Absolution(134)

She was right. His high-handed attitude of ‘it’s not my place to tell her’ now seemed self-serving at best.

“He thinks it was his fault,” she said flatly. “That’s why he left.”

He nodded, feeling sick to his stomach.

“And you knew this.”

Reason flew out the window. He wished he could have known then the pain he would cause her now, by not telling her. He would have sucked it up and told her the truth then, and maybe she would be stronger for it.

“By the time I realised he wasn’t coming back, it was too late – too much time had passed. I thought that telling you then would just make things worse.”

She hung her head and he was grateful for the reprieve, as cowardly as he knew that was.

“You should be talking to Jack about this, not me. He was there with you the whole time.”

She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to say to him.”

“He was in an impossible situation. He had a split second to make a decision and he made the best one he could. I would’ve done exactly the same thing, and so would you have, if the situation had been reversed.”

His words hung in the air between them and he waited anxiously, his hand flexing nervously around his closed fist.

“I don’t blame him,” she murmured finally, looking up. “But it doesn’t seem to matter either way because he blames himself – he said so that day at the hospital.”

“It’s tearing him apart.”

“I know, and there’s nothing I can do about that.”

Her gaze settled somewhere between the two of them, seeing things he couldn’t.

“You could talk to him, tell him that?”

“What if it doesn’t make any difference? What if he can’t let it go?” She fixed him with a heartbreaking stare. “I can’t lose him again, but if he can’t let it go, I can’t be around him. I don’t want to be like some kind of trigger for this stuff he carries around inside of him.”

Callum stood up and walked over to sit beside her on the couch. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “You need to talk to him.”



Jack stood on the lawn in the rain, staring at his Dad’s house. His hair stuck to his head and his clothes were soon soaked through, but still he couldn’t bring himself to go inside. Callum had told him that the place needed some tidying up after Jimmy had trashed it and he couldn’t face that, not yet. Just another reminder of how he had failed him.

Instead, he got in his car and drove over to Ally’s. He had no idea what he was going to say to her, but he had to see her. Even if she yelled and screamed at him, it was better than this silence.

But when he pulled up outside her house, her driveway was empty. It felt as if his lungs were collapsing. The message she was sending was pretty damn clear. He had pushed her too far. There were no more second chances. He’d had his one shot to get this right, and he blew it.

With no idea what to do or where to go or how to fix anything, he headed for the one place he hoped he could find some peace.

He pulled up outside the cemetery gates and cut the engine. In the sudden silence, the rain drummed a steady beat against the roof of the car. He looked around him. On a day as wet and grey as this one, he hadn’t expected there to be anyone else here but him. But misery loves company, and there were three other cars parked outside the gate. Looking closer, he saw that one of them was Ally’s.

What was she doing here? Was she looking for the same thing he was?

He got out of the car and started up the central walkway, trudging through the steady stream of water running down the concrete path. The weather suited his mood, easing the near-constant ache in his head from the concussion, although the ache in his heart seemed to grow. With each step, new anxieties and self-doubts flooded through him. He had no idea if Ally was visiting his father’s graveside, but it seemed like a good bet. What reception would he get if she was? He almost turned back to the car and waited for her there, but something spurred him on.

When he finally saw her, he stopped. She was standing in front of his father’s grave, head bowed low, soaked to the skin. An involuntary shiver ran through him that had nothing to do with the weather. He stood there, glued to the path, watching her from a distance. Water dripped from his eyelashes and he blinked, running a quick hand over his eyes to clear them. She didn’t move for the longest time. He felt like he was imposing. Maybe she wanted to be alone?