Twice in a Lifetime (Carina)

by Scott, Kierney

  “First thing you need to know is, it did not start that night. It wasn’t like everything was going along swimmingly, and then Sam got picked up by the police. He had been spiralling out of control for months and he was dragging you down with him.”

  “I…” Sarah stopped herself. She needed to hear Liam’s truth before she said anything or reacted. She took another drink to numb herself further.

  “I wasn’t sure you were even going to get the exam results you needed because you were spending so much time with him, giving him pep talks, looking after him when he was high, and when he was coming down. You started missing classes to take care of him. You were getting sucked in. I was worried about you.”

  “Why didn’t you speak to me?” she asked.

  “I did speak to you, but you were so bloody-minded. You thought Sam was going through a phase. You said he would snap out of it. But he just got worse and you got drawn deeper in.”

  “So what did you do? Say it. I need to hear the words.” She closed her eyes and waited for the sting of his confession.

  “Two days before I left, I found a gun in his flat and a bag of heroin. I confronted him. He admitted that he was dealing. I told him…fuck, you know what I told him. I told him he was a loser that would never amount to anything. And I told him to stay away from you. We got in a fight and I thought that was it. But the next day, when I saw you, you told me you had been out with him.”

  She thought back, reliving the days that led up to that night.

  “He could have got you arrested or killed and he didn’t give a fuck. He was going down and he didn’t care who he took with him. So I called the police. I grassed him up. I figured out he was getting his stash from Portobello, so I tipped off the boys at Lothian and Borders and made sure you were as far away from there as you could get.”

  “You used all of your savings to book a night for us in the Balmoral Hotel. You said you wanted our first time to be special, I didn’t realise that meant getting me out of the way so you could stick it to Sam.” A cold chill washed over her. She felt as if she was going to be sick. She forced herself to look at Liam. His heartfelt confession in the restaurant was bullshit. That night wasn’t about love; it was about vengeance.

  “Christ, Sarah! Did you hear anything I just said?”

  She shook her head. “I really thought that night was about us,” she said incredulously.

  “Of course it was about us. Who else would it be about? I didn’t want our first time to be in the back of a car. Or on the beach with me rutting away, hoping we wouldn’t get caught. You deserved better. I could have fucked you a thousand times before then, but I wanted to give you better. That night was about us starting our future together. It was about me being in love with you.”

  A shiver ran up the length of her spine as she played back the night again. She shook her head. “I remember you taking my phone. You turned it off and put it in the safe. You said it was because you wanted me all to yourself. But it was because you knew Sam would phone me when he got arrested. When you made sure he was arrested.” Her voice cracked.

  “Sam got himself arrested. I just made sure you weren’t with him.” There was no hint of remorse in his tone. “I would do it again.”

  Sarah squeezed her eyelids together; a painful pressure was building, but she would not let herself cry. Even with all the pieces, it still didn’t make sense. “We were friends. He was your best friend,” she said.

  “You were my best friend. You were my responsibility. When he put you in danger, he stopped being my friend. My only allegiance was to you.”

  “Then why did you leave?” She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer; the hurt was as fresh as it was a decade earlier.

  “I couldn’t stay. We didn’t belong there. I begged you to come with me. But you made your choice. I had to be man enough to accept it.”

  “You took away everyone’s choice when you grassed Sam up. You could have spoken to me. We could have sorted it out. Sam needed help then, not prison. He went into Saughton Prison a messed-up kid and he came out a broken man.”

  “And said what exactly? What would have made you give up on that piece of shit? Tell me the words. I will say them now.” Liam’s face contorted with an agonised plea.

  Sarah stood up. She had heard what she needed to hear. She couldn’t be in the same room as Liam, the same building. He reached for her hand but she pulled it away. She grabbed her bag and headed for the lift.

  “Sarah, come back.”

  She ignored him. She needed to get away. “Sam had a chance, and you took it away,” she said as the doors to the lift closed. Her head hurt; thoughts chased each other, darting back and forth from past to present. She thought about who Sam was before he went to jail and the man she picked up at the prison gates. All hopes he had for turning his life around were taken away when he got locked up. She could not stop thinking about what would have happened if Sam had gone into rehab then. That was the only part of the story Liam was missing. Yes, Sam had been dealing; she knew that, even then. But she had convinced him to get treatment. The day he got arrested they had gone to Spittal Street together; she had helped him fill out his intake assessment. He was going to get help. He was going to start methadone. He was going to drop off the stash he had and tell his dealer he was walking away.

  And he might have got clean then and stayed clean, or he might have screwed up and ended up in the same mess he was in now, but it would have been his doing. Liam had had no right to turn him in. He could pretend it was for her but it wasn’t. He hated Sam the minute Sam took his first hit. Liam had no tolerance for weakness. Everything was black and white for him, good and evil, his friend or his enemy. That was why it was so easy for him to walk away.

  When Sarah got to the lobby she realised she didn’t know where to go. It wasn’t as if she had any friends in the city to call. “Fantastic,” she mumbled to herself. She could go to the hotel bar but she was scared to let herself have another drink. The last thing she needed was to turn to alcohol; that could easily become a habit, and she knew all too well where that road led—no place she wanted to be.

  She settled on finding a place to eat. She wasn’t even hungry, but sometimes when the world went wrong, a girl had to eat it right.

  Hotels were notoriously overpriced so she wouldn’t be eating here. Except that, she could eat here and charge it to Liam because it was his fault. He deserved to be footing the bill this time. She would order the most expensive things on the menu. Hell, she might order everything on the menu. She ignored the little voice at the back of her mind that reminded her that Liam was insanely wealthy and the bill would not even be a blip on his radar. She shook her head in disgust at the thought of his fortune; his money was annoying her right now. His looks were annoying her; the fact that five minutes in an elevator beat all the sex she had had in the past ten years really pissed her off.

  She ordered an ice-cream sundae and a Greek salad. The waiter did not seem too fussed when she instructed him to bring the ice cream first. Maybe he was used to the practice, or maybe he was a really good waiter.

  Her phone rang. She did not recognise the number but it was the Dubai country code. It would be Liam calling to check on her, or rub it in, or just be an ass; whichever way there was no danger of her answering it so she hit decline and returned to her lovers—Ben and Jerry.

  Two minutes later the phone rang again but this time she answered it because she did not want to play games, and she wanted to tell Liam again what she thought of him.

  “You are an ass,” she said as she picked up the phone.

  “I never denied that,” he said.

  “Well, that is one thing you have not lied about so, woo hoo for you, you are making progress. Maybe in another ten years you won’t be a complete cretin.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I am eating the world right. And you are paying for it, by the way. And you are paying for my return flight. And you know what? You are going to
pay for a therapist so I can figure out why I spent so many years in love with such an ass.”

  “Fine. Just tell me where you are.”

  “No, I am not going to tell you where I am. And I am not going to speak to you any longer because my dinner is melting. Goodbye.” She turned the phone down so she could not hear it ring and returned to her ice cream. Why couldn’t men be like ice cream—sweet and comforting, and always satisfying? Well, Liam was the last thing, but that was really all he had going for him at this point.

  Sarah finished her first course and then decided to phone the hospital to check on her granny. She would be out of surgery by now, probably still a little drugged up though. She was going to send Liam her phone bill too. Man, she wished he were poor, so that would sting more.

  “Hello, I would like to speak to a patient: Gladys Campbell.”

  The nurse patched her through.

  “Hiya, hen. How is the sunshine? You brown as a berry yet? It is still chucking it down here. You’ll not be missing the weather.” Her granny sounded her usual chipper self.

  “How are you feeling? Did the surgery go well?”

  “They dinnae do it yet, hen.”

  “I thought it was scheduled for this morning?”

  “Aye, it was. But there was an emergency and I got pushed back. Now got to wait until after the weekend. Hoping to have it done on Monday, but the consultant says it depends on what cases come in at the weekend.”

  “What do you mean they have postponed it? They can’t just leave you hoping you will get a spot in the operating theatre. That is totally unacceptable.” Sarah could hear someone coughing in the background. It sounded as if someone was going to bring up a lung. Great, the last thing Granny needed was to catch something in hospital. Granny needed to have her operation and get home.

  “Dinnae fret, hen. They have given me this thingamy with a button. I just push it every time my hip gets a wee bit too sore. And let me tell you, I don’t stand for any carry-on so I am pushing it a fair bit.”

  “They gave you a morphine pump—that is how they are dealing with it?” Sarah took a deep breath and tried to control her frustration. She knew the NHS was cash strapped and waiting lists were necessary, but there was no excuse for leaving an octogenarian waiting so long, completely bedridden and in pain.

  “It is fine, hen. Dinnae be getting yourself all worked up. I just wish the nurses would take me down for a smoke.”

  “Gran, you can’t smoke before an operation. It will make it harder to heal. I think it is time for us to have that talk about you quitting.”

  “I cannae hear ya, hen. This connection is patchy. Kiss the prodigal son for me.” The phone went dead. Sarah stared down at her phone. Her grandmother had just hung up on her! She could not even convince her own grandmother to read a smoking cessation leaflet. That was hardly a ringing endorsement of her abilities as a drugs counsellor. And then there was Sam…

  Sarah motioned to the waiter; she was going to need some cake too.

  “Would you like that after your salad or before?”

  She scrunched up her nose. She didn’t feel like a salad any more but she might as well make some effort to appear balanced. “Can I have them at the same time, please?”

  “Certainly, madam.” He smiled, not even a hint of judgement on his face. He was definitely going to get a big tip.

  Liam entered the restaurant and spotted her before she had time to duck under the table. She was too exhausted to run and too deflated to fight.

  “I thought you were having ice cream,” he said when he reached the table.

  She glared at him. “I did. These curves take a lot to maintain.” She patted the expanse of her hip.

  “Then I suggest you order a piece of pie as well. I am quite partial to those curves.” He smiled; the dimple in his cheek appeared. Man, he was gorgeous. Why did he have to be so good-looking? And so devoid of compassion? It was a horrible combination.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “Because it is the only place I have an open bill—well, the only place you know about. You gave yourself away when you said I was paying.” He glanced at the menu.

  “Damn it, I would make a shit spy too—cross that off the list of potential new careers.”

  “Are you in the market for a new job?” If she wasn’t mistaken, he sounded hopeful. What an ass, an arrogant, smug, gorgeous ass. Her hands itched to punch him.

  “No, I’m not in the market for a new job. I am very good at my job. Are you in the market for a soul? You really could use one.”

  He motioned for the waiter’s attention. Liam ordered a steak with a baked potato and a salad.

  “You are not having dinner with me. If you want to eat here, find another table.”

  “I am paying for dinner. I will sit wherever I bloody like.”

  “Then you will be sitting alone.”

  She picked up her bag to leave, but he wrapped his large hand around her wrist. It wasn’t painful, but there was enough pressure to tell he was serious. “Sit down, Sarah. We aren’t done speaking. You can’t run away every time you hear something you don’t like.”

  “I don’t have anything else to say to you.”

  “I have plenty left to say to you.”

  “You are hurting me,” she lied, and instantly her hand was released. It was the one positive attribute she could still find in Liam. He would never knowingly hurt her, at least physically. Her anger was blunted slightly at this realisation.

  “Sit down, Sarah, or I won’t help Sam.”

  She smiled bitterly. There it was, the real Liam, mercenary and cruel. “Thank you for reminding me who you really are. I nearly forgot I hate you. Remember you said you hated the way I looked at you with pity because I knew your past? Well, you don’t have to worry about that now, because now all I see when I look at you is the person who betrayed me and destroyed my friend’s future.”

  “Sam didn’t have a future. He destroyed that himself. You can’t blame me for that.”

  “Sam had messed up, but he was going to get help. He had a chance and you took it away. I won’t forgive you for that.”

  “That is part of your problem, Sarah. You think people can change. People are who they are.”

  “What is the point of all this—” she gesticulated wildly “—if people can’t grow and change?”

  “Why does there need to be a point? The universe doesn’t owe us meaning. We are here. We find whatever happiness we can, we get on with it and we die. That’s it.”

  “You really should be an inspirational speaker,” she said sarcastically.

  “Talk to me, Sarah. Really talk. Don’t run away this time.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. She thought again about reaching across the table and slapping him. “Me run away? That’s your job, asshole. You screw things up and then you fuck off. You want me to talk and tell you what I feel? I think you destroyed our best friend because you are stupid and pig-headed and you overgeneralise. You knew one addict who didn’t get clean, and you write them all off. I hate you. I hate me for thinking I loved you.”

  “I tried to protect you, Sarah. I did the best I could with what I had at the time. I was a stupid kid trying to get by. Did I fuck up? Yeah, I guess you could say I did. But would I do it again, to keep you safe? Without a doubt.”

  She was too angry to look at him. She balled her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. The connection she’d thought they had was gone. Those weren’t his emotions she was seeing on his face; they were just her projecting. She had seen what she wanted to see. She was such an idiot for loving him.

  “You can never really admit you are wrong. There is always a caveat. ‘I fucked up, but’. You arrogant bastard. You grassed Sam up. He was our friend. You betrayed him and then you betrayed me. So don’t even pretend what you did had anything to do with protecting me.”

  Liam sighed. He ran a hand through his hair. “Of course I was protecting you. I loved you, Sarah.
He was putting you in danger. What kind of man would I be if I let him do that? Do you want me to say I am sorry? Because I will. I am sorry about how everything turned out. But I am not sorry for what I did.”

  She gasped at the audacity of his logic. He didn’t get it. He never would, and it was time that she stopped pretending he was someone he wasn’t. “If you loved me you wouldn’t have turned Sam in. Even if you had given up on him, I hadn’t. And you knowingly and wilfully hurt someone I love. You don’t do that to someone you care about.”

  Liam pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. She could feel frustration radiating off him. “Damn it, Sarah, I was trying to take care of you. And Sam. You were in over your head. He needed help and I thought a short sharp shock was the wake-up call he needed. You were too soft and too young to deal with him. The problem was bigger than all of us.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know why you did it. But it wasn’t for me. And it sure as hell wasn’t for Sam. I never give up on people, you know that. But guess what, Liam—I am officially giving up on you. I don’t love you. I don’t even like you any more. I hate you. I actually hate you.”

  His gaze went to the table. He shook his head. He looked as defeated as she felt.

  “That’s fine, but you need to get the facts straight about this narrative you have playing in your head. Yes, I grassed Sam up, but you know what, I was eighteen and I thought I was doing the right thing. We were all in way over our heads. He had a fucking gun, Sarah. He was dealing heroin. I thought he was going to get you both killed. I tried talking to you about getting him help but you were so sure you had everything under control. I thought it was the only chance to save both of you. So, yeah, I fucked up. But it’s not like I had a whole lot of choices available to me at the time.”

  “I did have it under control. He was going to start methadone, the next day, Liam,” she shouted. A woman at the table next to them turned and glared at them, but she didn’t care. Let people stare.

  “He has had years to get clean and you have had years to help him and yet here he is, in Dubai, facing drugs charges. You didn’t have it under control then, and you don’t have it under control now.”