“Do you have any idea,” Sander said slowly, “how much you meant to me? You let me believe you were dead. I could have helped you.”
The words came from way, way back in the past. Like he was calling up an image of an old monument, now crumbled.
Killian’s face was expressionless.
“I didn’t want your help,” Killian said. “Then or now. I never wanted to see you again. I hated you. Don’t you get it?”
Sander was taken aback. “Why?”
Killian’s gaze slid to the window. Rain beat against the pane.
“Where the hell is she?”
“What the hell happened to you, Killian?”
“That’s what you think, isn’t it. That somethinghappenedto me. That’s how you see me. You know what? Everything thathappenedto me happened here, at home. And you had no fucking clue.”
Suddenly, Sander couldn’t remember a thing. Not anymore. Hadn’t Killian just said that Sander always saw the best in him? Maybe it wasn’t so. Maybe Sander had been mistaken this whole time. Sander had been the greedy one. The one who wanted the whole world. That desire must have blinded him.
“I couldn’t even come home for my mom’s funeral! Do you know what that does to a person?”
“You could have come back.”
“To what?” Killian sounded almost sad now. “What would I have been coming back to?”
“Come on! Me, Felicia, your family. Your parents. You know, Mikael, the money, even if it was you, you were only eighteen, you could have gotten help. You didn’t have to throw your life away,” Sander tried, as a last resort. “You don’t have to this time either. You can’t just keep running away over and over. Everything—”
“You’ll go to the police. You even said so just now, right in front of me, to your wife.”
Sander stared at him. Killian was speaking and thinking like an eighteen-year-old again. As if he was stuck. Maybe he was.
“Yes, I’m going to go to the police. But everything will work itself out. As long as you stay.”
“Andyou!” As if Killian hadn’t heard him, as if his rage had found another wave of strength, the accusation burst out and he grabbed the knife. “What do you mean I threw away my life, what the fuck do you know? You got to live, and I didn’t. You had everything, you had every opportunity, and this is what became of you? Tell me, what exactly have you done with your life? You didn’t even leave town, for Christ’s sake.”
“I stayed because I wanted to.”
“Why?”
“Because I felt guilty, obviously.”
“Guilty why?”
“I…” Sander began, but the words caught in his throat.
“Just say it.”
It came from Sander’s lips in a whisper: “What?”
“I know why you feel guilty.” Killian stepped closer to Sander again. “Do you think she didn’t tell me?”
“Felicia? What did she say?”
“Just tell me the truth.”
“I don’t know what you mean. That is the truth. This is crazy, Killian.”
“Is that all you have to say? Are you that helpless? Huh?”
