Karin Slaughter - Fallen

He asked, “Is this a bad time?”

She opened the door wide. “Not at all.”

He glanced around the room. “Am I allowed back here?”

“I think we can make an exception.”

He stood in the middle of the room. His hands stayed in his pockets.

Sara asked, “How’s Evelyn doing?”

“She’s good. At least, I think she is.” He took his hands out of his pockets, but only to start twisting the wedding band on his finger. “Faith’s going to take some time off work to take care of her. I think it’ll be good for both of them to have some time together. Or really bad. You never know.”

Sara couldn’t help it. She looked at the wadded-up note in the trashcan. Why was he still wearing his wedding ring? Probably for the same reason Angie kept leaving notes on Sara’s car.

Will asked, “What is it?”

She indicated the table. “Can we sit down?”

He waited until she was seated, then took the chair across from her. He said, “This doesn’t sound good.”

“No,” she agreed.

He tapped his fingers on the table. “I think I know what you’re going to say.”

She said it anyway. “I like you, Will. I really, really like you.”

“But?”

She touched his hand, resting her finger on his wedding ring.

“Yeah,” he said. No explanation. No excuse. No offer to take off the ring and throw it to the wind. Or at the very least, stick it in one of his damn pockets.

Sara forced herself to continue. “I know that Angie is a big part of your life. I respect that. I respect what she means to you.”

She waited for a response, but none seemed to be coming. Instead, Will took her hand. His thumb traced along the lines in her palm. Sara couldn’t stop the reaction her body felt from his touch. She looked down at their hands together. She let her finger slip under the cuff of his shirt. The ridge of the scar felt rough against her skin. She thought about all of the things she did not know about him—the torture he had endured. The pain he’d brought on himself. And all of it had happened with Angie right by his side.

“I can’t compete with her,” Sara admitted. “And I can’t be with you if I’m worried about you wanting to be with her.”

He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to be with her.” She waited for him to say that he wanted to be with Sara. But he didn’t.

She tried again. “I can’t be second place. I can’t know that no matter how much I might need you, you’ll always go running to Angie first.”

Again, she waited for him to say something—anything—that would convince her that she was wrong. Seconds ticked by. It felt like an eternity.

When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet that she could barely hear him. “She cried wolf a lot.” He licked his lips. “When we were little, I mean.” He glanced up to make sure Sara was listening, then looked back down at their hands. “There was this one time when we were placed together. It was a foster home. More like a factory farm. They were doing it for the money. At least the wife was. The husband was doing it for the teenage girls.”

Sara felt her throat tighten. She struggled against the impulse to feel sorry for Angie.

“So, like I said, Angie cried wolf a lot. When she accused the guy of molesting her, the caseworker didn’t believe her. Didn’t even open a file. Didn’t listen to me when I said she wasn’t lying this time.” His shoulders went up in a shrug. “I would hear her at night sometimes. Screaming when he hurt her. He hurt her a lot. None of the other kids cared. I guess they were happy it wasn’t happening to them. But for me …” His words trailed off. He watched his thumb move along the back of her fingers. “I knew that they’d have to open an investigation if one of us got hurt. Or hurt ourselves.” He tightened his grip around her hand. “So, I told Angie, this is what I’m going to do. And I did it. I took a razor blade out of the medicine cabinet and I cut myself. I knew it couldn’t be a half measure. You’ve seen it.” He gave a strained laugh. “It’s not a half measure.”

“No,” she agreed. It was hard to understand how he’d managed not to pass out from the pain.

“So,” Will said. “That got us out of that home and they shut it down and the people running it weren’t allowed to foster kids anymore.” He looked up, blinking a few times to clear his eyes. “You know, one of the things Angie said to me the other night was that I would never do that for you—never cut myself like that—and I think she’s right.” There was a sadness in his smile. “Not because I don’t care about you, but because you would never put me in that kind of situation. You would never ask me to make that choice.”

Sara looked into his eyes. The sun streaming in through the windows turned his eyelashes white. She could not imagine what he’d been through, the level of desperation that had driven him to take that razor in hand.

“I should let you get on with your day.” He leaned over and kissed her hand, letting his lips linger for a few seconds. When he straightened up, something about him had changed. His voice was firmer, more determined. “You have to know that if you ever need me, I’ll be there. No matter what else happens. I’ll be there.”

There was something final in what he said, as if everything was settled. He almost seemed relieved.

“Will—”

“It’s all right.” He gave one of his awkward laughs. “I guess you’re immune to my astounding charm.”

Sara felt a lump in her throat. She couldn’t believe that he was giving in so easily. She wanted him to fight for this. She wanted him to pound his fist on the table and tell her there was no way this was over, that he wasn’t going to give her up that easily.

But he didn’t. He just slid his hand out of hers and stood up. “Thank you. I know that sounds stupid.” He glanced at her, then at the door. “Just—thank you.”

She heard his footsteps cross the floor, the noise from the hallway as the door swung open. Sara pressed her fingers to her eyes, trying to stop the tears. She couldn’t get past his tone of resignation, his easy acquiescence to what he clearly felt was inevitable. She had no idea what his story about Angie was meant to accomplish. Was Sara supposed to feel sorry for the woman? Was she supposed to find it romantic that Will was ready to kill himself in order to rescue her?

She realized now that Will was more like Jeffrey than she’d wanted to admit. Maybe Sara had a thing for firemen, not cops. Both men had shown a propensity for running straight into burning buildings. In the last week alone, Will had been shot at by gangsters, threatened by a psychopath, browbeaten by at least three women, emasculated in front of strangers, crammed into the trunk of a car for hours on end, and willingly volunteered himself to go into a situation where he knew there was a high probability that he would be killed. He was so damn intent on rescuing everyone else in the world that Will didn’t realize what he really needed was rescuing from himself. Everyone took advantage of him. Everyone exploited his good graces, his decency, his kindness. No one thought to ask Will what he needed.

His whole life had been spent in the shadows, the stoic kid sitting in the back of the classroom, afraid to open his mouth for fear of being found out. Angie kept him in the dark because it served her selfish needs. Sara had quickly realized her first time with Will that he’d never been with a woman who really knew how to love him. No wonder he had capitulated so easily when she’d told him it was over. Will had taken it as a given that nothing good in his life would ever last. That was why he had sounded so relieved. His toes had been dangling over the edge. He was too afraid to take the leap because he’d never really fallen.