The Lost Generation Years Novels & Stories

“twenty years ago.” Ethan’s grip tightened around the phone. Seventeen years. A strange discomfort spread through his chest. “What are you saying?” he asked. Victor’s voice softened slightly. “You were five years old when the Cross estate was attacked.” Ethan went still. Images flickered in his mind—fragmented, broken memories he had never understood. Fire. Smoke. Running footsteps. A burning pain in his arm. A woman screaming his name. Then darkness. He had always believed they were nightmares.

Then, he was eight (8). Cole was moved to tears as Joann pulled out the bones of fish for him. "Hey, are you okay son?" Joann asked. "I am okay, its just that since I was little, mum and dad hardly had time for me. We never had dinner together they are always busy with work saying its the legacy they will leave me with." Cole said sadly.

The light in Samson's gaze was fading, but he never looked away from me, as if he was trying to memorize my face one last time. "To have you care for me…even just at the end... That's enough... "Helen, tell me... Do you think we could ever go back…to how things were…five years ago?" Five years ago. That was when we loved each other without limits. It was before the tragedy, before all the pain and misunderstandings. When we were just the simplest but happiest couple in the world. My heart trembled, but in the end, I stayed silent. Samson saw my answer. Sadness flickered in his eyes before he gave a faint, self-mocking smile. His voice was barely a whisper now.

"I never thought you'd be so greedy and shallow." A chuckle escaped me at his furious outburst. There was a time when all I longed for was genuine love, but instead, I was met with Wesley's cold slaps and Nathan's harsh blows. What they never realized was that their family had been crumbling for years, with their only lifeline being the marriage alliance with the Grants. It was my mother and I who had kept Hawthorne Group afloat all this time. Between the Hawthorne brothers and me, there were no debts left unpaid.

More importantly, he looked very much like her first love. From the moment he appeared in our lives, I had been doomed to lose. That afternoon, Mary, our servant, helped me erase all traces of myself from the mansion. It was only then that I realized that we had not taken a single family photo all this time. Pity shone in Mary's gaze. In the past, Serene's parents had looked down on me, so they refused to let her hire a servant. Since I had so much free time at home, what right did I have to hire someone else to wait on me?