Shattered

Chapter 7 - The Start of A Bumpy Ride (Addison POV)

A/N: NOT EDITED. 

Chapter 7 - The Start of a Bumpy Ride (Addison POV)

"Five years ago we covered this story, when twelve-year-old Grayson King was arrested, went to trial and was convicted of six counts of first degree murder. Tonight we will be updating as new information surfaces," the woman on the screen -Tina Dore- speaks and I rest back, I shouldn't watch but I want too. Have too. When Dore reported this story five years ago, it was with an under current that my son was innocent.

These journalists, they had reported with the least amount of bias.

"When walking down this idyllic suburban street -Lynch Are- in the Derby town, no one forgets the tragedy that occurred twelve years ago, on a summer morning, " Tina Dore walks on the side walk of the first house Cameron and I had purchased. The grass is perfectly manicured, the lawn cut in straight lines. Where there once sprawling rose bushes, tulips sway. The window dressings changed, the shutters once blue are now white, and the happy family that resided inside has been forever shattered.

I gaze unseeing at the television. The show continues and I am in a state. I though losing my boy twelve years ago was the most debilitating grief I would ever feel. It wrapped my stomach in knots, and the pain, I could hear my heart breaking inside me. I was wrong. Over and over, even when I closed my eyes I could see Grayson being bludgeoned by Darius Peterson. The blood splattered on the walls, each drop of it, savagely beaten out of my son. My innocent boy.

When this first happened to our family - and it did happen to all of us though Grayson was the one locked away - it was a mixture of shocking brief the field every inch inside of me.

I would sit for a while thinking quietly to myself wondering, had this happen because we left Grayson with Hudson for the weekend? I would make dinner for the family, what was left of mine, and question what could've change the path that we were on? Sometimes I would go back as far as the birth of Grayson. Other times however, I would go back to that moment when almost 30 years back when Cameron and I decided that we were going to build our dream home. When he purchased the 4-acre lot that eventually Cooper and Willow bought a piece from us, simultaneously, building their home next to ours.

"We can't split up this girl dream team, of ours" Cameron and Cooper had joked. I go so far back in that moment, and think maybe if we hadn't sold them the piece of land, they would've built their house much further than they did, perhaps across town and Grayson, when he was 12 years old, he wouldn't have been able to sneak through the trees that were separating our houses from one another. I did not believe for a minute the Grayson was capable of what they thought he was, but building our home so close together, that trail in the woods leading our children to their friends home... my son had no fear of the woods he had walked that trail so many times that the night before the murders I'm sure he left the house without a care in his mind.

He stumbled across something horrendous when he left our house and went to the Braxton's, was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, my innocent boy.

"Oh sweetheart," Cameron whispers brokenly, he swipes both thumbs underneath my eyes, "Why do you watch it, " I don't know what he's talking about. He takes the remote turning it off, giving him my complete attention now, I search his eyes for answers I know I wont find.

"We-we," my voice shakes, "we failed him Cam," words that I'd never thought I'd say when I was pregnant with Grayson. Cameron's eyes well up immediately. The pain is raw, and makes my skin sore too. I fee it everywhere. How could- how did we get here? We had left Grayson and Lachlan home with Hudson more times than we could count, it was normal behavior, and something we had done before. This time thought, it all went wrong, we failed. We had left Grayson because we wanted him to spend sometime with Hudson, we knew there was an age gap between them. Hudson was nineteen, Grayson just twelve, we wanted.....