Ch. Piano boy Ch 6 Piano boy Ch 6

“What about Sarah? Your son must be in 

elementary school by now.” 

He was silent for a moment. “We’re 

divorced.” 

He told me everything. The financial 

struggles, the mounting debt, Sarah’s 

constant complaints, her eventual desertion. 

broken leg, raising his son alone. He’d tried to sell his music, using his knowledge from 

the future, but it had backfired, landing him in legal trouble. His parents had offered to help, but only if he left Sarah. He’d refused. He’d finally opened the café, a fresh start. 

I listened, a mixture of pity and satisfaction 

swirling within me. 

Jason returned, and our conversation ended. 

As I was leaving, Ethan stopped me. “Do you…do you still hate me?” 

I turned to face him. “Hate you? For what? 

For delivering me to those men? For watching 

me die?” 

He winced. “I was so. twisted Quinn. So 

< 

arrogant. I blamed you for everything, for 

Sarah’s death.” 

“I’m sorry. 

وو 

The apology, eight years too late, meant 

nothing. 

“I only have one question, Ethan,” I said. 

“What?” 

“You chose this life, the life with Sarah. Look 

where it got you. Do you regret it?” 

He hesitated, but I already knew the answer. 

I saw Ethan again a few months later, when 

my parents were moving. I’d bought them a 

nice condo in the city. As the movers were 

< 

nice condo in the city. As the movers were 

packing up, I heard shouting coming from 

next door. Mr. and Mrs. Miller were fighting. 

Loudly. 

“What’s going on over there?” I asked my 

mom. 

“Oh, you haven’t heard? That girl, your 

classmate, the one who ran off and left Ethan 

with the baby? She came back.” 

“Why?” I frowned. 

“To take the kid. Turns out, the kid isn’t even 

Ethan’s. She was seeing someone else the 

whole time. She went back to him, he got 

rich, and now they can’t have kids. So she 

wanted hers back.” 

< 

My jaw dropped. The drama never ended. 

“Ethan came home, found out the truth. Went crazy. Stabbed her. Not badly, thank God. But he’s in jail now. The Millers had to sell their house to pay her off, to keep him out of 

prison. It was awful. He kept saying how he’d ruined his life for her, how he could’ve been a 

famous pianist…” 

Life was strange. 

The movers were blocking the alleyway. I saw 

Ethan standing by the curb, smoking. I tried 

to avoid him, but he grabbed my arm. 

“Quinn,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I regret it. 

All of it. This life…it’s a disaster. I should’ve 

listened to you. I was so wrong about you, 

about everything.” 

く 

“I think about what happened, what I did to 

you…I’m so sorry.” Tears welled up in his 

eyes. “If I could go back, if Sarah had…if 

she’d died…” 

He was back. Again. 

“Why didn’t you stop me this time, Quinn?” 

he pleaded. “You…you always liked me, didn’t 

you?” 

I pulled my arm away. “Don’t flatter yourself, 

Ethan. This is the life you chose. You 

wouldn’t have been happy no matter what. 

People like you…you don’t deserve 

happiness.‘ 

99 

“I did like you, once. The boy who played the 

piano for me that night, during the power 

W 

< 

“I did like you, once. The boy who played the 

piano for me that night, during the power 

outage. Not this…this broken, pathetic man. 

He let go of my arm, his face crumpling. I 

walked away without looking back. 

Ethan killed himself that New Year’s Eve. His 

parents found him the next morning. He left a note. Just one sentence: “If only I could do it 

all over again.” 

I don’t know if he got his wish. But I do know 

this: someone as selfish as Ethan would never 

find happiness, no matter how many chances 

he got. Life is full of regrets. He just couldn’t 

accept that his were his own fault.