Absolution(28)

She had last been here two weeks ago, for dinner. The house looked exactly the same, except for the glaringly obvious fact that Tom was missing. Her heart ached for him. If he were here, he’d be the buffer she felt they desperately needed now. Without him, it was too raw.

Jack poured the drinks, his back to her. To his left, on the side table, was an almost-empty glass that he topped up. Clearly, it wasn’t his first drink today. She couldn’t blame him.

He turned back to her, holding a glass in each hand, indicating the couch. “Shall we sit down?”

She ignored the couch and headed for the small dining table at the end of the room instead. She wanted to put something solid between them, hoping it would help her concentrate. She could feel his eyes burning into her back as she lowered herself into a chair, leaning her crutches against the table beside her. He set the glasses down on the table and pulled out the chair opposite her. She cringed as the chair’s legs scraped against the hardwood floor. Silently begging her trembling hands not to betray her, she reached for her glass and took a quick sip.

Tom had been the one to teach her about whisky – the good, the bad, the difference between blended and single malts, when to have water with it and when to have it neat.

“What do you remember about the accident?” Jack asked quietly, dragging her back to the present.

A black void where her memories should be.

She stared into the glass she held with both hands on the table in front of her. “Nothing. I don’t remember a thing. Callum told me what happened, after.”

“What did he say?”

“That it wasn’t your fault.” Why did she sound so frightened? She cleared her throat, mustering up the courage to look across the table at him. “He said there was nothing you could have done, that the other car came out of nowhere.”

He nodded slightly, his expression guarded. She waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. She seized her chance, before she lost her nerve completely.

“I want to know why you left like that, if it wasn’t your fault. Was it because of what happened to me?”

He shook his head and she tried to distance herself from his obvious pain. She couldn’t afford empathy if she was to get through this. She needed answers.

“Was it? You were gone when I woke up from surgery, Jack. You knew what happened to me. Did you leave because of that, because you didn’t want to be with me? I want the truth. I can take it,” she lied.

He shook his head, swallowing back tears. “No.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not, I – “

“You’re lying!” she cried, anger bursting forth.

“No! I’m not lying, I swear to you,” he insisted desperately, leaning forward. “I left because of me, because of what I did!”

“What the hell does that mean?”

He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Something was going on behind his eyes that she couldn’t read and she frowned, searching deeper.

“I was driving. It was my fault.”

“So you left because you felt guilty?”

“I left because I was scared.”

“I was scared too – I woke up and you were gone!”

Breaking it down like that, so simply, hurt much more than she expected. All the things she couldn’t say – the fear that had overwhelmed her and pulled her under and nearly destroyed her – manifested as tears, overflowing and running down her cheeks.

“I’m so sorry,” he said brokenly, staring at his hands on the table. “I thought you’d hate me… I thought you’d all hate me.”

“So you just decided to run away instead?”

He didn’t answer, and anger and betrayal overwhelmed her as his face blurred.

“I wish I could take it all back – I wish I could change everything,” he whispered.

“You can’t.”

“I know. I’m so sorry. I should’ve stayed, I should’ve – “

“I’m not interested in hearing about what you should’ve done,” she snapped. “I know what you should’ve done, but you didn’t, did you?”

Jack looked devastated but she couldn’t help the words that came tumbling out.

“I lay in that hospital bed, counting the holes in the ceiling tiles, thinking about all the things that I would never be able to do again, and I kept thinking that if you were there, it would be okay – that you being there would mean that everything was going to be okay. But you weren’t.” She steadily held his gaze, binding him to her as surely as if she had used ropes or chains. “I hated you for that. I hated you for leaving, I hated you for not even saying goodbye – for not having the guts to talk to me before you left, for being such a coward.”