I Was Never One of Them novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Who Was Driving
Gavin did not read the card aloud.
He stood there with it in his hand, and the whole great hall waited.
"A joke," Constance said. Her voice was still level. "Somebody's idea of one. Thank you, darling. We'll go on to the toast."
She reached for the card.
Gavin pulled it back against his chest.
"Where did this come from?" he said.
"It's nothing."
"Mother, where did this come from?"
At the back of the hall, someone was holding up a phone, and the red light was on.
It was the foundation's livestream.
A banner in the corner of the big screen behind the stage said *Live: 4,311 watching*.
I saw Constance see it.
"Turn that off," she said to the nearest waiter, very softly.
Nobody moved.
Rhys stood up beside me.
He did not say anything.
He only stood, in the tight dark suit, in the middle of two hundred people, and looked at his half brother.
Gavin looked back.
"Rhys," he whispered.
"Hello, Gav."
"Don't. Please don't."
"Who was driving?" I said.
I had not planned to say it.
I stood up in my mother's veil and the words came out of me clear and plain.
"Gavin. Who was driving the car that night?"
A woman at the next table gasped.
"Hazel, sit down," Gavin said. "You're upset. It was an accident, we all know it was an accident."
"Whose accident?"
"He took responsibility! He chose to! I never asked him to!"
The room went silent.
Gavin heard it a second after everyone else did.
He pressed his fist to his mouth, and I watched his eyes fill.
"I never asked him to," he said again, in a smaller voice.
Constance moved.
She crossed the stage in three steps and took her son's arm.
"That is enough," she said. "My son is unwell. This is a private family matter and I will not have it turned into a spectacle by a grieving girl and a man on parole."
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