“You’re a fine one to talk!” she shot back. “All you’ve done for the past few days is push me away.”
“That isnae fair.”
“Isn’t it? It seems pretty fair from where I’m standing!”
He opened his mouth for an angry retort but then snapped it shut. He looked away.
“Was...was it my fault?” she asked finally, giving voice to the dark thoughts that had plagued her all day.
Oskar blinked, startled. “Yer fault? What would make ye think that?”
“I was the one who spotted Alfred Brewer. If I hadn’t, he wouldn’t have run. We wouldn’t have chased him. He wouldn’t have unleashed that wagon. There wouldn’t have been a fire. People wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”
“Lass,” Oskar said, his voice a soothing anchor amidst the storm of guilt and grief that threatened to consume her. “Ye canna blame yerself for the actions of a madman. Alfred Brewerwas responsible for his own choices, and no one else. Why would ye think otherwise?”
“But... so much hurt,” she whispered.
“Aye, none of it yer fault.”
“But...I could have done more. If I’d been quicker, if I had more medical knowledge, if I’d trained as a nurse or a doctor instead of an occupational therapist then maybe—”
“Lily, stop.” Oskar’s voice was firm and commanding. “Where is all this coming from? Why are ye saying all this?”
Lily looked away.The screech of tires. The blare of a siren. The beep beep beep of a ventilator.“Because it’s happened before.”
Oskar said nothing for a long moment. Then his hand brushed hers briefly. “What happened before, lass?” he asked softly.
Lily had never spoken of it. Not to anyone other than her medical team. She wasn’t sure she could speak of it now, even though she wanted to.
“What happened to ye, Lily?” Oskar pressed softly. “Why do ye have that scar along yer back? Why do ye suffer so much pain? What do ye mean ‘because it happened before’? What did?”
Looking into Oskar’s deep blue eyes, feeling the nearness of his solid, reassuring presence, she wanted to let it all come out. She was tired of holding it in.
“People getting hurt because of me,” she said at last. “That’s what’s happened before.”
Her words hung heavy in the air between them. Lily flinched, expecting the words of denouncement that would send Oskar turning away from her. How could he still want to know her after what she’d done?
He didn’t say anything for a long, heavy moment. When he spoke he didn’t say the words she’d expected to hear. “So that is why ye push yerself so hard?”
“What?”
“That’s why ye are so determined to help others and willnae admit when ye are in pain yerself. Ye are punishing yerself and trying to make amends for a crime ye have already tried and convicted yerself for.”
Lily studied him. No judgment lingered in his eyes, only understanding. She would have preferred hatred.
“You don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head. “It was my fault. All my fault. I was driving. I should have been paying more attention, driving more slowly, breaking earlier, taking a different route. Perhaps if I’d done any of those things I wouldn’t have hit that other vehicle that day. Perhaps that couple in the other car and my parents in mine wouldn’t have died. But they did.”
The screech of tires. The blare of a siren. The beep beep beep of a ventilator.
Not your fault, the police had said.Not your fault,the doctor’s had said.Not your fault, her therapist had told her time and time and time again.
But it made no difference.
It didn’t change the fact that if she hadn’t got behind the wheel that day, her parents and that young couple would still be alive. She was a killer, regardless of the fact that it had been an accident. She was a killer, regardless of what everyone told her. It was a cruel trick that the universe had played that she should be the one to survive when everyone else didn’t. She would have preferred it to be the other way around.
Oskar’s strong arms went around her and pulled her to him, holding her tightly.
“It’s alright, lass,” he whispered, his voice a comforting murmur against her hair. “It happened to ye as well, ye ken? It wasnae something yedidbut something yesuffered. That ye suffer for still. This is what causes ye such pain isnae it?”
