Chapter Twelve
I t takes me a minute to find my voice.
“Talk to me?” I say, incredulous. “Talk to me? What could you possibly have to say? And now, all of a sudden, I—”
I can’t even. I stand up and start to stride for the door, but Rob’s faster. He reaches out and catches me by the wrist.
“Maren, wait,” he says. “Please.”
And against every ounce of my better judgment, I stop.
For a moment, he says nothing.
“I... yeah,” he lets out at last. “Talk to you. Now. It’s too late, and it’s too little, I know that, but—” He exhales, a heavy sigh. “I didn’t think you’d ever be back. Didn’t think I’d ever have to deal with this, really. And now that we got close to losing you a second time...”
He glances at Will, then back at me.
“Please,” he says, his voice suddenly raspy. “Just sit for a second.”
My knees bend before I realize what’s happening, and I sink into an armchair. His expression has completely changed from just a moment ago. Instead of focused, it’s contrite. He presses his lips together, rubs under his eyes, and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he says. “I’m not really accustomed to giving apologies.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” Will comments. “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you say you’re sorry for a single thing in your life.”
“Never had anything I was really sorry about,” Rob snaps, glaring at him. “I know what I’m about, and I don’t make mistakes. Or at least, I didn’t think I did.”
“You could start,” I say shortly, “by saying you’re actually sorry. Right?”
Rob closes his eyes, nods his head, and swallows. When he opens them again, he says, “I’m sorry, Maren.”
It sounds sincere—or as sincere as you can be using pathetic little words to make up for something as monumental as death, as destruction, as throwing someone’s life entirely off course.
And yet, even though it’s what I’ve been dying to hear, what I’ve been desperate for, what I’ve been lusting after even more than all four of them, it doesn’t quite feel like enough, and that scares me. I want it to be enough. I want to be able to forgive him. But...
“He died,” I say. “He fucking died in a horrible, painful way. And he was addicted. And you made that happen. You—”
“I didn’t make it all happen , Maren,” Rob rushes in. “I wasn’t the one who got him hooked or anything like that. I was low-level, a kid taking over for someone—you have to understand—”
Rage bubbles in my chest. “No, I don’t have to understand,” I bite out. “Why are you making excuses? Why are you equivocating? You sold him drugs. He got high. He crashed his car and died. He left me an orphan. This isn’t complicated. This isn’t something you can charm your way out of or make up some clever web of lies about. The facts are pretty fucking simple, Rob, and if you’re too stupid to understand that, then I don’t know why I’m even here listening to you.”
Rob’s eyes widen. He opens his mouth, then shuts it and blows out a breath through both nostrils, hard.
“You’re right.”
Tears are welling in my eyes, hot and painful, and I don’t even realize it until one trickles out of the corner and down my cheek.
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Fuck. Everything could have been so different.”
For some reason, I think of all the things Guy said to me—how I was supposed to have a different life, supposed to be like him, supposed to be rich and happy and comfortable and unbothered. And instead, I’m basically the opposite of all those things.
“Maren, I—” Rob glances at Will, like he’s looking for support. Will folds his arms, his face deadly serious, and nods at him. Something unspoken passes between them, and Rob seems to get the message.
He crouches, getting down on his knees before me on the floor. The whole gesture of it—the sudden humility, the pain I can see in his face when he looks up at me—actually takes my breath away. I swipe away the tear, swallow hard, and stare him in the face. I’m not going to be weak, but I’m not going to be cruel, either.
“I’m listening,” I say.
“It was my fault,” Rob says. “And all I have to say is that I was a stupid kid. I didn’t know—I was stupid.”
“Stupid is right,” Will mutters.
I dig my teeth into my lower lip. “Why did you do it?” I ask.
“I didn’t know he was your dad,” Rob says. “I didn’t know—”
“That’s not what I mean,” I interrupt, firm. “You knew he was someone . You knew he was a person. You knew, presumably, he had a life and a family and people who cared about him.” I pause to suck in a breath. Rob’s eyes cast down to the ground, and my heart lurches. “Didn’t you?” I ask.
“I didn’t think about it,” Rob says, his voice a low mumble. “It wasn’t like that.”
It’s too much for me to bear. “Well, then, what the fuck was it like, Rob?” I cry. “Because people don’t just trip and fall and end up dealing heroin. Pretty goddamn hard to do that by accident.” An impulse shoots through me, and I get to my feet. “You know what? I’ve heard enough. I’m done with lies.”
“Wait. Wait!” Before I can take a single step, Rob seizes my arm. “Maren, please. Look. Okay. Just...just sit for a second.”
For whatever reason, I glance at Will. His face is pale, his expression drawn. I expect him to nod, to encourage me to do what his best friend says, but he doesn’t. He just shrugs.
“Your choice, greasemonkey.”
My eyes flutter shut at the sound of the nickname.
Goddammit. God fucking damn it.
Because I know he’s right, and I know that if I choose to leave I’m going to spend the rest of my natural life wondering what Rob would’ve told me if I’d just given him five more minutes.
If I’d stayed and heard him out.
If I’d finally gotten the truth.
“Okay,” I say, and shake myself free of Rob’s grasp. “But don’t bullshit me.”
I sit back in the armchair, back straight. I’m going to make him work for this, I decide. I’m not accepting anything that falls in any way short. The stakes are too high, and I respect myself too much.
Rob pulls back his arm, takes a step back. He breathes out, hard.
“All right. So...” He lifts his arms, lets them fall against his sides. “You want me to be honest?” he asks, green eyes flashing. “Because that’s the honest truth. I didn’t think about that shit back then, Maren. I really didn’t.” He pauses a moment, and I watch his chest rise and fall. Unbidden, I think about leaning into him, resting my head there. “And I damn sure didn’t set out to hurt people.”
I nod, the shortest, stiffest nod I can manage.
“It started out as just little stuff, you know?” Rob goes on. “Testing the limits. Pinching stuff out of stores. Pickpocketing now and again. Joyriding once I learned how to drive. Just stupid kid shit. ‘Cause I was a stupid kid.”
“Was?” Will says softly. I don’t smile, although somewhere, in an alternate universe, it is kind of funny.
Rob ignores him. “But...well, I guess the thing about stupid kids is sometimes they become angry kids. Angry that the world doesn’t make sense. Angry that it’s so easy to be a bad guy and so much harder to be a good one. And you end up reckoning that if only bad guys get ahead, you might as well be the baddest guy there is, you know?”
“So that’s it?” I scoff. “You were some poor little rich boy with these big bad magical powers and you decided to throw it all away playing Scarface ? Give me a fucking break.”
There’s a long, taut pause.
“Yeah,” Rob says. “Yeah, I was. Is that so hard to believe?”
No, I think. No, it’s not. And that’s what stings the most. Because of course a kid like that, a man like that, would fall from mischief to petty crime to something much worse.
My thoughts must show on my face, because when Rob catches my eyes again, his expression clouds.
“You have to understand, Maren,” he says, his voice almost breaking. “I was nineteen years old with a fat bank account of family money and this goddamn strange fucking power to shift I could barely understand or tame. I was confused and angry and too smartassed for my own damn good and that’s...that’s a bad combination.” He swallows hard. “I didn’t take life that seriously because I couldn’t. I didn’t know life could matter that much. No one would care if I died, so how was I supposed to know what caring about shit looked like?”
Somewhere, deep inside me, I understand. At least, intellectually, I do. But I can’t empathize. I refuse to.
“So what changed?” I fold my arms. “One day you just wake up with a conscience? The blue fairy raps you with her wand and makes you a real boy?
This time, it’s not Rob who answers.
“He found us .”
Will steps forward, puts his hand on Rob’s shoulder.
“And he was a fucking mess, too,” Will adds. His usual joking tone is gone, replaced by a steely clarity. “But we understood each other. Had someone to talk to about all the weird shit we were capable of. What it meant to be able to do what we do. That and a little prison time will give you some perspective. Maybe not enough”—he glares at Rob—“but some.”
Rob glances at Will, and they hold each other’s gaze a moment. Then Rob shrugs Will’s hand away.
I dig my fingers into the seat cushion, willing myself not to start crying again.
Because I see it. I can’t not see it. I’ve seen it ever since I came here. The bond between them is palpable, even in their frustration with each other. It’s brotherhood, or more—something deeper than blood. How else could you spend your life by someone’s side, risk your life for the mission he sets out? How else could you agree to share everything, everything , and never resent each other? They fight, they push each other’s limits, but they never break. Not even when I arrived and threw a grenade into everything.
They found a way to stick together.
“Scarlet’s right,” Rob says, swallowing. “Without these guys I’d still be a fuckup. Or more of a fuckup,” he corrects himself. “Because—fuck.” He scrubs at his eyes, glances at the ceiling, blinks hard, but doesn’t cry. “Because I didn’t think I’d ever get that. People who cared about me. And I definitely didn’t think I’d...damn.”
“What?”
He glances at me, eyes deep and cutting as emeralds.
“I thought I could just bury my shitty past and never have to deal with it. Maybe make up for it, karmically or whatever, by doing all this noble shit now, beyond the fact that I realized it’s actually the right thing to do. But damn, I never counted on you. I never counted on how you’d stop me in my tracks, make me think. And I know it was just a damn coincidence that you took off in that car and turned on that road, ended up stranded in my forest, my men finding you. But I’ll be goddamned if there wasn’t an element of fate in it, because if l’d gone the rest of my life without looking at what I did in the eye, l’d be one sorry son of a bitch, Maren. Worse off than I am now.”
He breathes out.
“And you know what? You don’t have to stay. You don’t even have to talk to me—not a single word after this. But I do want you to know that I’m glad you’re angry at me, and you should be angry at me, because I was never angry enough at myself. It’s like...like I like to make everything everyone else’s problem. It’s the system that’s corrupt, it’s the greedy people bleeding everyone else dry. Can’t be me, right?” He gives a laugh, no humor in it. “But that’s a shitty way to see it. It’s a shitty, black-and-white way to look at the world, and it doesn’t matter if I’m on the good side if that’s my fuckin’ worldview. I don’t want to uphold that any more than I want the people of Sherwood to be crushed by some fat motherfucker in khakis with a badge on.
“So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, I am sorry. And I’m glad that I’m sorry. And I’m glad that you made me sorry. And I’m going to be sorry for the rest of my life, whether you forgive me or not, the same way I’m going to have an arrow hole in my shoulder sewn up all crooked.”
“Hey—” Will starts, but Rob ignores him.
“So that’s all.” He sucks his teeth. I hold my breath, waiting to see if he’ll say more. And he does.
“Or, no, not quite all. I mean, damn it, Maren, I’m only human.” He stops himself and smirks despite the seriousness of the situation.
“You know what I mean. I’m just...a simple man, let me put it that way. And seeing you here, looking so pretty, is absolutely killing me.” His voice breaks just a little. “And I don’t know what I could do to ever make you forgive me. I did my prison time, but I know that’s not enough. And I’m also a proud man, so I ain’t going to ask more than once. But if there’s anything I can do, anything to ever get you back, you gotta let me know.”
He pauses, his gaze steady. “Now, if you can.”