Chapter 4

They arrived back at Chloe' s parents' house hours later. The sun was setting, casting long, mournful shadows across the manicured lawn. Chloe had dropped Ethan off, barely giving him a glance before speeding away again, presumably back to the hospital to be with Ryan.

He walked up the stone pathway to the imposing front door of the Davis residence. He felt a knot of dread tighten in his stomach.

Mrs. Davis, Eleanor, opened the door before he could even ring the bell. Her face, usually composed and impeccably made up, was etched with worry.

"Ethan! Thank goodness! We were so worried. Where' s Chloe? Is everything alright? Did you... did you do it?" Her voice was a rush of anxious questions.

Mr. Davis, Robert, appeared behind her, his expression equally concerned. He was a man who valued order and control, and this elopement, even though it was with their chosen candidate, clearly unsettled him.

They both looked past Ethan, expecting to see Chloe, perhaps a newly, if reluctantly, married Chloe.

"Chloe' s not with me," Ethan said, his voice flat.

Eleanor' s welcoming smile vanished. "Not with you? What do you mean? Where is she? Did something happen?"

Her tone sharpened, a hint of her usual imperious nature breaking through the worry.

"She had to go somewhere," Ethan said vaguely. "There was an emergency."

"An emergency?" Robert Davis stepped forward. "What kind of emergency? Is she hurt?"

"No, she' s not hurt," Ethan reassured them. He had to protect Chloe, even from her parents' well-meaning but often suffocating concern. "It' s... a friend. Ryan Peterson. He was in an accident."

Eleanor' s face hardened. "Ryan Peterson? That... that boy. Of course. He' s always trouble. So, she ran off to him, is that it? And what about the elopement? What about your plans?"

Robert put a calming hand on his wife' s arm. "Eleanor, let the boy speak. Ethan, what happened today? Did you get married?"

Ethan felt a sudden, sharp memory pierce through him. Not from this relived past, but from the original timeline, after Chloe' s death. He was standing in this very foyer. Eleanor Davis, her face ravaged by grief, screaming at him, blaming him. "You were supposed to protect her! You were supposed to make her happy! She died because of you! Because she was tied to you!"

Robert Davis, usually so stoic, had tears streaming down his face, his shoulders slumped in utter devastation. "She was our only child, Ethan. Our everything."

The raw pain of that memory, their agony, his own crushing guilt – it was so vivid, so real, it almost buckled his knees.

He looked at their faces now, anxious but still whole, still unaware of the abyss of grief that could await them.

He couldn' t let that happen. He had to make them understand.

The words came out in a rush, fueled by the remembered pain and his desperate mission.

"We didn' t get married," Ethan said, his voice trembling slightly. "And we' re not going to."

Eleanor gasped. Robert stared at him, speechless.

"And," Ethan continued, taking a deep breath, "I' m leaving. I' m planning to study abroad. I won' t be a part of Chloe' s life anymore."

The shock on their faces was profound. This was not what they expected. This was not part of their carefully constructed plan for Chloe' s future.

He had just thrown a grenade into their well-ordered world. But it was necessary. For Chloe.