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.