“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.”
Tears spilled down his cheeks, but she wasn’t finished.
“Why didn’t you call? Or write or email – why didn’t you at least try? Did you even think about me at all?”
“I never stopped thinking about you,” he whispered, chin quivering.
It was on the tip of her tongue to call him a liar again, but something was wrong. He stared at her, and for an instant, she saw through the mask. Buried so deep it was barely visible, was the truth, and when she saw it, it took her breath away.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I never meant for any of this to happen. I was weak and I was wrong and I’m so sorry.”
She hung her head, her hair falling forward to shield her expression as she swiped a tear off her cheek with a quick flick of her finger.
“I always meant to come home,” he said. “I just never thought it’d be for Dad’s funeral.”
Her heart seized at his reference to Tom and the hole in her heart magnified. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him running a hand down his face.
“The longer I stayed away, the more I thought you’d hate me. And after a while, I didn’t think that coming home would do any good.”
The silence mounted around them. She stared at her drink, not having the strength to lift the glass and take another sip.
“It took me a long time to realise you weren’t coming back,” she said, her hair falling away from her face as she looked up.
The air around them crackled with words they couldn’t bring themselves to say, or hear. Sometime over the past few minutes, her anger had dissipated. The disappointment and betrayal, the heartache – all of it had gone, withered inside of her. What was left in its wake was an intense sadness, a longing for the lost years and the road not travelled. She wasn’t the only one who had suffered. He had suffered too, she could see that now.
Jack reached over to lay a trembling hand on hers. Her skin tingled, memories flooding back, stealing her strength and adding to the overall sense of emptiness.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he whispered. “Please Ally. I’m so sorry.”
Jack sat at the table and stared at the space across from him that Ally had vacated. The sun had gone down an hour ago, plunging the house into darkness, yet he didn’t move. He could still feel her hand beneath his and he flexed his fingers, longing to touch her again.