The Son They Never Wanted Became the One They Needed Chapter 06

The Son They Never Wanted Became the One They Needed Chapter 06

The drive home the next day felt strangely silent.

Logan leaned against the window, typing furiously on his phone.

He was asking his classmates who this year’s state valedictorian was.

A few seconds later, someone sent him a screenshot.

Brookhaven High School — Ethan Carter

SAT Score: 1550

Admitted to: Ashford University

The color drained from Logan’s face.

Without making a sound, he deleted the conversation.

He didn’t dare tell anyone.

Vanessa sat in the front seat.

She was still thinking about lecturing Ethan.

She opened their text messages—

Only to discover she’d been blocked.

Natalie deliberately took a detour past Brookhaven High School.

As the car passed the entrance, a massive banner stretched across the front wall.

The gold lettering was impossible to miss.

Congratulations to Brookhaven High School student Ethan Carter for becoming State Valedictorian and earning admission to Ashford University with an outstanding SAT score!

Natalie stared at the banner.

It felt as though something heavy had slammed straight into her chest.

At that very moment.

A crowd of reporters carrying cameras and microphones had gathered outside our house.

Mom assumed they were there to interview Logan.

She beamed proudly.

“Thank you all for coming!”

“My Logan has worked so hard.”

“He passed both his performing arts conservatory audition and the SAT.”

“He’s handsome too.”

“I know he’ll have an amazing future.”

One reporter interrupted awkwardly.

“Ma’am, we’re actually here to interview State Valedictorian Ethan Carter.”

“Who is Logan?”

Mom’s smile froze instantly.

Her eyes widened in shock.

Just then, Natalie, Vanessa, and Logan walked into the building entrance.

The four of them locked eyes.

Silence swallowed the air.

Natalie’s voice came out hoarse.

“Ma’am…”

“Has Ethan come home?”

Mom shook her head anxiously.

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

“He won’t answer his phone either.”

“I’m going to check his room.”

Natalie hurried inside.

The reporters immediately followed with their cameras rolling.

The moment the bedroom door opened.

Everyone fell silent.

My room was nothing more than a tiny space partitioned off from the balcony attached to Logan’s master bedroom.

The walls were cracked.

Every piece of furniture had been discarded by someone else before ending up there.

The room barely received any sunlight.

Next door, Logan’s bedroom was spacious and bright.

A walk-in closet.

A vanity.

Floor-to-ceiling windows.

Everything was there.

The reporters immediately turned their microphones toward Mom.

“Ma’am, both boys are your sons.”

“Why are their bedrooms so completely different?”

Mom stammered.

Not a single explanation came out.

Natalie walked over to my desk.

She casually picked up a neatly stacked pile of notebooks.

Every calculation was meticulous.

Every difficult problem had been solved correctly.

Yet on the actual exams.

The hardest questions had been intentionally left blank.

Some solution steps had even been written incorrectly on purpose.

Every score had been carefully controlled.

Always hovering just around the SAT score requirement.

“He’d been holding himself back.”

Natalie’s voice trembled.

The reporters instantly seized on those words.

“So he deliberately kept his scores low?”

“Had he been treated unfairly at home for years?”

“Did Ethan Carter leave because he’d been neglected and treated differently by his own family?”

Microphones flooded toward Mom and Logan.

The questions came one after another.

Vanessa, humiliated and furious, shoved the reporters away.

She forced everyone out of the house before slamming the front door shut.

At last…

The room fell silent.

Natalie’s eyes locked onto something lying in the corner of my desk.

A broken Blessed Love Charm.

It was the one I’d prayed for the day we climbed to St. Gabriel’s Chapel together.

Only then did she finally realize,

I was really gone.

And I truly didn’t want her anymore.