Edward stood before his demons. He knew he could no longer hide from them. The place that had once been his refuge was now his cage. Everything around him seemed vague and uncertain, but one thing was clear: those he had tried to forget stood before him, those he was bound to by this horrible world he had created.
He no longer tried to fight, no longer tried to hide. The shadows of the past were too powerful to resist. He could feel the heaviness building up in his soul, and despite all the pain, he knew it was inevitable. He couldn’t run away anymore. There was no forgiveness, and now he was facing what he had once created himself.
Lisa, like the others, looked at him, but her gaze was no longer full of anger. It had become full of sorrow. That look was the look of a man who had long ago realized that he couldn’t go back, that the shadow they had all tried to avoid was in fact always with them. All those years in which he had tried to forget, they had been a part of him too. And now that it was over, he realized: no amount of trying to avoid payback could remove those he had once betrayed.
He looked into their eyes, and despite their pain, he felt that shadow clutching him more and more. He couldn’t get back the years he had lost, couldn’t rebuild the lives he had ruined, but he could finally face it. And as they approached, Edward didn’t try to back away, didn’t try to justify himself. He realized that all of this was his punishment, his life that he had chosen for himself.
He couldn’t get back everything he’d lost. But in that moment, he realized that in order to let go of that shadow, he didn’t have to run away, he had to embrace it. There was only one step he could take, a step that took him away from all those years of pain and fear. But whether it was a step forward or backward, he never knew.
The shadow of the past was with him.
And he had finally accepted it.
