by Lily White
Which leads me to my second confession. The inspiration you gave me wasn’t about what you did on stage. It wasn’t about the attempted rapes and death of your attackers, had nothing to do with what was created for the dark web. My vision for you was so much more than that. Included with this letter is your completed film. A movie not about depraved acts and crushing endings, but about a woman who was so fierce in spirit that even when trapped in a nightmare that was never ending, she'd still found the strength inside herself to love.
That is the truth you showed me, and that is the film I made. Nobody else could have played your part. No other person could have inspired a story so tragic, yet beautiful at the same time. There is not a single woman in this world that could have burned as brightly as you did on film, and I'll never regret lying to you just so I could see the project through to its end…
My fingers tightened over the paper, my eyes tracking to the DVD I'd tossed on my bed. Curiosity got the better of me. Dropping the letter, I grabbed the disc and hurried across my room to my computer. Sliding the disc in, I waited impatiently for it to load, my breath held when I pressed play.
The film started on the day I arrived to the studio, at the moment I walked through the front doors to meet Ethan Cole. He must have had more cameras inside the building than he admitted, because as I watched my life inside that prison, I realized he'd missed nothing about the year I'd spent with him. But the images weren't simply the blurry, off color shots of a security camera, they were close-ups and wide angle candid shots of the most significant moments of my life.
He'd captured everything: my arrival, my first fight with the guard, my reaction when I first saw the films he made. He'd caught me telling him I chose to die, he caught my first conversation with Melanie and the argument I'd had with him after being led to his office for the first time. I sat watching with eyes steadily leaking out the pain I was feeling, but I couldn't look away from a film that depicted what it looked like when a woman fell in love with the man who'd captured her.
Ethan was right to say there was truth in this film, and I felt every minute of it as I stared unblinking at the perfect transition of scenes. I cringed at the scenes with James and Brent, held my breath at the scene of Ethan and I in the shower. I sobbed at the scenes he'd caught of the last film he made in Studio B, of the fire and the conversation we'd had by the van.
Everything. He'd captured it all, and he'd condensed it down into an hour long film that revealed the true story of a woman fighting to fall in love. My eyes were so blurry as the camera showed the van driving off, that I had to pause the film to keep from missing the end. I sat crying for what felt like hours, but could only have been minutes.
Grabbing the letter, I opened it without watching the last scenes of the film. I was too afraid of both, but eventually chose to read what he had to say rather than watch what could have come on film after my escape.
You helped me realize a dream, Emma. And I hope it's something you can live with and forgive. I'm no longer the man I was before you walked into my life. And having accomplished the one task I set out to achieve in film, I've retired in a way, have gone into hiding in a place where I'll never hurt another person again.
Thank you for who you are, and thank you for who you became in my life. I could have never done this without you.
I want you to know I'll never forget the time we spent together, and I'll never truly let you go. I know that your film had its ending, but that your life story continues forward with a twist I never saw coming.
Kane is the most beautiful child I've ever seen, and it is my hope that you'll protect him with the fire you carry inside and that'll you'll inspire him to realize his dreams as much as you inspired me to realize mine. We'll see each other again. That much I know, but until then, I hope our son fills the empty places inside you that were left behind from what I've done.
Love him as ferociously as you loved me. And until the day comes when I can touch your cheek and stare into those frustrating and glorious eyes again, just know that I'll be watching.
The letter ended without a signature, without another word, without anything other than the flourished script of Ethan's hand on the last letter of his confession.
A bark of laughter shook my shoulders like a small burst of insanity slipping free. I should have been running this letter to the police to turn in a man who'd so callously done this to me, but instead I found myself clinging to the tiny bit of hope that he really was watching like he claimed.
Focusing my eyes back on the film paused in place on my computer screen, I hit play to see the last scene Ethan used to complete his vision of me.
My jaw went slack, my heart came back to life in my chest, and I stared in a state of shock at a film that couldn't have been completed until just recently. How I'd not noticed, I wasn't sure. How had I'd been so focused that I wasn't looking over my shoulder at just the right time?
Before me the final images played of me standing in the small park across the street from my house pushing Kane in his swing.
Ethan had been so close, and I'd somehow missed him entirely. It had only been a few days since he could have shot that scene, which meant...
Some strange man delivered it...
Running from my room, I almost fell down the stairs to get to my purse in the living room. I found my cell phone buried at the bottom and dropped the purse to the floor as I hastily dialed Ashlynn's phone number. She picked up on the third ring.
"Hey, Ms. Hart. Is everything okay with Kane?"
On a rush of breath, I answered, "Yes, everything is fine with him. That's not what I'm calling about." I paused, took a breath and tried to speak at a slower pace. But the barrage of emotion inside me was pushing me too fast, filling me to such an extent that I couldn't hold it inside. "Ashlynn, what did the man look like? The one who delivered the package?"
She was quiet for a moment, so quiet that I pulled the phone from my head to make sure the call was still connected. "Ashlynn?"
"He was handsome and wore a suit," she finally answered. "Um, black hair that had some grey in it, clean shaven. He kind of freaked me out a little bit though. His eyes -"
"What about his eyes?"
"Nothing. It's just that it felt like he could see through me. I don't know, it's weird and I'm being stupid. He had really pretty grey eyes, but I just, like, froze when he looked at me."
Leaning against the wall, I pressed the phone closer to my ear and closed my eyes. She wasn't stupid to feel that way. Ethan Cole simply had that effect on people.
"Is everything okay, Ms. Hart? You sound -"
"Yes," I blurt out a little too quickly. "Everything's fine, Ashlynn. Thank you for telling me."
I hung up before she could say anything else.
Every last bit of energy drained from me in that moment, my body sliding down the wall until I was sitting on the floor with my eyes shut and my hand still clenching the phone.
It's hard to describe what I was feeling, probably because I was feeling so much of everything at once that I couldn't cling on to one thought, one emotion, one single, solitary response that would make sense to any person besides Ethan or me.
It wasn't until my heart slowed and my breathing was normal, wasn't until I could wipe away the last of my tears and actually think again that one truth broke free of the chaos to make itself known.
No matter what Ethan had done to me, no matter the lies, the horror, the films, and the effect that year had on me, I couldn't deny that the film was beautiful.
And I couldn't lie to myself - or to Ethan - that I wasn't happy to discover he was still, and would always be, watching.
THE END
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