TWO
Alicia stares at the road in front of her, barely seeing it. She feels numb, her fingers cold on the steering wheel, her grey dress and high collar suffocating to her skin. She doesn't care.
Will.
How is he gone? His smiling face, laughing as she entered his office. His lips, warm and wet on her neck and chest and stomach. His anger, directed toward her for the ultimate betrayal she had committed. He had never forgiven her. And now he is dead and she would never be forgiven.
She would never be forgiven.
Something out of reflex makes her stop at the red light. She glances up, seeing the geese formation in the blue sky, the birds travelling together, knowing their place and where they belong.
Where is she even going?
Will is dead.
She imagines a jumpsuit clad convict, shooting him dead in cold blood.
She looks across the intersection, where a young mother is keeping a little boy from crossing too early, her hand across his chest. Protecting him. Her pulse pounds heavily in her ears and she swallows the spit in the back of her throat, trying to keep her lunch down. She should've tried to protect him, keep him close to her instead of pushing him away with an act that he would never forgive. Could never forgive.
Will is dead.
The mother takes her son's hand and leads him across the street. Life is so precarious. Alicia could step on the gas and kill them both in barely a second. How had she not seen it before? They did not have forever. And yet she had thought that she would. At the back of her mind, she always thought that sooner or later, it would all work out. It would be a comical chapter in the story of their life. After all, don't romances always end well? They would be together, in the end, even if they had to jump every hurdle to get there.
The finality of her mistake bears down on her and she feels the threatening tears suddenly pull at the back of her throat. She can't keep down the sob and so she doesn't even try. She watches the mother and son walk down the street as she clasps a palm to her mouth, sobbing loudly against her fingers, the pain in her chest so huge she wishes it would just open up and envelope the car.
A horn blasts behind her and she pulls off to the side to let them pass. Her forehead falls forward against the steering wheel as she sobs, her chest and shoulders moving with the violent effort. She had been so consumed with distancing herself from the one man that made her want to throw away everything that she had forgotten that she was alive. And that both of them would eventually die. Except eventually is now currently.
Because Will is dead.
She sits for several minutes in a stupor, staring at nothing in particular as the car engine idles. Her phone vibrates softly from her purse and she reaches for it, noting the 3 missed messages waiting for her. But Kalinda is calling again. She barely has the strength to answer it.
"Hi," she whispers.
"Alicia." Her voice sounds stronger than it did a half hour ago. "Come down to Chicago General."
"Kalinda, I can't," she whispers, unable to speak louder. Concerned that if she speaks above a gasp, her mistake will be suddenly too unbearable to stand. "I can't go down there."
"He's alive," she says.
Alicia laughs harshly then, convinced she's either hallucinating or taken the bend to crazy. "Kalinda, I have to-"
"He's alive, Alicia!" Kalinda repeats, unable to keep the joy from her voice.
"But…" Alicia shakes her head, her heart and stomach churning away inside her body. "Will? But you… you said-"
"That doesn't matter!" Kalinda interrupts. "Just get down here." And the line goes silent.
Alicia stares out her windshield. She doesn't dare believe it. Kalinda had already declared him dead. And now suddenly he is alive? Heart beating, blood pumping, hands and mouth moving. Hope pounds in her throat as she pulls a u-turn, earning a horn blast from the car behind her. She realizes she had been headed for Lockhart Gardner, maybe to see Diane, maybe to search for some piece of Will's lingering presence. But now he's… not dead.
She's still aware that tears are streaming down her face and she wipes them away with the back of her hand. She doesn't dare think, trying to keep her mind cautiously empty as she drives back uptown. It doesn't work very well.
Will with his body splayed across the courtroom floor, blood seeping from a gunshot to the leg. Or maybe arm. Blood spilling from his throat.
Will suddenly sitting upright on the operating table. Doctors staring at him.
Will with his hands stroking her sides, his legs tangled with hers.
She's vaguely aware of the state of her face as her heels click on the floor. The ER is quiet in the late afternoon, and she searches frantically for Kalinda, peering in every open window in hopes of seeing a familiar face. But there are none.
Had she imagined the phone call?
"Alicia!" But it isn't Kalinda that calls her name, but Diane. She turns to see the older woman walking towards her, remnants of tears shed on her own face. All of their differences and arguments over the past year suddenly seem ridiculous. Silly, even. Diane holds out her hands and Alicia accepts the embrace, finding solidity in her stoicism, familiarity in the smell of Chanel No. 5.
"Where is he?" Alicia manages to whisper into Diane's jacket, trying not to soil the expensive material. Diane pulls back to examine her face, hands still clasped on her upper arms. She's grateful for it, afraid that she'll slide to the floor if Diane lets her go.
"They just moved him to the ICU. Come on." She places a hand on her shoulder, guiding her down the hall like a teacher guiding a lost student. Alicia steadies her breathing as they ride the elevator, her eyes heavy and tired from crying. She leans her cheek against Diane's shoulder, letting the quiet moment seep through them as Diane strokes her hair.
When the elevator doors open, Kalinda is standing on the other side. "This way," she says abruptly before either of them can speak. Alicia follows her down the hall, noting the way her blue jacket looks oddly green in the fluorescent light. Their footsteps sound hollow, almost like a march. They stop outside a plain grey door, closed, with 714W lettering on the front. It's across from the nurses' station, but none of them are paying attention to their presence. The file holder nailed to the door is full with a yellow binder. Paint chips at its corners.
"We're only allowed one person at a time," Kalinda says as she steps to the side. "He's still critical-"
"But stable," Diane adds, squeezing her shoulder, encouraging her forward. "They're keeping him unconscious. Talk to him."
"O-okay," Alicia says, her voice unsteady. Her feet move on their own accord as she pushes the heavy door open and steps into the small hospital room. It seems dark at first, in comparison to the harsh lights in the hallway. Her eyes adjust as she sees the bed, raised slightly to keep Will's body at an angle. She still expects him to be dead. 90 minutes thinking of him as gone has not been erased from her mind.
There are cords and plastic electrodes visible beneath the crinkled gown they've used to cover him, and the machines beside the bed beep softly, showing vital signs. He has breathing tubes inserted into his nose, but not his mouth, his lips loosely closed. She can smell the sterile solution they've used to clean his wounds with and there's a bandage on his throat, lightly blood stained. Alicia reaches shakily out, touching the skin on his cheek. He's oddly warm, where she thought he'd be cold. It's reassuring, to see the pulse in his body. She lightly tugs on the collar of his gown, wincing as she sees the ripped flesh through his shoulder, seeing the dark stitches closing a small hole.
"Will," she breathes, half a question, but mostly to assert her presence to an unconscious person. "I… I'm sorry," she finishes lamely, sinking into the chair next to the bed. She watches him for a long time, not moving despite a nurse entering every 15 minutes to double-check his vitals. They don't speak to her and she doesn't speak to them. She doesn't even remove her coat, instead curling up in the chair and watching his unmoving face.
It's close to 9 p.m. when she looks at her phone again. Three more missed calls. She looks through her messages, deleting the old ones from Kalinda and Diane, but pausing at the one from Will. 11:32 a.m., barely 15 minutes before the shooting. She purses her lips, staring at the screen for a second before hitting the play button. She watches his face as she listens to his message.
"Alicia… just a minute, Your Honour... I'll call you back." It is painfully unsatisfying. She listens to it five more times, each time leaning closer to Will's face, hoping for his lack of expression to suddenly reveal any clue as to his reason to call. But none come.
Two of the last three messages are from Peter. She doesn't even listen to them, deleting them right away. The last is from Grace. Her voice sounds unsteady, scared.
"Mom… where-where are you? You missed dinner. Call us please."
Guilt flickers in her jaw. They had probably heard through their friends, or the internet, about what happened at the courthouse. She would call her daughter back, but first she would make a different one. She scrolls through her contacts, searching for one she hasn't used in months. She presses it without hesitation, bringing the phone steadily up to her ear. He picks up after two rings.
"Alicia."
"David."