Page 199 of Finding Hope

“I was the guy who…” He clears his throat again. “It’s my fault you got hurt. It’s my fault Stephanie got hurt.”

My heart skitters in my chest and threatens to explode. A part of me wants to tear him apart. Another part wants to drop to my knees and beg he go back in time and make a different choice.

Spare my sweet Steph.

I wish so much we never met Glenn on the freeway. I wish he drove the other way that day. I wish Steph and I never got out of bed that day.

But on top of that, is the knowledge that I’ve already wasted so much time on bitterness and dreams thatcan’tcome true.

I can’t spend my life thinking about the what-ifs. I can’t waste my life wishing for something thatcan’tbe.

I look into his watery eyes, gray with sprinkles of silver and green. His smile lines are deeply etched, his forehead chiseled away with wrinkles. “Why are you here, Glenn?”

“I don’t know,” he sighs deeply. “I wanted to say sorry, I guess.”

“Sorry? Pretty fuckin’ weak after what you did. You say sorry for dinging someone’s car door with yours. You don’t say sorry for killing them.”

He nods and slowly spins the ring around his finger. “I know. It’s nothing. I know it won’t help… it’s just…” His tortured eyes meet mine. “I just got back to town. I was up at Stenten… I was released this morning.” He grazes yellowing teeth along his bottom lip. “I’ve had a lot of thinking time. And the whole time, every day and every night, I thought about you and your girlfriend.”

“You just got out today?” I frown in thought. “You came straight here?”

He nods. “I live– well,” he corrects shakily. “Ilivedabout an hour from here. A little further north. I wanted to stop here before I go home.”

“You got family waiting for you, Glenn?”

I watch his Adam’s apple bob, then his shaking head. “No, I don’t. Not anymore.”

“Not anymore?She leave because of what you did?”

“No.”

“So?” I demand impatiently. “What happened?”

His clouded eyes meet mine, then they spill over. “Drunk driver.”

“You?”

“No,” he chokes out. “Someone else.”

Nodding, I release a deep sigh. “When?”

“About two months before… before.”

“I’m sorry.”

His eyes snap to mine in shock. “You’re sorry?”

I nod. “I’m sorry for your loss. I know what that’s like.”

Nodding thoughtfully, he goes back to fidgeting with his ring. “Are you… are you doing okay, Jack? Are you–”

“Well.” I shrug. “I guess you and I react to grief in a similar way. I drank a lot afterwards, too. I became a shitty person for a long time.”

“How’d you get better?”

Better?

Images of a dancing Bambie flash through my mind. I picture her long silky hair swaying as she moves, and her big blue eyes watching me, her plump lips tempting me. Then I think of her spitting mad in my yardwearing nothing but my shirt – a shirt she never returned. Then her skateboarding in my driveway, so fucking skilled, I never once thought she’d hurt herself.

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