After Before and After

Epilogue (Part 2)

A lot happened after March 25th 1995.

The morning of, the Dalton County Police showed up at Paige and Jack's arcade where the latter was apprehended and brought in for questioning. Jack confessed to killing Evan while crime scene units were tearing apart the mansion on 42 Broadacre Road. Paige was quick to jump on the task of acquiring a good lawyer for Jack. The confession of the boy of almost eighteen years old eliminated the need for another trial, so a deal was made between the Dalton County PD and the Merridew kids' attorney. The term 'battered child syndrome' was tossed around like a penny by Jack's lawyer, and years of medical records backed it up. The resulting plea deal demanded Jack spend the next three years in a hospital's mental health unit to receive treatment for the way he snapped in response to sixteen years of parental abuse.

That is where Ralph Langley found him on June 25th 1995. For the first three months, Jack wasn't allowed visitors. His treatment team felt it was vital for him to adjust to the environment without any outside influences. On the very day the no-visitor-policy was lifted, Ralph was there. The two boys came face to face for the first time since they were separated at the arcade. Ralph couldn't shake the memory of being pulled off Jack by the Dalton police. He could still hear the treacherous sound of his own voice pleading 'no' over and over as two officers pried his fingers out of Jack's arm. He could still feel himself fighting to be free of their hold as he watched Jack get cuffed from the other side of the semi-dark arcade. He could still hear Paige crying next to the doorway as she watched it all unfold. The blood transfered from Jack's clothes to Ralph's. The way it caked on Jack's pasty white skin as the cuffs were tightened around his wrists. The eye opening moment Ralph was escorted into the parking lot after the officer threatened to tase him if he didn't stop trying to get to Jack. The looks on his parents' faces when he reunited with them at the police station.

Three months later, it all faded to a blur.

After Jack was sentenced to remain in the Georgia Regional Hospital until his twenty-first birthday, Jeffery and Laurie put their foot down with Ralph on the therapy front. Discovering Evan's dead body with Paige ranked high on the list of traumatizing events Ralph had endured since the island almost five years earlier. And once he got comfortable with his therapist, the parent mandated sessions turned out to be incredibly beneficial for Ralph. The fall after Evan's death, Ralph returned to Eastern Woodland Academy to begin his final year of high school. Back before the end of the school year in June, word spread quickly about Evan's death, or as the students of Eastern Woodland Academy said "Ralph's best friend murdering his dad." And others often chimed in with, "he was one of the kids who helped kill the ones on that island when he was in military school." In other words, Ralph remained notorious for several events he wished he could forget. The media release of Evan's death and Ralph's connection to it alienated him even more so in his final year of high school.

But he came out on the other side wearing a cap and gown with a diploma in hand.

For the first several months after Ralph first visited Jack in the hospital, the two boys upheld their relationship. Ralph visited everyday after school until visiting hours were over. But time eventually showed that the series of traumatic events they both endured, together and alone, along with nursing a relationship from the walls of a hospital didn't provide the most stable foundation for their continued relationship. Their relationship began to suffer as minor disagreements escalated into heated arguments which eventually escalated into physical fights. On December 16th 1995, Ralph and Jack were caught brawling by one of the nurses on Jack's treatment team. At that time, Ralph was banned from visiting for two weeks. And in that time, the two spoke only once over the phone.

On the day the two week separation was up, Ralph showed up at Jack's door just as he did that hazy day on June 25th. It was December 30th now, the second last day of 1995. Ralph stood in the doorway just as he had six months earlier. And an hour later, he and Jack had broken up for the last time.