MERRY 43

“I’ll accept it if you also became sexually crippled and haven’t had sex. If not, your attitude right now is all wrong. You’re racking up sins in real-time…”

“Somerset, stop.”

“Stop? Stop what?”

Since I’d strayed from my intention of cornering Ethan, stopping was technically the right move. But my defiance got the better of me. A feeling of I’d rather listen to a dog bark than take your advice.

“I’ll explain it again for you since you’re slow on the uptake. Listen well. I was in a bind because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. My head was so full of you that I couldn’t get it up. It’s a miracle I regained functionality; I almost went my whole life without being able to have sex.”

Following that tragic backstory meant to be heard with tissues in hand, it was time to detail my struggle against adversity. Ethan met my eyes and cut me off.

“The things you’re saying right now aren’t helping. Telling me stuff like that is no different from stripping naked in front of me.”

I knew the “stripping” part was a metaphor, but I reflexively looked down to check myself. I’d undone two buttons on my shirt, but you couldn’t really see my chest. I pulled at my collar to hide the curves of my pectoral muscles and shrugged.

“I haven’t stripped.”

“You did. You’re doing it right now. What you’re saying is that you were impotent for about six months because you couldn’t forget me, and you only recovered once you finally managed to push me away.”

Reinterpreting my words, Ethan pushed up his glasses with a cold expression. He really was a brilliant idiot.

“What kind of bullshit is that? My dick not listening to me had nothing to do with you. That was just… because of stress…”

“Because I’m the one who gave you that stress. You said it yourself. You couldn’t do anything because you could only think of me. Thoughts of me affected your body.”

It’s not like that. My body just, simply, how should I put it—it just ended up in that state. I shook my head side to side. Pfft, a hollow laugh escaped me. Absurdity filled me, and I barely managed to keep myself from storming out of the car, sitting still as Ethan locked eyes with me. Behind his lenses, that emerald light wavered. Terribly beautiful.

He spoke, looking troubled.

“Somerset Quinn. Don’t tell me the fact that you loved me.”

Love. That word coming from Ethan’s mouth felt incredibly foreign. As if it were the first time in my life I’d ever heard it. Is half of that true? I’d certainly never heard it from him. Not when he gave me those tender looks, not when he held me in his arms or leaned against my chest, and not even when he smiled as if he only did so for me—he never spoke of love.

Of course, I never spoke of love either. Because I don’t know what it is. If I had loved you, I would have known. Seeing as I still don’t know, there’s only one answer. I didn’t love you either.

“This is so ridiculous that… ha, damn it.”

I slammed my fist onto the dashboard. Bang! I expressed my anger in a much more violent way than just flipping him off. Seeing this, Ethan raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“I misspoke. Let’s go with that, so just calm down.”

He also made a gesture like he was soothing a wild beast. His acting like a seasoned trainer only fueled my rage.

“I decide my own feelings! I don’t need your interpretation. Don’t flatter yourself by thinking you know everything about me. That’s really… overstepping.”

I flexed my stinging hand and glared at Ethan once more. Let’s stop with the long-winded talk here. Best to cut to the chase and get to the main point. And then get the hell out of this space. That’s the only way I’ll be able to stay sane.

‘Don’t tell me the fact that you loved me.’

Ethan’s voice became an auditory hallucination that wouldn’t leave me.

‘The fact that you loved…’

My head is starting to throb.

‘That you loved…’

I’m getting exhausted.

‘Love.’

‘Love.’

‘Love.’

Since when did my ears have a rewind function? Dammit.

I took my frustration out by messily tousling my hair and then opened my mouth calmly. Though the moment the words left my lips, I lost my composure.

“Stop talking about me. It’s time to dig into you, not me. And don’t you dare just stay silent again. Go ahead, try running away. If you do, I will absolutely never see you again. Even if you follow me around, bug my place, and harass me, I won’t give you the time of day. You think I can’t do it? Don’t make me laugh! How long do I have to stay the idiot who knows nothing!”

It looked like I was the only one getting worked up and shouting, but even though he didn’t show it, Ethan seemed to be getting heated too. He slid a finger under the frame of his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. He must have been organizing his thoughts. And failed, serves him right. Ethan muttered in a tone close to resignation.

“It’s better not to know.”

“I’ll decide what’s better. If I know and then regret it, that’s on me.”

I didn’t flinch, even with his warning. Clearing the helplessness of being trapped in an unsolvable maze was my top priority. I might really end up regretting it, but I’ll leave that to the future me.

“Would you be satisfied if I told you why I left you?”

Ethan asked, as if giving me one last chance. My mind hadn’t changed.

“Don’t make anything up, tell me the truth. No half-assed excuses.”

The question mark that had been engraved into a corner of my brain during that summer of loss—the one that had damaged my mind—started to squirm. I sensed that the time had finally come for it to turn into a period or an exclamation point.

Before speaking, Ethan avoided my gaze. When I leaned forward to chase him, he reluctantly met my eyes and signaled for me to move back. It wasn’t like we were close enough to touch. I held my ground for a second before backing off.

I couldn’t deny the fact that I looked like a trained animal. Let’s face it. Ethan really is a seasoned trainer. He made me behave without even picking up a whip.

“You don’t have to understand me. I’m just… telling you.”

“I never said I would understand.”

Even my petty defiance was quickly crushed.

“Stop stalling and just tell me. My nerves are shot.”

I put my hatred and irritation aside for a moment and listened intently.

“Have you ever heard of ‘WITSEC’?”

“WITSEC?”

“The Witness Security Program.”

“Oh, that. It’s in dramas all the time. The system where the police protect a witness who plays a crucial role in a trial when they’re threatened by bad guys.”

I have that much basic common sense. After boasting like a kid who finally got a chance to show off his knowledge, I paused.

“Don’t tell me you…”

“I got caught up in a certain incident.”

Ethan said that because he was involved in some case, he and his family were under the management of the witness protection program. Apparently, they were protected by both the FBI and the CIA. It was a story more dramatic than any drama.

What kind of out-of-the-blue nonsense was this? The odds of an ordinary family living in a wealthy New York neighborhood experiencing such a situation were slim.

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Just because you don’t believe it doesn’t make it a lie.”

“Hey, at least make an effort to be persuasive. You think you can just insist on it and that’s it?”

Ethan just stared at me. As always, a blank expression sat on his face, and I couldn’t sense any particular emotion in his eyes, but he made the heart of the person looking at him ache. I lightly rubbed my chest and aimed an arrow of suspicion at him.

“In dramas, they usually fake their deaths.”

“I did.”

“Liar. I didn’t know. I never heard a single thing about you being dead.”

“That’s because I didn’t let you know.”

Thud. This isn’t the sound of an arrow piercing Ethan. It’s the sound of it coming back and piercing me. Enduring the throbbing pain, I listened to the rest of Ethan’s explanation. If I organize what he revealed and add my own personal observations, it goes as follows:

His family, who hadn’t been settled in New York for long, were so introverted and didn’t mingle with the neighbors that they were able to vanish like a mirage. While a few people remembered Ethan because his beautiful appearance was so striking, no one was curious about the family’s whereabouts.

The economy wasn’t great around then, so businesses were failing or people were moving often for personal reasons; thus, the Reed family’s disappearance like a mirage was naturally considered to be of that sort. Since the timing worked out perfectly, they were able to vanish easily without a word or rumor.