What If He Didn't Die?

Chapter 51: Waiting and Not Waiting

"I see. Then why did you break up with him?"

If I was silent earlier, I only fall more silent. Having no idea how to answer his question, and finding it impossible to look away from his eyes, breathing starts coming difficult for me.

"Answer me Easter. You wanted to talk, so answer me. Why?" He demands in an authoritative voice making me numb and weak.

"Whose car was it that he was driving? Was it yours? Or was it yours? And why was he driving someone else's car? Why wasn't he driving his own?" He showers questions on me one after the other as I sit listening silently. My heartbeat accelerates and I feel restlessness being pumped in my veins.

"Well let me guess it for you." He continues without a breath while I sit there, losing mine. "Because his own car wasn't the efficient death machine that you all designed for him."

"SHUT UP MAN!" Robert stands up in angst making me squeeze my eyes in regret. This is not how we can afford to react. He has the complete right to yell at us. Well, at least, at me.

Donald scoffs shaking his head at Robert's behaviour.

"You can't talk about this. But you want to talk." He chuckles humourlessly and the pain hidden behind it hits in my guts.

"Donald-" I start trying to sound firm but almost failing. "-there's a possibility that Daniel's alive."

His eyes immediately meet mine and I can read impatience in them. A sudden fear of igniting a fire of hope in him that may burn everything down to ash takes birth in me.

"What?" He spits.

"Yes. I mean, a person can survive a fall right?" I suggest, deciding to go slow with it.

"Right. A person can survive a fall and a person can even survive a drug overdose." He adds as if bored with my hollow theory. "But a person who is drugged like that, and then falls off a cliff? No Easter. Those don't."

I feel something break in me at the finality of his conclusion.

"What do you mean drugged like that? W-what did they give him?" I ask, reluctant in myself wondering if I actually want to know.

Donald shifts in his chair and leans ahead closer to me, his face styling tight stress lines.

"They gave him poison Easter." My heart drops out of my chest at his statement. "They gave him something that forced his heart to slow down. But guess what? He could've still survived. He could've lived, had he just slept with that shit in his system. But you know what killed him? The race."

"The race pumped adrenaline in his veins. The fierce activity needed high-speed heart activity. But his heart couldn't do that, thanks to the drug. That stress, that pressure, that push caused his heart to fail."

"That planned and designed heart failure killed him. He might've already been dead before his car fell off the cliff. He could've been alive but the fall might've caused the heart failure. Anyhow, it was made sure, that he dies. That. He. Fucking. Dies!"

He hollers punching the table sitting between us. I gasp in horror at the rawness of his intensity.

A guilt-filled realisation hits me.

Till now, I've been wondering if I was the only one suffering. That I was the one suffering the most and that no one could understand my pain.

But seeing Donald so broke and hurt makes me feel ashamed of my selfishness.

"People don't survive that Easter. No one does." He adds.

Why would Jack and Eric give him such a drug?