Absolution(111)

“Hey. Were you early? You were tearing up the water when I got here,” he panted.

“I didn’t see you so I started without you.”

“What’s up?” he asked, wiping droplets of water away by running his hand down his face.

Damn him and his Jedi mind-reading crap. She mentally swiped the self-pity out of her brain, sighing. “It’s Jack.”

He looked over his shoulder at the other end of the pool. One of the few remaining swimmers was heading towards them slowly.

“Speak of the devil,” he said. “And before you freak out, it wasn’t my idea, it was his. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Panic rocketed through every cell in her body. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.

No. Not here. Not now. Not yet!

Callum climbed up the steps and sat down next to her. He grabbed her hand beneath the water and squeezed.

“Don’t make this into a big thing and it won’t be,” he warned gently, although she could barely hear him for the blood rushing in her head.

Jack was almost upon them now.

“Just relax,” Callum urged. “He just wants to talk.”

Before she had a chance to speak, Jack surfaced in front of them.

“Hey,” he smiled, although you could have cut the tension in the air with a knife.

She tried to sink lower, hyper-aware of the fact she wore a swimsuit that showed off too much of the body she was so self-conscious of, with only the water to shield her.

“I think I’ll head off – you guys have stuff to talk about,” Callum said, giving Ally’s hand a final squeeze before letting go. “You can give Jack a lift home, right?”

Suddenly, fear evaporated and anger rapidly filled the vacuum. How dare he put her in this situation!

“Sure.”

Jack still treaded water several feet away, and she waited for Callum to leave before taking out her frustration on him, too. “So stranger, what brings you here?”

“Ouch,” he cringed. “I know I deserved that, but that’s why I’m here. I didn’t want you to think that I’m avoiding you.”

“Kinda feels that way.”

“I’m sorry, I just had some other stuff going on over the past few days that I needed to deal with.”

He swam up to the wide concrete steps and climbed them to sit down beside her. He was so close to her. Could he see? She stared at her hands, resting on her thighs, surreptitiously weighing them down as the buoyancy in the water fought against her.

“Would I be here if I was avoiding you?”

She fought to hang on to anger as fear began to take over again. Glancing over at him, she mumbled “I guess not.”

He smiled and she forced herself to look away. As she did so, her gaze fell to his bare chest instead. He was in much better shape than she remembered. Rivulets of water slid down his chest and into the water, accentuating the muscle definition. Her insides felt as if they were liquefying. She longed to reach out and touch him. Her heart raced at the thought, and the thumping in her chest brought her back to reality. She was staring.

This is crazy – control yourself!

Afraid that her thoughts might be written all over her face, she tore herself away, but not before something caught her eye.

As if it had a mind of its own, her hand drifted up to the tattoo on his shoulder. Small, black Roman numerals were embedded in his skin. Her brain deciphered the figures and her heart, racing only moments ago, shuddered to a halt.

“That’s the date of the accident,” she whispered.

As she ran her fingers gently over the ink, a black void engulfed her.

One moment in time, a lifetime ago.

Callum’s explanation of what happened that night rushed in on her, mingling with the images invoked by twisted nightmares and vague memories of waking up in hospital days later.

“I got it on the first anniversary.”

She felt his body sigh beneath her fingertips and her hand fell away, breaking the spell. He seemed torn – broken, even. For a moment, she felt guilty, although she had no idea why. The pool disappeared, and the world with it. Suddenly, it was just the two of them, sitting on the step in the warm water, staring at each other.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I wanted there to be some physical evidence of what happened that night, like proof or something.”

“Proof? Of what?”

“That I wasn’t going insane, that it wasn’t all in my head – proof that it really happened. I guess I wanted something physical to show for it.”