from the hall cabinet behind us and came back."

Summer was now crying. Crying and gasping so hard that she was barely able to speak. Speaking of this out loud for the first time shook her more than she thought it would. "You shot him." She gasped. "A bullet right through his skull. Killing him with a skill he taught you in that second. I was thirteen. You made me watch something so horrid Lexis. Something I shouldn't have seen. You shot someone, who, from my point of view, meant the world to you.

"And to finish off that night, hours later, after the police left your house, and your mom took blame and said that she had done it out of self defense, your household received a call from the hospital saying your sister had passed away giving birth to Dawn.

"I could never look at you without feeling fear since that day. I couldn't get near you. I had nightmares about the best friend that I thought I knew. You terrified me. I couldn't go to school. My grades dropped. I remember. I hurl. I have nightmares. I wake up. I remember again. I hurl again. I slept with the lights on. That was my life back then. And now I love you. I love you more than anything I've ever loved before. With all those flaws about you that I know, I love you. And I'll love you again and again. Just give us a chance."

The Lexis now had a torn face, barely able to keep it composed as his breath suffocated in his lungs. Finally, he put on an impassive cold expression. His face was sullen again. Hard as a rock. His eyes empty. He was numb. Nothing about him moved.

A part of him felt sorry for her. She was right, he was responsible for her misfortunate year. And he felt sorry for making her go through all of it.

He walked over to her and pulled her into his arms. Comforting her as she sobbed. "Can you really sleep next to the man that gave you these nightmares? That still puts fear in you every time you look at him?"

She kept quiet.

"I would say yes. To the best friend that stuck next to me all these years, I would say yes, but that yes is harder to say when you know you're not right for that person. You're perfect. You have no flaws. No memories to make me relieve my own on. You need someone like that. Not someone who'll hide half of his life, feelings, away from you."

He undid his arms and stepped back. "I'm not good for you. And I'll never be. I'm not good for anyone. I can't love right Summer. I'm not that man that you want to share a whole good life with. That man is out there, but its not me. You'll only regret any decision that is within a hundred mile radius of me, and that's something I'm sure of."

After Summer left, Lexis walked to the window and lost all composure. He held onto the window sill, as his breathing began to stagger. As if someone was shredding him to pieces.

Fayth was frozen, her heart beating furiously in her chest. She stared at the floor in front of her, her eyes opened wide with shock. She can feel her pulse ringing in her ears. She can hear the rush of blood through her veins. Her color drained as she gathered what had been said. Her body weight was airless as she delivered the imagery of what Summer had spoke of into her mind, and the numb feelings inside her chest only grew, making her weary with disbelief.

Lexis Ellis...what an enigmatic man you are.

And suddenly she was standing behind him. She didn't know when she had climbed from under the table. She can't remember when she had walked and stood there behind him, but it had happened often and she wasn't really surprised by it.

It was her candy just trying to be funny. 

"I heard." It came out as a whisper.

Shocked, Lexis froze. What...?

When did she come in?

Slowly, he straightened up.

"And?"

He didn't turn around. With struggle, he tried to mask his feelings again.

"It might not matter much to you, and these words may not be what you want to hear from someone like me, but if it makes the least bit of difference..." Fayth took in a deep breath. "I forgive you. What you had to do wasn't your fault." She felt like a zombie for a moment. Stuck in a feeling she couldn't shake off. A feeling that made her body alive and her feelings dead. "It was that moment's fault. I just–I just forgive you."