⋆17༄ His side of the story.

                                    

                                          
Welcome back! Thank you for your patience. I've tried to make this chapter, alike the other ones, as good as it can be. I really put more effort into my work now, so it takes a little bit longer, but hopefully for the best.
                          
How has everyone been? :) 
                          
Enjoy the chapter! 
                          
----------
                          
"Connor?" I venture quietly, softly, as we reach the ground floor.
                          
Having seen the truth behind his relationship with Beverly, now I feel bad for accusing him in such an impulsive manner. Nevertheless, I need answers. Actually, I think that we both need them - Mason and me. "Where is he?" I wander my sight all over the unfamiliar place.
                          
"Let's check the garden," he offers, and steers me into the mentioned area. Then he beckons at the shape standing beside a small pond.
                          
Unsure what to say, I pad towards Connor, my steps seem barely audible against the soft, dark-green grass. Even with my body right behind his own, which he can surely sense, he doesn't turn around, peering down at the pond in a stubborn manner.
                          
For some inexplicable reason, or maybe because what I saw in those videos made me pity him, I decide to wrap my arms around his frame in a tight hug. His muscles naturally stiffen in surprise as I rest my cheek against his back. "I'm really sorry," I whisper, embracing his warm body. "For everything that happened to you." My voice emerges, quiet and soothing.
                          
Connor doesn't respond but finally relaxes in my hold. His arms engulf my own that are wrapped around his waist, my fingers stay folded at the level of his firm stomach. And then I feel it. The unwitting, tried to be so badly suppressed jerking of his chest as he chokes back a sob.
                          
"It's okay. Come here." Mason emerges by our side, and even after what his brother has done to him, he decides to put it aside for at least now, and console that broken, emotionally abused for months in the past soul.
                          
~~~~~~~~~~
                          
"You okay now?" I hand Connor a glass of water along with a painkiller. He's been crying for quite a while, which in the end caused him a headache.
                          
"Yeah, better I guess." His voice resounds, hoarse and thick. I watch him pop the pill and wash it down with the water.
                          
"We still need to ask you some questions, you know that, right?" I gingerly take a seat on the sofa right beside him.
                          
"I've got nothing to hide." He shrugs in a listless manner. "Not anymore." His sight travels down to his fingers.
                          
Regardless of what Connor did to me, and what he tried to do, it breaks my heart to sit here and watch him be this woebegone. It's like a deja vu of that day when Will took me to the place where Beverly extinguished herself. She was unbelievably selfish and facile. She traumatized the both of them whilst the problem really laid in her.
                          
"Maybe let's start from the beginning?" Mason eases the weight of his body onto the sofa, taking a seat beside me. "Beverly blackmailed you to stay with her, and yet, you cheated on the same day. Why?" he asks, and I must agree that it's a great question. After all, during the party at Will's, he admitted to his infidelity.
                          
Connor takes a deep breath, his brown eyes fall upon us. "I made it clear that I didn't love her anymore. At least not as much as I used to. . . I hoped that maybe if I cheated, and she saw it, she'd break up with me rather than carry on with her threats. I didn't think, nor believe, that she'd kill herself. She always made that promise and never kept it, not that I wanted her to, but I guess, just like she once said, I shouldn't have underestimated her." He purses his lips to one side, suddenly lost in thought, as if his mind didn't want to travel back from that day just yet. "When she caught me kissing that girl-"