Disclosure [h.s]

62

Evelyn

My night didn't end up as I expected.

Instead of watching the Kardashians with Claire, she ended up going to sleep early so I took the opportunity to make meals ahead for tomorrow. I made a shepherd's pie which was now cooling off before I popped it in the fridge. Tomorrow all I had to do was put it in the oven for half an hour and lunch was ready. It meant I could spend more time in bed with Harry, which I think will be necessary after the night we will have.

It was now midnight and he still hasn't come home. I had texted him a while back and he replied to me saying he was going to come home late. He didn't say in the message if they had found anything but I think if he is not coming home straight away it probably means they are on the right track to find Howard.

I have been thinking a lot about what happens when and if we find him. Will Howard go to prison again? We don't have any evidence against him so I doubt it is enough to put him in jail again. At the same time, I don't think Harry will allow him to simply go back to prison like nothing happened.

If Howard is arrested again it simply means in a few months or years he will come out, and the nightmare repeats itself again.

As much as I tried to convince myself Harry wouldn't do anything he would later regret, I know how badly Howard has treated him and his family in the past and in the present. There is something about Harry taking matters into his own hands that scares me.

Could he be capable of... killing him?

Harry is not a murderer, even if he spent the last years convincing himself he was one. What he did when he was fifteen was not his fault. Yes, it has a human life he took and he will carry the guilt for the rest of his life. But he was drugged, he was forced to take part in that life, he can't blame himself for it.

If the time comes when we find Howard, he will want to take care of him with his own hands, and I don't know if I'm ready for it. I don't condone killing, I hate violence even though this man has hurt his family so badly, I even got myself as a victim at his threats, could I also want him dead?

Facing this question was frightening, mostly because I think I know the answer to it.

I brush away these thoughts as I walk out of Harry's bedroom after going there to check my phone for the millionth time tonight. It was charging but now that the battery was full I was bringing it with me to the living room. As I walk through the hall, I see light still coming from Collin's bedroom and some noise, probably music.

He was already in the summer holidays, but unlike the other summers, he barely leaves the house. Sometimes I go with him to the park where he meets with his friends to play football but I know how much he dislikes having to bring his brother or me everywhere with him.

I was afraid of how this would impact him and his development because he is still a kid. He is turning thirteen next week and I'm planning a massive cake for him. I even had gotten in contact with some of his friends so they showed up here to spend the day with him.

I feel like his older sister. And he is the brother I never had.

My knuckles gently knock on his door waiting for a response. Harry would just barge in the room without even knocking, but well, he is Harry. I could never invade his privacy like that. "Come in." He quietly says so I finally open the door seeing him by his computer with his headphones on.

He had paused the music because it was no longer blasting through his headphones. "Is Harry home?" He asks.

"Not yet, I just came to check on you." I smile leaning against the doorframe.