LOVER//Grayson Hawthorne [2]

Chapter 13 - False God (Edited)

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"And I can't talk to you when you're like this
Staring out the window like I'm not you
favourite town, I'm New York City, I still do it for you, babe, They all warned us about times like this, They say the road gets hard and you get lost when you're led by blind faith, Blind faith"
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Jess's P.O.V

It took me a week till I found the courage to return to Hawthorne House. I mainly returned because of a text I had received from Jameson.

They had found a letter addressed to Zara and Skye from Tobias Hawthorne.

Dearest Zara, Dearest Skye,

If you are reading this, then I am dead. I cannot express how sorry I am to leave you in this way—or how necessary I believe what I have done for you truly is. Yes, for you, not to you.

If you are reading this, my daughters, then you have set aside your differences long enough to follow the trail I left you. If this has happened, then everything I have done has served at least one purpose. And perhaps, my dears, you are now ready for the other.

As you might have gathered, depending on how closely you examined the charities to which I left my fortune, your brother did not perish on Hawthorne Island. Of that I am certain. He was, as far as I have been able to piece together, pulled from the ocean, severely burned, by a local fisherman. It has taken me years to piece together even this much. I have written and rewritten this letter to you countless times as my investigation into your brother's disappearance has evolved.

I have never found him. I came close once but found something else instead. I can only conclude that Toby does not want to be found. Whatever happened on the island, he has been running from it for half his life.

Or perhaps, he has been running from me.
I have made mistakes with all of you. Zara, I asked too much of you at times and gave you too little of my approval at others; Skye, of you I never asked enough. I treated both of you differently because you were female.

I hurt Toby worst of all.

I won't make the same mistakes with the next generation. I will push them, all in equal measure. They'll learn to put each other first. I will do for them everything I should have done for you, including this: Not one of you will see my fortune. There are things I have done that I am not proud of, legacies that you should not have to bear.

Know that I love you, both of you. Find your brother. Perhaps, once I am gone, he will finally stop running. Below, you will find a list of locations to which I have traced his whereabouts these past twelve years. In a safe-deposit box at Montgomery National Bank, number 21666, you will find a police report about the incident on Hawthorne Island, as well as extensive files put together by my investigators over the years.