Saving

Nick suffers guilt over a troubled past. A past he wishes he could forget all about.

When a terrifying snowstorm snatches his Scottish town, he must save a life trapped in a broken car.

But perhaps that is not the only life he will be saving.

A short story of finding faith by S. H. Miah that will warm your soul.

Saving

The sky transformed, seemingly all at once, into the shade of the ghost that had plagued Nick’s dreams for the worse part of a decade. The heavens no longer brought light—they brought hell in the form of hammering snow. That snow held within it a fiery attitude, snarling as it was flung by a feisty wind directly into Nick’s face as he stood outside the front yard of his suburban three-bedroom home with a yellow picket fence that was now drenched in a knee deep prison of snow.

The sun was blotted out by rushing particles of snow that snatched the breath from Nick like a prison guard’s baton had thumped his stomach. He felt an iciness seep under his leather biker’s jacket, as if an arctic spider crawling through every nook and cranny in his heavy-set army trousers and thick Timberlands. The chill pierced his skin with the violence of a solitary confinement inmate gouging a dagger. Nick’s eyes almost rolled into the back of his head in a far-fetched, rather useless attempt to stave off the chill. His fingers were latched onto the fence’s ridged top, devilishly cold, just as a fresh gust of wind attempted to tear him away from his home.

Cassandra Street in front of him, his beloved street, the street of his parents and those before them, looked like the set of a nineties apocalyptic movie. The sidewalks on which Nick had skateboarded for many years were now engulfed in pale pilings of snow, the fresh scent of nastiness coating the insides of his nose. The lamppost was bent like barbed wire, wrapped in a sheath of pale destruction, as if warning the rest of the street of what was to come.

Nick could sense the snow melt along his tongue, a chilling taste far from the luxury of fresh river water from the Scottish Highlands, and a taste that only served to send cold shocks along his nerves to his brain. He glanced through the murk to the other end of the road, perhaps in hope of something better, or perhaps only to send the snowy devastation to his periphery. But he merely uncovered a silver Ford Focus with its wheels helplessly spinning in a grip of snow, engine groaning from the effort of a failing escape. The car’s dark-yellowy fog lights, weak and blinking, dodged the snow like a prisoner through a cafeteria crowd to signal to Nick.

The car was trapped. Like Nick had been trapped for over a decade. Just as the snowstorm was worsening. And, for the innocent driver, there was no escape.

Nick's body felt like lead in thick BBQ sauce as he waded towards the vehicle, its growls growing louder. He stepped off the pavement and onto an icy main road. His feet almost slipped. His eyes felt attacked with white, and he struggled to make out the dying form of the Focus.

His heart hammered, palpitating as it was pelted by shards of snow. The cold bit into his legs, causing them to slow as he moved towards the Focus. The driver inside—Nick understood how they felt.

Stifled. Inept. Powerless beyond imagination.

But people like Nick, criminals like Nick, deserved to feel that way.

Not innocent citizens.

Nick blasted through the wall of snow with newfound motivation. He emerged into brightness snapping at his eyes. The Focus still spun, wheels begging for release from their white shackles, and Nick noticed why the driver couldn't leave.

The Focus was covered with snow, bottom half buried in nature's prison. And the more snow that fell, the more reached through the half-open windows to suffocate the driver.

Nick bounded over to the passenger window since the car was slanted dangerously to that side. He pressed against the glass, then saw the driver, a woman in her thirties with brown hair and skin paler than a cleaver in the sun, hyperventilating as her lower half was caked in snow.

How had so much gotten inside? Was the snow sentient, seeking to kill the innocent driver?

Nick struggled to remain calm as he knocked on the glass. The woman's head snapped to him. Eyes wide in fear. Mouth open in shock but with no sound escaping.

"I'll get you out," Nick said, latching a hand onto the window as a gust of wind almost tore him in two. He held on, then righted himself as his foot slid into a pile of snow.

Nick didn't have time to think of efficiency. The heavens shovelled more snow down, as if trying to bury them both. As if this was their joint funeral, where they would be lowered into the ground. Never to get out.

Nick punched through the window, fingers puncturing the glass. Pain wracked his knuckles, but the adrenaline pushed it out.

The woman was still static in shock, and Nick clamped down his spiking anger.

"You need to get out. Come over to this side."

Something, maybe some otherworldly force, snapped the woman into the present. She clambered over on knobbly knees to the window, but couldn't get through.

"My legs are stuck," she said, looking down with those horrified eyes. "Please, God, my legs are—" She let out a silent scream, shock sending her mind to another realm again. Eyes flicking to Nick's and then down at her immobile legs.

"Just calm down," Nick said. His voice was hurried. He tried to keep it calm, however. "Relax your legs and don't waste energy. I'll get you out." He grabbed the door handle through the window and pulled. It wouldn't budge, but the mechanism did release.

So the only thing left was an otherworldly level of strength to tug the door through feet of solid snow. Nick might've gained the prison gym muscle, but he wasn't a freak.

But what other choice did he have?

To let the woman die?

He shafted his hands within the open window and the top of the door frame and pulled as hard as he could. His muscles screamed from the effort like an inmate being forced to work, as if he was degenerating himself in an effort to help this poor woman.

But Nick knew that wasn’t true. That was his old way of thinking playing out. That helping others wasn’t worth it. That he should only care about himself and no one else in the world.

But he knew that was false. Knew it was a ruse his own mind played on him. A trick it would employ to push him into the worst of criminality. As if society didn’t matter. Only his own agenda.

He tugged again, and this time a little of the snow gave way with a squelch. But not much, and the storm was picking up, devastating and harrying all at once. Nick’s hearing was snatched by a deafening roar as more gusts of wind coalesced around them. It was as if the gusts were on a personal mission of jamming that door shut as Nick pulled again.

“You see the snow there?” Nick asked the woman, pointing to the collecting piles of white between the door and the passenger seat. “Shovel it out with your fingers. Quickly, for God’s sake.”

The urgency in Nick’s tone caused the woman to freak into action. She grabbed the snow with her fingers and chucked it through the window, despite her legs still being jammed. The snow smacked Nick’s jacket, but he didn’t care. Better out the car than in, even if he was pelted in the process.

The snowstorm picked up, despite such a thing seeming impossible. Nick breathed in a deadly chill that caused his chest to feel icy, and his muscles slowed as the cold seeped into them. He pulled again, tendons straining, prying open the door a little more as the woman shoved handfuls of snow onto his torso.

All throughout, Nick didn’t budge, like a statue as the snowstorm wrecked the world around him.

But the woman wasn’t in such a good condition, especially considering she was wearing a work skirt and a thin white cotton shirt. Nowhere near enough to brace a snowstorm like this.

“I can’t anymore,” the woman said, pleading to Nick with her eyes. She held her hands up. “They won’t work anymore.”

Nick didn’t want to betray just how close to her state he was feeling. “Just keep trying,” he said, pulling the door harder. His fingers were chilled from the metal, numb as the edges of the door frame dug into his skin, drawing cold blood. It slipped down to his wrist, then dropped to the snow. He couldn’t feel a single trickle.

He looked to his right and noticed a gap between the door and the car form. It was working, his plan was working. He shifted to the right and pushed his leg into that gap. Then, like he was at the prison gym again doing the leg press, he leaned back and kicked out as hard as he could, and the door finally slammed through the snow.

It wasn’t fully open, but just about enough for her to squeeze through the gap.

“My legs,” the woman said, voice releasing in a gasp. She looked down in panic. “I can’t feel my legs.”

“I’ve got you,” Nick said, braving the snow tackling his face as he leaned in and grabbed her by the underarms. He pulled her out, her feet popping from the mounds of snow collecting in the car. A few more minutes and the entire inside would’ve been filled with snow, impossible to escape from.

Then, with every ounce of strength left in his body, Nick hauled the woman onto his shoulders and legged it back to his house, snowstorm kicking at his back to bring him down. To end his mission of saving someone that was as trapped as he had been.

Thankfully, the front entrance wasn’t barricaded by the snow. Nick hurried in, in good condition despite the harrowing cold and deathly chill sweeping through Cassandra Street.

But, given the condition of the woman in his arms, he knew she might not have a chance of making it.

***

The snowstorm was deadly, howling from outside, the wind battering the house windows like an inmate trying to break out. Nick sat inside his bedroom, on a rickety old chair belonging to his mother that hadn't been used since the day she died. The outside light through an uncurtained window was hauntingly bright, and Nick shielded his eyes, switching his gaze to his bed.

Under the darkness of the navy painted walls, Nick noticed the rising and falling form of the woman he had saved. She was on his bed, lying whilst unconscious, utterly beholden to fate as to whether she'd make it out alive.

Given the snowstorm outside, and the fact that the woman's Focus couldn't drive in the piles of white, it was clear an ambulance wasn't arriving anytime soon.

Especially not since, in the hollowed out town of Janbridge with its low population and potholed roads, the ambulance service had to rush out from the nearby city of Edinburgh, around twenty minutes away at a minimum.

The central heating was on full blast, yet Nick found his hands chilled as if they'd been pulled out of a cryochamber.

His right leg bounced, a nervous habit since childhood, and he kept his gaze on that woman, on making sure she was all right. Making sure she survived. Because someone hadn't survived, a long time ago.

The thought still haunted Nick to that very day.

Nick wiped his face, tiredness sifting into his body as the adrenaline faded from his veins. He couldn't get sleep, get rest. What if the woman woke up needing something, and Nick was in another room sleeping?

Nick glanced down at his finger, still bleeding, with the stains of red like marks of honour. He brushed the blood with his other hand, but the marks had dried, as if permanent imprints in his flesh. Permanent badges of the life he had saved.

If she survived, that was. And it was a big if.

The woman groaned, drawing Nick's attention. When they'd entered the house, her skin was shivering more than an old man dumped full body in ice during a Scottish winter. Her teeth chattered as if boulders smashed against one another, and her eyes had rolled into the back of her skull.

Nick, for a few moments, had thought the woman dead. Had thought his mission failed.

But she breathed, ruggedly, but just about. He'd wrapped her in a spare coat, before hauling her upstairs with the dregs of strength he had remaining.

He wasn't a doctor, didn't know what was wrong with her. And since the ambulance wouldn't arrive until the storm blew over, Nick had to figure things out himself.

He'd hurried the woman into his bed and almost shoved the covers over her. Central heating then turned on, that was as warm as Nick could make her.

And hopefully it would be enough.

Hopefully.

Another groan elicited Nick's attention. In the hour since Nick had dragged the woman inside, she'd turned over in bed, shivered and wracked with an unease Nick couldn't begin to imagine.

But now her eyes were wide open, blue eyes that looked more chilled than vibrant. Nick just stared at her, suddenly feeling awkward like a teenager again asking out a girl for the first time. And that experience hadn't ended well for him at all.

"Uh, hello," Nick said, scratching the back of his neck. "You're…do you remember anything?"

The woman's eyes blinked, then again, and Nick saw her neck move. It was as if she wished to speak but was unable to, as if her mouth had been clamped with her lips welded together.

"You'll get there," Nick said, in as reassuring a voice as he could muster. Whether it worked or not he didn't know, because the woman merely shifted her head along the thin pillow and settled against the bed again.

The woman merely lay on her side, looking utterly bemused more than anything. Then, she slid her gaze away from Nick and stared around at the rest of the room. Nick spied the shock reverberating through her eyes, before she sat up quickly in bed, frantically moving her arms to get out, shifting the covers.

But her arms were too weak, too flimsy to deal with movement so soon after being unconscious. Like her vocal chords, her limbs decided not to work, rendered almost immobile, and she flopped back down in bed.

It pained Nick to see the fear in her eyes, as if he was some kind of kidnapper. He’d seen pain in the eyes of his victims before, but he was a changed man. He wasn’t a criminal, wasn’t some kind of delinquent seeking his latest fix by kidnapping a woman in the middle of the most dangerous storm they’d had in the last century.

“You were in the snowstorm,” Nick said. He pointed to the window, where snow rushed past and pattered the window from time to time. “There’s a storm out, and you were in a car.” The woman glanced at him once more, before averting her gaze as Nick continued. “I managed to get you out and bring you here. You were…colder than a lake in Antarctica, so thank God you got here in time. You for sure would’ve died if it was a few more minutes.”

Nick did find it strange how he was at exactly the right place at the right time. Especially since Cassandra Street was quieter than the dead of night at the best of times, and barely anyone used it since it had a dead end on the side.

So why on earth was the woman driving through there in the first place?

Nick didn’t think he’d get any answers soon, judging by the look on the woman’s face.

The woman looked a little skeptical, and Nick suddenly realised what he looked like. His brown, shaggy hair was unkempt and the strands dangled by his ears as if forgotten, having not been brushed in what felt like forever. His beard was much the same, scraggly and stretching down to his sternum, wilder than a forest. His clothes didn’t fare much better, dishevelled and all old, like he’d stolen them from ancient tombs before dragging them on.

Nick hadn’t bought new clothes in years. He hadn’t changed much about his childhood home. In fact, he felt it had changed him greatly in the last few years.

“I’m not a kidnapper,” Nick said. “You’re free to go whenever you want to. But I suggest staying until the storm blows over and the ambulance can come and make sure you’re okay.”

The woman gave a sigh, though since the air only entered and left through her nose, it sounded more like a strangled gasp. She lay back down on the bed, staring at Nick the entire time, not letting her gaze leave his body. Watching and observing him, looking for any signs of being a hostage and not a patient being cared for.

Her eyes were filled with distrust, filled with a kind of hatred that Nick couldn’t understand for the life of him.

But his job wasn’t to understand others—it was only to serve them, serve them in a way he hadn’t served them before. Serve them due to the guilt raking through his mind whenever memories of the old days surfaced as they always did.

“I’ll get some water,” Nick said, and he exited the room without another word, confused at the strange stirrings in his heart as he hopped down the stairs to the kitchen.

When he returned to the bedroom, the woman was sitting up, eyes darting across the room. She gave off the impression of thinking she was still being kept hostage, which was anything but the truth.

Although, in a sense, Nick saving her had more to do with himself, his own redemption, than her.

He handed her the glass, then retreated to his seat again, that awkwardness overtaking his motions once more when within her vicinity.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

“Don’t say that,” Nick said.

She paused in the middle of sipping the water. “What?”

“I don’t deserve it,” Nick said. “I’ll get it in the next life, if there is a next life.”

The woman gave a small chuckle. “I don’t know whether to be grateful or weirded out.” She then sniffed the water, eyed the clear liquid up close. “This isn’t spiked with something, is it?”

“If I wanted to kill you, believe me I had plenty opportunity.” Nick sent another glance outside. “I don’t know how long the storm is gonna take, so take your time recovering. I’ll see if there’s any food left later and cook something up.”

“Is the gas still working?” the woman said. She shifted along the bed as much as her body would allow and looked outside. “The entire world looks covered with the stuff. If I was a little girl again, I might've been fascinated.”

Nick would’ve been, too, if he hadn’t lost his grandfather to a storm at the age of thirteen.

“What’s your name?” Nick asked, out of the blue. He just had this intense desire within him to know, a desire he couldn’t explain.

“Allison,” the woman said, suddenly seeming as shy as him.

And Nick understood why. The same issue was at the prison he’d been an inmate of. A name was an identifying factor, something to know someone else by. Knowing someone’s real name when nicknames were the norm meant a connection.

And Nick and the woman had formed just that, through a single word that rolled off the tongue as easily as water flowed from the Niagara.

“Allison,” Nick repeated. “That sounds nice. And your kidnapper’s name is Nick. And no, it’s not short for Nicholas. And yes, I was joking about the kidnapper comment.”

“Gee, I’d never have imagined,” Allison said. She sipped the water again, and they slipped into a silence again. Though, rather than the awkwardness, the silence was comforting, as if they were a married couple of thirty years—

Calm yourself, Nick mentally told himself. You’re saving the woman and then letting her go as soon as the storm clears over, okay. Don’t get ahead of yourself.

“Do storms like this happen all the time?” Allison asked, turning to face him once more. The glass of water was on the bedside table, with finger marks across the steamed up surface.

“You don’t live around here, do you?” Nick said. “We’ve got farmers and lumberjacks and people who run small businesses and cafés. You look like an accountant from the clothing. So, you’re from the city?”

“Hit the nail on the head,” Allison said.

“But why are you here, then?” Nick said. “You know there’s a dead end over there? Nothing on the other side? And this is a small town with nothing to offer, unless you want a scone with the snow.”

Allison dropped herself into silence once more and turned over in bed. She sighed, and Nick knew she was unwilling to speak to him. It was fine, since many people ignored him over the years. Especially employers after hearing of his criminal record.

And what was he expecting—Allison to like someone like him? Nick’s duty was to get the woman to safety, not form some kind of bond with her. Not attempt to form a connection with someone when he was undeserving of anything in that realm of possibility.

“I’ll go get the food ready,” Nick said. “Want anything special?”

“I’m…not really hungry.”

“Your body’s just lying to you,” Nick said. “You need the nutrition to recover, so lie down some more and I’ll bring whatever there is upstairs for you.”

“How do you know it’s lying?”

“Believe me, I’ve lied to myself enough over the years to see it in someone else.” Nick didn’t say more, instead opting to shoot down the stairs before Allison could begin a torrent of questions.

He shifted into the kitchen and opened the cupboard where all the tuna was stored—his favourite fish and source of protein all in one. He didn’t know if Allison even liked tuna, but Nick wanted to make a favourite recipe of his.

Cooking something on the stove was too long, would cause the house to heat even more, and with the way Nick was feeling, he didn't think he’d be able to pull something off that required a flame. But tuna was easy food to digest, and easy to get right.

He pried open a can using a knife since the can opener was defunct and had to be thrown away the week prior, just as news of the storm was beginning to surface on the telly. The tuna slid out easy enough, with the knife sledging out the last dregs at the bottom into the bowl Nick had grabbed.

Even when he was in prison, the tuna was a reminder of old times, since they shoved it in the sandwiches they fed the inmates. Of course, those sandwiches tasted like they’d been stepped on by some wild dog a hundred times and were flatter than a pancake. But the taste still reminded him of home, and after years of being in prison Nick eventually forgot it was stale prison lunch and just imagined his house with every bite.

Now, he mixed the tuna with mayonnaise to help it stick to the bread—something they hadn’t done back in prison—and added some salt to taste. Once the concoction was finished, he spooned it onto two slices of toast and plated it up just as quick.

He hurried back upstairs, opened the door with a foot, and presented the still warm sandwiches to Allison, who was now sitting up with a book in her hand, peering at it rather curiously.

“You read love stories?” she said, the mirth in her voice more detectable than a screaming child in a mall. “I didn’t peg you for a romantic.”

“Believe me,” Nick said, placing the sandwiches on the bedside table before returning to his seat by the door. “I’m anything but a romantic. It’s probably an old novel that me Ma had and left for me when she died.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Allison said. “And she liked reading books like this? No wonder you’re such a romantic, her nature must’ve rubbed off on you.”

Nick let out an exasperated sigh. “I just said I’m not a romantic.”

“And yet here you are, with a random girl sitting in your bed of all places, and you made her a sandwich of all things. Come on, there’s at least one bone in your body that can see the romance in this situation.”

Nick felt heat rise on his cheeks, causing them to redden with a sensation he would refuse till the earth blew up to call a blush. Those weren’t his intentions—romantic intentions. He was doing this for himself more than for her, and that meant no romantic involvements at all.

He did find it strange, however, how they had been placed together in the most unlikely of circumstances. Nick wasn’t a believer in any kind of higher power, but he wasn’t an idiot. He’d been put into prison for a reason, been released from prison for a reason he now knew, and he knew that Allison had been placed with him for a reason.

What that reason was, however, was a question he would need to find the answers to himself. If such answers could even be found in the first place.

“This is pretty nice,” Allison said, taking a bite out of one of the sandwiches. She swallowed it down with a swig of water, groaning at the taste.

“I thought you said you weren’t hungry,” Nick said with a laugh. “I told you your body was lying to you.”

“Well, it should stop lying,” Allison said, her weak arms just barely able to raise the sandwich to her lips so she could snag another bite. “Maybe if it told me more often I’d be able to get more of these sandwiches. How did you know I liked tuna? Are you sure you aren’t just some stalker?”

Nick didn’t know that tuna was her favourite. In fact, she was a total stranger to Nick, and events had been getting stranger and stranger as the day progressed.

What was the reason Allison had been placed with Nick under such circumstances? Why was it at such a weird time and not an innocent meeting in a shopping mall or something?

Nick knew his mission in life was to give back what he’d taken away. His crimes had taken away happiness, had taken away freedom and safety, and had taken away a son from his mother.

And now it was Nick’s turn to give it back with no gain for himself. He wasn’t doing it for any sort of money, or fame, or even recognition. Just the sense of satisfaction that he was atoning for his past sins, though atoning to who was another question Nick didn’t have the answers to.

That was a large theme in his life. Having lots of questions with few answers. Another such question being why he even did the crime that landed him in prison in the first place.

“You’re awfully quiet now,” Allison said. “The storm’s even quietened down. Maybe things are getting back to normal.”

Nick understood the meaning in her words, and he was prepared to let her walk if need be. Let her leave for her family again if she wished to.

“You must have a family really worried about you,” Nick said. “People who need you.”

“Just one friend,” Allison said, her voice suddenly low. “That’s all I have in the world. The world’s gone over for me, like hell’s come early.”

“You don’t deserve hell,” Nick said, and that was a fact. Because people like Nick were destined for hell, if such a place even existed. But people like Allison working in the city and feeding herself and helping others with their finances through her job—she couldn’t go to hell since she had so much to give to the world. Unlike Nick, whose crimes were evident for everyone to see.

“I do,” Allison said. She let the plate with the sandwiches down and looked to him. “I know I do, and this isn’t something you can convince me out of. I deserve it, but I’ve essentially thrown myself in there.”

Nick stared at her, stared at her eyes, and he saw that flicker of emotion again. And he recognised what it was now, since it was an emotion that he’d felt many times when in the darkness of the prison at night, with his roommate snoring and the blackness digging into his mind.

It was hopelessness. Utter hopelessness. And when that emotion had flooded Nick’s mind back in that prison cell, there was only one way he could see to escape it.

And the shock caused him to now feel a lurch in his heart.

“You didn’t…?” Nick said, his body shaking as the realisation flooded his veins with anger and shock and, even stranger, a sense of hurt. “You were trying to…”

“Trying to what?” Allison said, her voice a little sharper, those defence mechanisms Nick was all too familiar with coming to the fore.

“This road only has a dead end,” Nick said. “So a city girl comes to the road in the middle of the worst weather we’ve seen in years, in a random town on the outskirts of Edinburgh. And she drives into a road with a dead end.”

“So what?” Allison said. She tried to extricate herself from the covers, but her body was still recovering, and she merely whisked herself to the side as Nick continued speaking his thoughts aloud.

“But you knew there was a dead end, didn’t you?” Nick said. “You bloody knew there was a dead end and you were banking on it. You were trying to ram into it and end your life, weren’t you?”

“No I wasn’t,” Allison said, shoving her head into the covers of the bed and attempting to crawl off. But, as if some force was binding her limbs together, her body refused to budge, and she merely served to keel over in an awkward position.

“You were trying to die, and I know because I’ve tried the same in the past.”

Now Allison’s attention snapped back to Nick, and her eyes widened. “You have?”

In any other situation, Nick would’ve laughed at the scene before him. Sitting in his bedroom with a girl on the bed, hair wild and unkempt whilst half leaning over the covers not being able to leave yet wanting to so badly.

But the gravity of the situation pulled Nick’s laughter back beneath the surface, and he glanced at Allison once more.

“I have tried in the past,” Nick said. “But something stopped me. A voice in my head, or maybe some kind of force in my bones. I didn’t know what it was, still don’t, actually. But it was there, and I know that killing myself was the wrong thing to do.”

“But there’s no other option,” Allison said, and Nick could see tears glisten in her eyes, begging to fall onto her cheeks. But she was a corporate worker in the city, and knew how to mask her emotions in a way construction workers like Nick couldn’t. She sucked those tears back in as if her brain was a hoover, and steadied her gaze once more. “There’s nothing else to do, is there. Just get on with it.”

“Get on with life, not death,” Nick said. “That’s what to do. Live for something. Anything.”

“But what? I ain’t got nothing, have I?” She spoke the last part in an accent and then laughed as if she’d told an oscar-worthy joke.

Nick wasn’t amused. It meant Allison was losing the plot. And people who lost the plot were only moments away from going through with a suicide plan.

“Have you done things in the past you regret?” Nick asked.

Allison wiped a lock of hair away from her eyes. “Sure, but I don’t see where this is going.”

“I have, too,” Nick said. “I’ve done horrible things that landed me in prison. And when I was…in that dark cell, so many times I wanted to grab my roommates shiv and shank myself in the chest. Just get it over and done with, bleed out in the middle of the night and no one would ever have to know. Not like the authorities would care about a prisoner dying in his cell. Happens all the time.”

“But you’re here now,” Allison said. “So something must have changed?”

Nick nodded, shifted one leg over the other and leaned back. “Something did change. I realised I was only trying to run away from the guilt I had over the crime. And that running away was the cowardly way out. So I didn’t kill myself. I need to suffer for the guilt as a punishment before I die. Not take the easy road to death.”

“And you’re suffering now?” Allison asked. “I don’t see it. You’ve got a decently nice house, live in a nice town, and you’ve got a really cute woman sitting in your bed.” Allison picked up the romance novel and splayed it in her fingers. “Not to mention you’re a hapless romantic.”

“I suffer because I don’t think I’ll ever be forgiven for what I did,” Nick said, ignoring Allison’s dry attempts at humour that would do nothing to faze him. He needed to say what his mind was thinking to save another person from treading down the same dangerous path he’d once trodden.

“And I try to help people every day,” Nick said, “even though I know I won’t get anything back. That’s the pact I made with myself. Giving back the things I took away whilst knowing I’ll never get those things for myself.”

“But you don’t know the future,” Allison said. “Maybe you can get those things. Maybe you are worthy of the things you say you aren’t.”

“Maybe,” Nick said, shifting his gaze to the outside, where the snowstorm had calmed to only feature a few streaks of white flitting across the glass. “But no killing yourself, okay. I didn't go through all that effort only for you to go and try it again.”

Allison laughed. “No…I won’t try it again. If someone like you can find a way out, I’m sure there’s something out there for me. Something for me to hold onto.”

Nick knew there was—but what it was plagued his mind. Some kind of higher power that controlled everything and put the thoughts in his head to save this woman whilst out there on Cassandra Street? Maybe it was the force that shaped the entire world? Maybe it was a being above them that did everything, whilst Nick and everyone else only played out the script?

He had no idea, but that wouldn’t stop his search for the higher power. Nick had felt hopeless once before, and in the perilous jail cells of northern Scotland he’d felt an absolute powerlessness too.

But now he felt a renewed sense of vigour overpower his muscles, filling him with the idea that he could gain some level of redemption for himself, as Allison had pointed out.

All he had to do was search, and when he found the truth, found that true purpose in his life, latch onto it with everything he had.

***

The next day, when the skies had cleared to reveal its beautiful blue glow behind the tufts of white that spanned the previous day, Nick was up early after having slept on the living room couch—a lot more comfortable than he’d ever imagined—and rushed to his bedroom.

He lightly knocked on the door, then waited for any kind of response to come. He heard shuffling from inside, before a voice rang out. Allison’s voice.

“I’m not decent, so wait a moment,” Allison said, and Nick heard something thump the ground—likely Allison falling from the bed.

“Skies are clear now,” Nick replied, awkwardly waiting outside his own bedroom door with a hand planted on the wall to hold himself up. “So you can get going. I don’t think your Ford has survived, though, so you might need to ring the insurance and see if they cover natural disasters.”

“I’ll do just that,” Nick heard from inside, before something zipped up. And then the door opened, and Allison, with her crumpled hair and crusty eyes and wearing her work uniform again, stared up at him.

“Morning,” she said. “Is there a place I can freshen up around here?”

Nick nodded, then pointed down the hall. When Allison had gone, Nick crossed into his room and over to his bed. Sitting on the bed covers was a copy of the romance novel his mother had left for him, along with many others in a box languishing in his attic. But Nick liked this particular one, titled Love and Order.

It was because his mother had met his father shortly after reading this novel, as if it was some kind of sign that love would find someone in their life. And, shortly after that, Nick had been born. All thanks to this novel his mother had read some odd fourty years prior.

Nick felt that same way, that same pull of attraction—then mentally chastised himself. He couldn’t be getting ahead of himself like that. He was merely looking after Allison because of that deal he’d made with himself, to pay back to the world what he’d taken away. Not get involved in romantic entanglements along the path.

After Allison had freshened up, Nick set about making them some breakfast. Thankfully, the storm hadn’t taken out the power, which meant the gas was working as well as the electricity. Seeing as he had a few slices of bread still remaining and the best before date was fast approaching, he fried some eggs on the stove and then slammed a couple slices of toast around it.

He handed that to Allison at the kitchen table—more of a counter attached to the side of a main cooker with a couple circular stools before the marble surface. Despite her dishevelled appearance, Allison looked beautiful—not in an instant attraction kind of way, but more of a casual beauty, a beauty that was constant rather than fluctuating depending on the level and type of makeup.

“This looks delicious,” Allison said, before she began eating. Nick tried to eat with her, but all throughout he couldn’t shake off the sense of dread within his stomach. That, though he was giving what he’d taken away from others as his purpose in life, this was something he didn’t wish to give up. That, for a reason unknown to him, he couldn’t bear to give up.

Despite that, the food was nice and settled a warmth into Nick’s stomach as the small talk floated around his small kitchen. And then that was over soon enough, and Nick realised it was a Thursday and not a weekend, which meant despite the rollercoaster of the last day, life still had to continue as normal.

Because the world didn’t care about the existential troubles of man—it only cared about profit and getting the most out of man that it could.

“I think I should get going,” Allison said half an hour after breakfast was finished. She checked the time on her thin and rose gold wrist watch that Nick only now noticed. “They’ll be expecting me at work in an hour or so.”

“Don’t go to work,” Nick said, aghast that Allison would even consider the prospect of work after what she’d been through. “Call in sick.  You were in a snowstorm for crying out loud, and unconscious for like three hours. Surely they can’t expect you to go in today.”

“You don’t understand the corporate world,” Allison said, her expression souring within an instant. “You can’t show any weakness, or they pounce on it. I won’t even tell them what happened. They don’t need to know.”

“They being your colleagues, right?” Nick asked.

Allison nodded.

“That’s what I like about construction, at least,” Nick said. “Yeah it’s hard work and sometimes I wish I was in an office more than a fish needs water, but at least your mates are your mates and ain’t competing against you for some useless promotion.”

“Sounds like fun,” Allison said. “Sounds a lot better than being a corporate drone just trying to make rich people richer.”

Then, a silence descended upon them both, the breakfast plates sitting empty before them, as if neither one wanted to leave the other but knew the inevitability was to occur.

What Nick couldn’t deny, however, was the sense that they were meant to meet. That there was a reason behind the fact that she’d decided that street as the one to attempt suicide on. That there was a deeper reason behind the snowstorm being there that day. That there was a reason behind Nick being conveniently close by so he could rescue her and nurse her back to decent health.

Nick didn’t know the reason, and it was eating at him. Eating at the corners of his soul.

“I’ll take you out front,” Nick said, grabbing a spare coat and giving it to her. “Take it as some kind of memory from me, and so you don’t freeze to death. You know there’s a bus stop a few blocks from here?”

Allison nodded. “I remember it from yesterday after driving past. You don’t suppose my car works, do you?”

“After the storm yesterday, I doubt it. Engine’s probably turned into an iceberg. Here, take some cash and get the bus from that station. It leads straight into Edinburgh, and there should be one leaving this morning, and then you can get back home from there, right?”

Allison nodded, then crossed the hallway past the shoe rack and stepped through the front door. She shivered slightly as the cold wrapped her skin, before turning to face Nick who was standing in the doorway.

Nick was ready to say goodbye, but Allison had other ideas. She embraced him, if only for a second, imprinting her scent on his skin, then slipped something into his pocket. Nick had to bar himself from moving as he watched her skip down the front steps with a smile before walking across the snow-ridden Cassandra Street, her head held high and her gait smooth.

She was a corporate woman through and through, able to mask her real emotions, able to mask the turbulence of her heart to produce a steely demeanour that none would question at first glance. Nick was sure none of her colleagues knew of her suicide attempt, or even knew of the existential crisis taking place in her mind.

But not with Nick. He’d seen her true side. Despite all her cool pretences, she’d been herself with Nick, and that was something he was privileged to see.

He walked back into his living room, then glanced at the shelf where he’d put his mother’s favourite romance novel—Love and Order. He took the slip of paper Allison had snuck into his pocket and glanced down.

Writing this while in the bathroom, in case you’re wondering, the note read. But here’s my number. You said you want to find out the truth of the world, find that higher power. I do, too. Ring me if you want to find that truth together.

Nick smiled, then pocketed the note once more. It was crazy to think that, not a day earlier, he’d felt himself slipping into that familiar hopelessness. And then, seemingly as a coincidence, a lady had quite literally fallen into his arms and given him a new lease on life.

Nick now knew that something higher than himself was controlling the world, was shaping everything in a way those like Nick could never understand.

Nick decided he would wait on ringing that number. Whether Allison would be a greater part of his journey—that was a subject he didn’t have the answers to.

But that higher power above, that controller of the world—Nick would do everything in his power to find Him. And once he found that Truth of the world, he would latch onto it and never let go till the day he died.

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JazakAllahu Khayran for reading.