Chapter 42
Present day
His phone was buzzing again. He slipped his hand in his left pocket and took the phone out.
He dropped it on the table and watched it vibrate and dance across the surface like a trapped snake trying to wiggle its way out.
He pondered its existence for a moment. If he answered, he'd be forced to acknowledge the cold, hard reality of things.
If he didn't, then he was officially a coward.
He threw back the last of his drink in one go and then swiped to answer the call.
"Aberlour." His voice was rough from the burning liquor he’d been pouring down his throat for the last hour, his breathing raspy and labored from what he knew was coming.
"Hi, Gavin," she said, voice little more than a whisper over the line. Feeble and frail, both things he'd never associated her with before.
"Abby," he responded, unable to say any more than her name because of the huge lump of emotion strangling his vocal cords.
She took a shaky breath and delivered the words he’d never wanted to hear.
"He died this morning. It was quick and painless.
" It was such a clinical explanation. It wasn't the first time she'd said those words today.
He could hear that in her flat, toneless voice.
She was keeping the words tight and simple, so she could deal with the chaos of their reality. He couldn't blame her.
He couldn't blame her, but he couldn't help hating her for keeping it together so well. He couldn't help hating her for making him feel weak.
"Good—" he answered, though he wanted to say so much more. He just wasn't sure he could. Not without breaking apart and taking her with him. "Glad he didn't suffer," he finally breathed out, steadying himself.
He picked up one of the two darts on the table and threw it at the board without hesitation. It sank into the bull's-eye just as he had known it would.
The line went silent for a moment, Aberlour kept his eyes trained on the dart in the bull's-eye, wondering if it would fall or magically move away. Anything to defy the last thing he believed to be true in this world with any degree of certainty.
"He wanted me to thank you." Abby’s voice was now shaking badly as she fought for control.
Aberlour shook his head and swallowed against the lump in his throat.
"I didn't—"
She didn't let him finish.
"He told me to thank you. Told me to say he wouldn't have made it without you, so that's what I'm doing." The anger and bite to her tone far more familiar and comforting somehow than if she’d shared any of her grief.
"Yes, ma’am," he answered curtly.
The line was silent again for a moment, neither of them knowing what to say to the other now that he wasn't there to bridge the gap between them.
"Good night, Abby," Aberlour finally said, needing this goddamned conversation to be over so he could let himself sink into the depths of self-pity that he hoped would swallow him up for good.
"Night, Gavin," the shaky voice replied before the line went dead. For good this time.
He laid the phone back on the table, effectively nailing the last nail in the proverbial coffin of his past as he did so.
He picked up the last dart and rolled it around his palm.
His last real friend was dead. All his friends were dead now. The words left a bitter taste in his mouth, even if they never left his tongue.
He looked up, staring at himself in the seedy bar mirror, struggling to take stock of himself and his life.
Here he was, nothing but a mere shadow of what he'd once been.
He'd fought for this stupid country. He'd killed and been shot at, and he'd done it by holding onto the conviction that he'd been doing the right thing.
Yet now, as he sat there feeling old and alone with nowhere to call home and no one left to call, everything he thought he'd known felt like a blatant, sardonic lie.
How many years of his life had he wasted? How many pointless, lost hours had he spent agonizing over things that didn’t matter anymore?
He raised the last dart towards the board. He didn’t whisper to it. No need to, since he’d stopped feeling human a long time ago. He threw it at the board while continuing to study his reflection in the ceiling mirror.
He didn't need to see the dart land because he knew, deep in his bones, like some felt the rain in their knees, that it would land, just as it always did, in the bull's-eye.
The irony of it all. His perfect aim was the foundation of everything he'd ever put faith in.
To have it be the last truth standing atop a pile of lies was too beautiful an ending to everything that God had allowed.
He refused to look back even as he got up and left, leaving nothing behind but two twenties on the table.