Bitter Heart √

Fifty

Skylar's POV

When Caden stopped his car in front of a house, even the full-on heavy rain wasn't able to hide the big structure from me. I could see it just fine.

Because I knew that house.

Everything about it was exactly similar to the house I had seen on my phone hours ago, when I had been searching on the web back in detention. It was the same house with those burnt, scorch marks on the walls.

It took me a few seconds to finally find my voice, my gaze still stuck at the house. "Why are we here?" It looked empty and isolated--not just the house, but the entire street as well.

"My parents' house." I heard him say.

As if putting two and two together, I leaned back in my seat. I didn't want to come up with any rash conclusions, but it still felt a bit hard to breathe when I thought about it. When I glanced over at Caden, his gaze was fixed ahead at the house too.

"What happened to it?" I looked back at it. Part of me knew what had happened to this house. I'd seen it in those pictures.

"It got blown up in fire." He replied, before finally looking at me. "I burned this house." And he kept looking at me as if waiting for a reaction. I had none, however. I just didn't know how to react.

"Why would you...do that?"

I didn't want him to stop. I needed him to keep telling me all of it until it made some sense. How could he have just ruined his family? Everyone had their reasons--wasn't he the one who told me that?

Caden's gaze trailed away from me, almost as if he was weighing his options. Inhaling deeply, he placed his head back against the headrest and I saw him closing his eyes.

"Blake's my stepbrother. I'm sure you already know that." He didn't wait for my response. Not like I had any. "My dad married his mom when...my mom left him. I guess I was ten back then."

He didn't say his mom left him too. I didn't point it out, though. It already seemed like it was hard enough for him to be saying this out loud. I didn't want him to shut everything out all over again.

"She was nicer than my real mother could've ever been." He murmured, and there was this something in his voice, something strange. It made my heart clench unhappily. "She cared about me. But she wasn't alone when she came into our house. Blake was there too." He said. "I hated him from the start."

I didn't even have to imagine that.

"It wasn't just Blake." He stopped for a second. "He had a...younger sister too. Rena. She was probably just seven when our parents married."

I swallowed heavily, finding myself repeating his words in my head. Again and again and again.

"And like my stepmother, she wasn't like Blake. Even Blake had a soft spot for Rena." A slow, sad smile formed his lips. I stared as he still had his eyes closed.

"Blake always had these arguments with our parents from the very start. He started coming home late at night. And if he was there, conversations always ended up in fights." He continued. "Until the day he finally decided to stop them."

"It was late at night when it happened. My parents were asleep inside. I had promised Rena I would make a bonfire for her out in the backyard. She loved...bonfires." He stopped, opening his eyes and looking at nothing in particular. He looked lost. And when his eyes found mine, something inside me tugged at the openness in them. Raw emotions. He didn't want to hold back.

"When we were done collecting the firewood, she told me she needed something from her room. And just as she went inside the house, Blake came out and joined me. I hadn't even known that he was awake." He continued. "He was always into some messed up shit or another. But at that moment, he looked a whole lot happier than usual."