Absolution (37 page)

“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.”

He saw her as she was that day – lying on her bed, surrounded by photos and an empty pill bottle. His blood ran cold.

“I guess you have to hit rock bottom before you can start climbing again,” he mumbled. “I think that day was your rock bottom. It changed you. Just when I thought you’d maxed out on courage, you proved me wrong.” He sighed, running a hand down his face. He was too tired and too damn sober for a conversation like this. “You make me want to be a better person, did you know that? Someone like me, with all the crap I’ve done, when I’m around you, you make me feel like I’m better than that, that I can be more than just that guy.”

“What guy?” she frowned.

He held his glass aloft. “The guy who drinks too much. The guy who screws everything up. The guy who uses his fists more than his brain –
that
guy.”

“What are you talking about?” she mumbled, wiping her eyes. “Don’t you know how grateful I am? How much I love you for who you are and for everything you’ve done for me? I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you.”

He cringed at her choice of words. Maybe it was the whisky, or the late hour, or the fact that he was just so damn exhausted, but there was something niggling at him that had to be said, and after four years, now seemed as good a time as any. “If you blamed me – even just a little bit – because of what happened to you, I get it.”

Ally stared at him, dumbfounded. “What? Why would I blame you?”

“Because if I hadn’t been in the car, you would’ve been sitting in the passenger seat, right beside Jack. You would’ve walked away, just like I did.”

His gut wrenched as the words tore out of him. Buried as they had been for so long, it was terrifying and strangely liberating to hear himself say them now.

“It happened the way it happened,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s all.”

“But if I hadn’t been there –”

“You don’t know that. Maybe everything happened exactly the way it was meant to happen?” 

There it was again – that strength, that courage. Acceptance. It was a loaded word.

He got up and crossed to the cabinet, topping up his glass with a generous measure. “Another shot?”

“No, thanks.”

He capped the bottle and sank down on the couch again, leaning back into the cushions. The events of the past few days were beginning to weigh him down. He glanced over at Ally, who had leant back in the armchair, looking the way he felt. They should get some sleep. It was going to be a long day tomorrow.

Neither of them moved.

Ally picked up Jack’s hand, stroking his fingers. She had always loved his hands. They were large, strong and square – almost the exact opposite of her own. Right now though, they were limp and still, just like the rest of him.

Callum came back into the room with two polystyrene mugs of hospital coffee.

“Here you go,” he said, handing one to her.

“Thanks.”

Callum took a seat on the other side of the bed, sipping his coffee.

The morning had been long. Maggie and Jane had spent a couple of hours with them, but they had decided that having four of them hanging around in the small room, just waiting for him to wake up, didn’t make sense.

Jack’s doctor had visited about an hour ago, on his rounds. Apparently, he’d had a quiet night, his stats were good and they should expect him to regain consciousness anytime now. They’d been warned that he might be disorientated, confused and even nauseous when he woke up, but all of that was normal and should pass quickly.

In the meantime, all they could do was wait.

Jack’s hand twitched in Ally’s. She looked over his bed at Callum, wide-eyed. “He just squeezed my hand.”

Callum sat forward, watching him. Jack’s eyeballs moved erratically beneath his lids. Ally immediately reached for the call button on the pillow beside Jack’s head.

Two nurses obliged not long afterwards, all professionalism and calm. They confirmed that he was indeed waking up, but warned them that it could be a while before he came back to full consciousness.

Once again, they settled in to wait.

The minutes turned into hours, but eventually he began to show further signs of regaining consciousness. The call button was pushed once more and two different nurses arrived this time. Giving them room to work, she and Callum reluctantly retreated into the hallway.

Ally could hear Jack responding to them, moaning and squeezing a hand on demand. Her heart soared as she peeked into the room. The nurses checked him over and made notes on his chart, talking to him all the while.

Waiting for the all clear to go back in, Ally fiddled with her grandmother’s ring. Finally, the nurses came out into the corridor. One disappeared with a quick smile, while the other laid a comforting hand on Ally’s shoulder.

“He’s awake and he’s doing fine,” she smiled. “He seems a little anxious, but that should pass soon. Just go with the flow, don’t worry if he’s not making too much sense. He’s likely to get pretty tired so he might drift off to sleep, but you’re welcome to stay. The doctor will be around later to check on him.”

“Thank you so much,” Ally smiled gratefully.

The nurse disappeared and Ally re-entered the room. Jack stared blankly at the ceiling as she wheeled slowly towards him, fighting back tears of relief to see him awake finally.

“Hey stranger,” she said gently, pulling up beside his bed.

His eyes grew wide as he looked her up and down, staring at her as if he had never seen her before in his life. She put it down to the meds and wheeled closer.

“I’m so sorry,” Jack croaked.

“You don’t need to be sorry for anything,” she soothed, reaching up to take his hand.

He shrank away from her.

“Just relax, you’re gonna be okay,” she insisted, thrown by his reluctance to let her touch him.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled again.

She looked to Callum for back up and he shrugged, frowning. “Take it easy, dude. Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital,” Jack mumbled.

“That’s right,” Ally said gently. “And you need to rest now.”

“Didn’t mean to hurt you.” Tears gathered in his eyes and his voice was cracked and dry.

Her heart went out to him. “Hey, I’m okay – I’m not hurt,” she said. “Just relax.”

“Didn’t know what else to do,” he muttered, agitated. “Couldn’t just leave you there!”

Ally’s heart began to pound as Jack’s face twisted into a tortured grimace. “What’s he talking about?” she mumbled weakly, addressing Callum.

“Was trying to save you!” Jack choked, getting more and more worked up.

He grabbed a fistful of blanket, but he didn’t take his eyes off her. A chill ran through her, like a thousand pin-pricks piercing her skin. “I don’t understand.”

Callum’s hand was on her shoulder. “I think he’s talking about the accident.”

“Was so scared, should’ve waited, but then the gas… please don’t hate me!” Jack sobbed, distraught.

“I don’t understand,” she mumbled again, looking to Callum for clarification. Her heart began to pound. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

Callum sat down on the edge of the bed beside her, pale and drawn.

“What happened that night?” she whispered, tearing her eyes away from Jack to fix them firmly on Callum as the floor felt like it was falling away beneath her.

“It’s like I told you before, the car flipped and we ended up banged up against a tree, upside down. I went off to find some help and Jack stayed with you, in the car.” She listened to the part she knew, impatient for him to get to the part she didn’t. She felt sick. “When I got back, he’d dragged you out of the car and was kind of lying on the grass with you on top of him, trying to keep you warm. We could both smell gas – he said he was afraid the car might go up, so he had to move you. He didn’t want to Ally – he had to. He didn’t have a choice.”

Her blood ran cold as the fractured pieces of the puzzle finally slotted together.

I had a spinal injury and he dragged me out of the car.

Fumbling for the rims of her chair, she felt like she was in one of her nightmares. No matter how hard she pushed, she didn’t seem to move. Her arms refused to work, the room swam in front of her. She had to get out of here before she suffocated.