by Gwen Hayes
“Wait.” Lucky tugged Beth’s wrist again. He wanted to tell her how she made him feel. How important she was to him. That she was his best friend.
But then the door opened and Taylor stood in the doorway with two plastic cups of beer. “Glad you showed O’Leary. Nice to see you again, Liz.”
She started to correct him, but Lucky decided that Taylor didn’t deserve to know her non-waitress name. He marched her up the steps and took the beers, handing her one.
The party was in full-swing but not out of hand yet. Lucky was nervous. He couldn’t keep his feet still, couldn’t bring the cup to his face without jittering. Beth raised up on her toes to tell him something. He was glad; she’d probably make him laugh. She had a way of looking at the world so differently than he did.
She whispered in his ear, “Do you think we’ll win?”
The blood drained from his face. “Win what?”
“First place, silly.”
Oh God.
She knew.
She knew what he brought her to, and she came anyway. In fact she insisted. “Beth—”
She rocked back on the balls of her feet. “It’s Liz tonight. I think that’s more appropriate, don’t you.”
The look in her eyes diced him into a million pieces. She meant to hurt him; he could see she wanted him to be miserable right now. But what killed him was how she couldn’t disguise her own hurt behind all that righteous anger. That’s what he’d done to her.
“We need to talk.”
Somebody turned up the music.
She shook her head. They stood in the crowded entry way, people bumping into them, and noise polluting his senses. He was going to lose her. He felt like he was shrinking, like everything around him—the things that didn’t matter—were getting bigger. He looked at her scars and realized those weren’t the ones that hurt her. The scars inside, the really deep ones, were the ones that still gave her trouble, and he’d opened them all back up for her.
“Let me explain.” He had to yell over the music.
She shook her head again. What could he say really? He brought her here. He didn’t have to. He could have told her the truth or told the guys to go to hell. He could have been the person she thought he was, but instead he just tried to make his life less bumpy. He was Lucky O’Leary. He didn’t need to question why his life always seemed to fall into place just right.
Beth turned away from him and started walking through the house. She held her head high and didn’t tilt her cheek to her shoulder. She breezed through the crowd, and he followed her like a ghost as she faced all her own dragons.
They didn’t stay to find out who won. And she didn’t say a word to him on the way home. She simply slipped out of his car, and he lost more than the girl that night.
He lost any respect he had for Lucky O’Leary.
* * *
Time doesn’t heal all wounds.
It helps. But time can’t do it by itself. If you pretend you don’t have a wound, for instance, there’s very little time can do for the wound except allow it to fester.
Which is what Beth had done for a long time.
Walking through that stupid party had hurt, but it had cleansed her wounds. The stinging had to be done, to get it ready to heal. And now, instead of denying she was hurting, she checked her inside scars everyday. She talked to her mom. She volunteered to babysit babies with birth defects once a week at the Children’s Hospital. When something hurt, she stopped denying it, and what do you know…the wounds started to close finally. With time.
Lord only knows how her mom managed with no outside help all those years, but Beth was able to give parents a few hours away from the constant drama. The babies she didn’t used to be able to look at without self-hatred were just babies after all. They were cute and funny, just like other babies. The parents saw her living a full life, and she could see the relief on their faces.
And one day, after babysitting a little girl whose entire left side of her face bulged so badly she couldn’t see out of her left eye, Beth felt lucky that her deformities were less distinct.
That was the day she finally tried to contact Lucky O’Leary.
And the following week, she watched him picking up orange cones after soccer practice. She’d been shocked to find that he’d quit the team and moved back to his small town two hours away. She felt bad. She hadn’t expected him to quit his whole life as soccer god over her. But, as she watched him coach a team of six-year-olds playing spring soccer, she realized he hadn’t done it over her. He looked so at ease out there, doing what he loved and not worrying about living up to The Standards of Doucheness his team had tried to make him adhere to.
She sat on the bench next to his gear and waited, her heart thumping wildly, wondering if he would be glad to see her or not. She knew the moment he recognized her, even though he was still too far to speak. He tightened up, squared his chin, and took his time getting to the bench.
“Hey, dreamboat.” Her voice faltered.
“How have you been?” His voice didn’t falter, but it was clipped.
“Good days, bad days. You?”
He nodded and sat down next to her. “Same.”
Be brave, Beth. She squinted her eyes tightly and began. “I owe you an apology.”
“Beth—”
“Please, let me finish. I used you. I wanted you to overlook my imperfections, but I didn’t offer you the same courtesy. And I know you didn’t want to go to that party, but I pressured you into an impossible choice.”
“I should have told those guys to pound sand. The whole idea of a dog dinner is repulsive. I went along with it anyway. I don’t see how you think you need to take responsibility for that.”
“You turned your back on everything.”
“Not really. I’m going to community college, playing city league soccer, and coaching the most uncoordinated kids on the planet every Saturday. My life is actually almost exactly how I want it.”
Beth opened her eyes. “Almost?”
“I wish you had let me apologize to you that night, Beth.”
She looked at him for the first time since he sat down. “Why do you have to be so perfect?”
He slammed his eyebrows together in confusion. “I think we’ve established that I’m far from perfect.”
“Well, you’re far too good looking.”
He laughed. “I’m sorry? Is that the right response? I’ve never been told that before. Good looking, sure. Too good looking, never.”
Beth swallowed around the lump in her throat and tried to smile at his joke. It probably didn’t look much like a smile. She had to say what she was going to say quickly or she was going to flee.
“I was so angry at you, at first. When I found out that it was all a trick to get me to go to that party.”
He tried to interrupt her, but she held up her hands.
“No, let me finish. That’s what I thought. That you tricked me into believing that you really liked me just to take me to that contest. And that was good, that I was so angry, because it gave me courage. But after, when I had time to settle down with my thoughts, I saw all the times you talked about the soccer team. How you really didn’t like them, how you felt like you didn’t fit in and didn’t want to. And I realized that you were trying to be my friend. You wanted to make up for them being jerks because that is the kind of guy you are. It was me that put my own romantic spin on things.”
She inhaled deeply, checking the wound. Still okay.
“You were kind to play Prince Charming. I’m embarrassed that I put us both through that. I know you saw the person inside of me, and I appreciate that you were one of the few people able to see past the outside.”
“You’re not the sharpest tool in the shed are you?” Lucky asked.
“Hey! I just laid myself bare to you and—”
Lucky clamped his hand over her mouth. “It’s true. You’re not my type. Hey, don’t bite me, I’m not finished. You aren’t blonde, you don’t wear m
ini-skirts, and when you call me handsome, it usually means you are making fun of me. That is the opposite of my type. So, I didn’t know what to make of you. But I liked you. I liked spending time with you.”
He lowered his hand, testing to see if she would let him go on.
He was quiet a moment longer and then said, “But I don’t think I see the same face you see when you look in the mirror.”
Beth gasped, unaware she hadn’t been breathing.
“I think you’re beautiful. Maybe not the way some guys think their girlfriends are, but I think my way is better.”
His hand caressed her left cheek and she shivered. Nobody but doctors and her mother had ever touched her face.
“You’re smart, most of the time. You’re funny, except when you’re picking on me. And you have a light that shines from somewhere inside you.” Lucky looked down, collecting his thoughts. “I like looking at you. I especially like looking at you when you wear tank tops.” He still didn’t raise his eyes, but he reached for her hand. “When you needed me, I never felt more like a man. And when I let you down, I never felt more—”
Beth broke in. “I need you. Right now.” Geez. Did she really just say that?
He met her gaze and smiled that heartthrob movie star grin that made her stupid and girly.
She stammered, “I…um…I’m trying to pick a school. For next year. I was thinking of community college. Do you know any good ones?”
“As luck would have,” he said, kissing her knuckles. “I do know a great one in the area. I could maybe give you a tour?”
She nodded. “That would be really nice.”
“Well, then, I guess it’s our lucky day.”
The End
