Absolution(127)

He glanced at his watch. Almost two o’clock in the morning and the adrenaline rush had begun to wear off. Fatigue slowly wrapped its warm arms around him and he struggled against the urge to give in. He didn’t see any sign of the car he had seen a few days prior, and convinced himself that after what happened to Jack, Jimmy and his henchman had probably high-tailed it out of town. Still, he was reluctant to leave Ally alone, knowing that they knew where she lived, and with the image of what they had done to Jack still so fresh in his mind.

Pulling into her driveway twenty minutes later, he killed the engine. The security light came on, bathing them in cool, white light, and he glanced over at her.

“Do you mind if I crash on your couch tonight? I’m wrecked.”

She shook her head but other than that, made no move to get out of the car.

“How are you doing?” he asked. “You’ve been pretty quiet.”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

He followed her up the front path to the house. As she unlocked the door and let them in, he put his finger to his lips and urged her silently to stay put. She didn’t argue. He carefully checked each room in turn, just in case. Satisfied finally, he came back to the hallway to find her closing the front door and locking it.

“Sorry. I just wanted to be sure. After what happened tonight, well… y’know.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said quietly. “And thanks.”

“I don’t know about you, but I could really do with a drink. You got any whisky or anything lying around?”

“There’s some in the cabinet in the living room.”

He found the whisky and poured them each a healthy dose as she made herself comfortable in the armchair. Handing her a glass, he sank into the couch.

“I hate hospitals. Damn misery factories. Just the smell is enough to make me want to puke.”

“He didn’t even look like himself tonight,” she said quietly. “I hardly recognised him. Did I look like that, after the accident?”

He saw no reason to lie. “Not beat up like he is. In fact, you barely had a mark on you. That’s what made it so hard to believe, I think.”

What might’ve happened if she had been conscious throughout the accident and its aftermath? What if Jack had given her a choice that night? What if he had said, “Ally, I smell gas. I can either move you to safety or we can stay right here. What do you want me to do?” What would her answer have been?

He glanced over at her but she was staring into the glass in her lap. She seemed so far away from him.

“You know that saying, ‘everything happens for a reason’?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Do you believe it?”

Too many holes in that theory for his liking. “Not really, no. Why, do you?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I do. Other times I’m not so sure.”

“Discuss,” he said simply, taking a swig of whisky while he waited for her to continue.

“I could’ve died that day, but you saved me.”

He felt as if he’d been kicked in the chest. He didn’t like thinking about that, much less talking about it, and he knew she felt the same way. Why bring it up now?

“I don’t think I ever thanked you. I wasn’t too grateful at the time, I know that, but I am now. I feel like I was given a second chance. If you hadn’t found me… ” She took a shuddering breath, her head still bowed. “And I think maybe I had to lose Tom to get Jack back. Maybe this is how it had to be?”

Tom had been on his mind, too. Sitting at the hospital, waiting for the news from the doctor, he would have done anything to have been able to talk to him. “I miss him too.”

“What do you think he would’ve said, about what’s been happening these past few days?”

Callum shook his head, staring somewhere into the distance, between the present and the past. “I think he’d have wanted to help, just like we did.”

They lapsed into silence.

“After I… after that day, I spent a lot of time thinking,” she said finally. “I wanted so badly to be stronger, but I didn’t know how. I was lost, and tired – so tired. I kept thinking about my Dad. I was afraid that if he was watching over me, like Gran said he was, he’d be ashamed of me, of what I did.”

She seemed so young suddenly. So fragile.

“It took a while,” she continued. “But I finally realised that sometimes you have to have a little faith – that things will get better, that this isn’t how it ends, that there’s more to come.”