Rachel waited for him to go, but there was more silence.
“You know it, that it is only me to whom you are speaking.” She reached out to him. “Why are you hesitant about it?”
“It is not that.” He closed his eyes briefly. “I just do not know where to even start.”
“From the beginning,” she replied, holding her breath. Simon looked pained, and she hated that she was having to put him through this anguish, but if she did not understand, then they could not move on further either.
It was a difficult milestone that needed to be crossed.
“You know that I was very young when I lost my parents,” he started, and Rachel froze. She had not expected him to broach that topic. “I had just turned ten when I watched them die in front of me.”
Rachel did not know what to say, nor did she dare interrupt him. How did something that happened years ago have anything to do with the situation that they were in now? The questions only grew in her head, but she could not bring herself to ask them.
Simon noticed the expression on her face. “I will have to apologize for this, as it’s not an easy topic to hear.”
“Don’t you apologize,” Rachel said immediately. “You are free to talk about anything with me. I…”
She paused, not knowing what the right words ought to be. “I am here, listening to whatever it is.”
He took her hand into his own then, rubbing the top of her knuckles softly. He did not meet her gaze, but Rachel knew that she would only see pain there if he did.
“It was not something a ten-year-old ever expects to see in his lifetime,” he muttered under his breath. “I remember there being a lot of blood and that my father tried to fight off the killer, but it was no use. I remember that my mother screamed and told me to save myself.”
He swallowed a lump in his throat, and Rachel squeezed his hand softly.
“Where were you?”
“I was watching from behind the wall,” Simon admitted. “I was too small to do anything. I could only run to the help to make them stop it, but by the time any help arrived, they were already dead.”
“Simon,” Rachel gasped. “I did not… Why did you never tell me this before?”
“You tell me.” He managed a small smile, but it did not reach his eyes. “Is it pleasant for you to hear this? Talking about it makes me relive it, and…”
He paused again.
“I still have flashbacks of that moment every night,” he admitted, “even though I have tried many times to erase it from my memory. It is not an easy thing to watch having everything taken away from you.”
“That is too big a burden to carry.”
“It does not matter,” Simon corrected her. “I carry it anyway. I was helpless that night, but I did make a promise to myself to avenge their deaths. I told myself that I would not rest until I found the man who did it.”
“And that is what you have been doing this entire time?” Rachel asked softly. Suddenly, all his long disappearances started to make sense to her.
Simon nodded, his gaze dark. “For years, I have searched. I have followed every whisper, every rumor. I have watched men lie through their teeth and smile as though they had no blood on their hands.” His jaw clenched. “And I have spent years waiting for the moment when I could finally see justice done.”
“But what about the authorities?” Rachel argued. “Was it not their job to track down the murderer? Why did you have to take that responsibility onto your own shoulders?”
“Rachel,” he said softly, “no one cares about a murder that happened years ago. They stopped searching long ago. It takes a man obsessed to carry on this long.”
His words carried a confession—a confirmation of why he had always acted the way that he had.
“But did you ever find anything?”
“I got close,” he admitted. “Rowan and I tracked down a lead, and I got to her right before?—”
“Her?” Rachel interrupted. “It was a woman?”
“Grace Langston.”
