by Shey Stahl
I hated that I had obligations with the record company, but I promised them twelve songs, and in turn, they were producing the record, marketing music videos, recording time, all that.
My problem wasn’t even the songs, it was praying those songs were what they wanted, what everyone wanted to hear. If I didn’t give them what they wanted, and the record tanked, I’d probably have to give back the advance they gave me and deal with the fact that my father was right, this was a hobby.
I had so much riding on the album, for me, for Bentley…
It was that night, with my face buried in the pillow, I thought of the lyrics to “Forgive Me” and wrote down a few lines.
When my blood is all but bourbon
I give my pain the numbness I’m given
It’s the only way I know
Empty and hollow
I can’t get you out of my head
I’m haunted by the tears you’ve shed
When I thought about becoming a mother and what that would mean, I thought about waking up in the middle of the night to feed Dixie and holding her while I sang quietly to her.
And when I thought about it, even for a second, my face would automatically be wet with tears, silently rolling down my face before I could stop them.
I still woke up in the middle of the night, only now it was because my arms and heart were empty.
I had no baby for them to hold, to feed, to care for or love.
I had the tragedy I was given, a life granted, and then taken just as quickly.
“Are you ready for lunch?” Blaine asked, peeking her head inside the door of my house, hanging on by the doorframe.
A warm breeze followed her, the fresh scents of spring and freshly mowed grass coming with it. It was now the beginning of April and past my original due date with Dixie.
The seasons were changing, the bitter cold letting up and spring flowers replacing dried leaves.
If only it was spring for me, a fresh new beginning.
Beau was in Memphis, doing promotion for his album that was set to release in June, and I was going shopping with Blaine. I still hadn’t returned to work, and I was finally at the point where I was thinking of going back.
Since Dixie passed away, I hadn’t been eating much, or doing much of anything else, and needed some clothes that actually fit me. I thought for sure it’d be good for me to go out and have lunch with my best friend and go shopping.
Blaine and I were intent on getting me some clothes and her a dress for Tabitha’s wedding.
Blaine had become the one person I could confide in and talk to for hours. Though she didn’t know the pain I held deep inside, she did everything she could to help me.
I never wanted to forget Dixie. Not that I would, but Blaine kept her memory front and center for me with little heart-warming gestures.
Reaching for my purse on the floor, my hair tangled and caught in the necklace she gave me with a cross on it surrounded by angel wings and a cursive D charm attached to it. I wore it every day.
Blaine peeked over the roof of her car at me. “Did you decide where you want to eat lunch?”
I shrugged opening the car door. “I don’t care. I’m not overly hungry.”
“You need to eat. Your legs are too long for you to be that skinny. Makes you look like bones with sticks for legs.”
“Uh, thanks.” I smiled, buckling my seatbelt.
Blaine started the car and shifted into reverse, looking over her shoulder as she backed out of the driveway. “Does Beau come back tonight or tomorrow?”
“I think he said tomorrow night.” My eyes dropped to my phone and his text messages this morning. “Yeah, tomorrow. His flight comes in at six.”
“So let’s buy you something sexy and you two can have a wild night together tomorrow. I want to be able to hear your naughty sex noises through the wall like I did when you first moved in.”
“That’s weird that you’d want to hear your brother’s noises.”
“At least they’re better than the ones coming from his room when he was thirteen.” She shivered. “My room was next to his.”
Laughing, my cheeks warmed at the thought. Beau and I had begun having sex again, and it was easier since that first time, but it wasn’t the same anymore.
I feared sex never would be the same, and with him starting another tour, then what?
I trusted Beau, I did. I didn’t fear he would look for it elsewhere even though he did with Payton, but I did fear I wasn’t making him happy anymore.
I couldn’t even make myself happy, let alone him.
How was that fair to him?
THE AFTERNOON WITH Blaine was nice, we laughed, had lunch, did all the things I remember doing with her before Dixie.
That was until she was trying on dresses and I was waiting outside the dressing room, only to hear Payton on her cell phone looking at dresses behind me. Payton of all people. Beau’s high school girlfriend who sent me a get well card after Dixie died.
A motherfucking get-well card. Like I had the damn flu or something.
“David is freaking out.”
My head whipped around when I heard her voice. I hadn’t seen her since the lake, but I knew that voice anywhere. I knew from Beau that Colt Records had also signed Payton as a new artist, and she was going on tour with Beau as his opening act. I wasn’t pleased by it and had some fears thinking they’d fall back in love, but I wouldn’t allow myself to think that.
Hiding behind a rack of evening gowns, I maneuvered myself in them so she couldn’t see me and listened to what she was saying.
“He thinks the album is gonna flop since Beau’s attention has been elsewhere and they still don’t have the final track ready. They already had to push the release until June because it wasn’t ready after all the time he took off.” Payton sighed, as though this was her problem, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “They wrote a duet for Beau and me to do, but he keeps refusing, saying Bentley wouldn’t like it. He hasn’t even heard it and won’t consider it. I just don’t know…he’s sacrificing his career for her.” She paused, listening to whoever she was on the phone with. “I know…I’m opening for him in Atlanta and then the rest of the tour and he won’t even agree to do one song with me. If only she saw what she’s doing to him. I get it, they lost their baby, but still, he’s throwing away everything he’s worked for over the last ten years on this. Well, no…but come on…maybe I’m heartless, but I don’t get why she’s so broken over it. It’s not like she had the baby and could fall in love with it that fast. The baby took like one freaking breath. She’s been moping around for months. From what Miles says, she won’t even talk to him about it. They just don’t talk at all. Oh…wait…”
Crap, did she see me?
But then again, if those words wouldn’t have hurt so badly, I would have stood up and hammer punched her in the clavicle.
They hurt.
They hurt far worse than I expected.
Did people really think this about me? That I was moping around grieving the death of a child I should have never fallen in love with?
I don’t care if I had her for two seconds or twenty years, her death still hurt me.
Tucking my feet in tighter to my chest, my heart started to pound, the familiar bile rising in my throat.
Here it comes. Right here in the middle of a store I’m going to break down.
“Beau’s calling me. Maybe he’s reconsidered. I’ll call you back later.”
He’s calling her?
The floodgates opened in that moment and I lost it.
I wasn’t sure where Payton went from there, but she left and I couldn’t move, as if my numbness and pain had rooted me in a damn department store.
Blaine came out of the dressing room, saw me huddled up with the dresses in tears, and frowned. “What are you doing? Did you want to go to the wedding with me as my date? If you do, you’re wearing the tux. I’m far too curvy to play the male role in our relationship.”
When I began to sob, she knew it was more and dropped to her knees beside me. “Do you want to go home?”
I nodded, filling my palms with the sadness I couldn’t shake.
I still felt 100 percent at fault for what happened with Dixie. I should have gone to the doctor sooner when I first felt like something was wrong.
And now my sadness was affecting Beau and his career he worked so hard for. I mean, he was releasing an album in a few weeks and he still had a song he hadn’t finished?
The last thing I wanted to do was hold Beau back from anything in his life. If anything, I didn’t want to be that burden. The poor depressed mother of his child who passed away.
I felt like that was all I’d ever be since we lost Dixie.
Lost?
It wasn’t like she was misplaced.
She was in heaven, lying on the pearly white clouds looking down on her mother who couldn’t move on.
I wanted the pain gone.
Completely.
I just wanted it gone for one goddamn second so I didn’t have to feel.
Did I feel like I was holding Beau back?
Yes, I did.
He was making a life for himself, and I was lost at sea, rocking with the waves and waiting for the rescue boat.
Only the person I thought should have been rescuing me, or treading the stormy waters with me, had found his own life preserve.
WHEN BEAU RETURNED the next night, I knew then, I needed to let him go. He came home and was packing his bag to head back to Nashville in the morning when he saw me sitting on the end of his bed with my bag packed.
“What are you doing?” His eyes shifted around the room, taking in things he’d been missing, the life he’d left behind during the week. “Are you finally coming with me?”
I wanted to whisper my reply, tell him the bad news gently. He deserved that much.
“I’m…” My reasons, my emotions, they all swirled in too glossy eyes and a too heavy heart. I could barely think about leaving, let alone say it. “I don’t even know,” I whispered, searching for words and an answer to make the pain go away.
Why was I doing this?
I was doing it because I didn’t deserve him in the first place.
I waited, my body tensing, anticipating his reaction to my words and waiting for him to react.
Only he didn’t give me anything to go on. His reaction was, well, guarded. Leaning into the doorframe, his eyes were on the floor while he waited for me to say more, give him a reason.
Beau sighed, his gaze moved over mine like the changing of a season, slow, distinct, and then gone like the leaves falling from a weathered tree, finally letting go after months of hanging on.
His season had changed. Mine never would again. My heart was frozen in winter surrounded by ice I would never thaw.
His gaze left me wondering.
What now?
What would he say to me?
Would he be angry with me?
“You’re not coming with me, are you?” His voice was barely above a whisper, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted me to hear him.
I swallowed against the lump in my throat. Taking a deep breath, and then another, I gained the courage I needed to speak. When I looked at him again, his eyes seemed darker than ever before. “Beau…I can’t do this anymore.”
Oh, God, what was I doing?
Was I really breaking up with him?
“Do what?” The pitch in his words let me know he didn’t want to be having this conversation right now. He never wanted to talk about it.
“This.” I motioned around the house and then to him. “Us.”
His eyes went to the mountain of tear-soaked tissues next to the nightstand. Tears he knew were for him, for us, for Dixie, and then to me, processing what I said. Running his hands over his face, groaning, he seemed torn at what he wanted to say. He wanted to say something.
He waited, as did I.
“Don’t do this…” His deep voice, raw and etched with pain I would never truly grasp, shook around the words, trembling with every crack in our hearts. “I’m begging you.”
He wouldn’t look at me at first, and I had a feeling he hadn’t looked at anyone recently. He paused, meeting my eyes. The betrayed expression he wore made me feel guilty.
Like shit, absolute shit for doing this, but what choice did I have?
“You really have no fucking clue, do you?” He dared me to answer him with pleading eyes and mournful shoulders.
He knew I was lying when I said it was over.
It could never be over between us.
“I know you love me, Beau.” I began to cry, despite begging myself not to. “It’s just…we can’t keep fooling ourselves. This isn’t working. You’re gone all the time, and I’m left here to deal with this myself. I think it’s best if we go our separate ways.”
His furious eyes washed over me, crushing my heart with just his gaze upon me. “I’ve fucking begged you to come with me!” he shouted, his face turned pale, every breath shaking his frame. His lips parted, intent on saying more, but then it passed, and his eyes darted around the room again before locking with mine. “Don’t go.” His tone was softer, pleading.
“I have to.” I couldn’t even look at him. I was breaking his heart, letting him believe this was something he did wrong. “I can’t live here…like this.”
“Is there someone else?”
Of course he would want to know that. “There will never be anyone else for me.”
“Then why are you doing this?” His voice cracked, his eyes fire. “Tell me.”
“I have to.” It was the only answer I knew.
“You have no idea how I feel, Bentley. No idea,” he said, eyes fierce and determined as he picked up my bag from the floor and tossed it against the wall, never breaking our stare. “But I’m done with this shit where we step around the topic of Dixie dying. It happened. It fucking sucked. It was fucking awful, the worst day of my life. I love you so much and it fucking kills me inside to think I couldn’t bring her back for you. I would have if I could. I can’t lose you too.” He drew in a heavy breath, and then another, as if no amount of air would be enough. “You think I don’t care, don’t you?”
“Sometimes, yes,” I admitted with shaking words, looking down at my feet.
Beau came forward, kneeling before me. His hands shook as they reached my cheeks, my glossy eyes swimming with emotions I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. “How could you ever think that?”
The situation, the dilemmas inside my head made me cry, constantly, with no escape. Only Beau didn’t see this because he was gone all the time, so I was left to deal with it alone. He had no idea what it was like for me.
With a frustrated sigh, wanting to get up and leave, my forehead leaned against his, powerless to the connection I had with him, the connection I would always have to him now.
“I don’t know what we’re doing anymore, Beau.”
“Look at me,” he demanded, mournfully gasping out the words.
Unable to control my sobs, I shook my head, refusing. “I can’t.”
He stood and lifted me to my feet before placing me on the center of the bed and covering me with his body.
I was so tired, of everything, my eyes dry and swollen from crying so much, so often that I closed them hoping that maybe by resting them, denying myself from seeing him, this wouldn’t hurt so badly.
He kissed me then, an act of possessiveness if you asked me, but he did it anyway, harder than he’d ever done before. Maybe he was trying to show me we had something worth fighting for, or maybe he just wanted to. I might never know. I might never want to know.
“Do you think I want it to end like this?” he whispered, pulling back, his eyes finding mine. “Is this really what you want?”
“I do.” It was the only lie I’d ever told him.
Lifting his lips from my neck, he covered my mouth, not waiting for my answer. “I love you. Don’t do this. I fucking love you.”
I knew he was crying, I could feel the tears falling from him, but I couldn’t bear to open my eyes and look at him, reminded of that night in the hospital bed holding our angel and the way his tears felt soaking my neck.
“I have to. Just go to Nashville,” I begged, knowing this would kill the both of us inside. “Nashville is where you need to be.”
When I reached up to push him away, my hand on his chest, he moved it to kiss the inside of my wrist and then my elbow. “Please,” he whispered. “Please.”
The tip of his nose glided up the side of my throat and I wanted to erase our mistakes. Feeling his touch shattered fragments of love gone wrong.
“Please what?”
He placed his hands beside my head, supporting his weight as he looked down at me. “Don’t do this, baby.” And then as if he wanted me to feel him, he laid down on me completely.
His weight made it hard to take a full breath, but it seemed easier, this breathing under pressure.
“I need to go, Beau, get up.”
He moved away, as if he couldn’t take hurting me.
Removing himself from me, he stumbled against the wall and slid down it. He looked around, at me, and then at the floor with his face in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, wondering if he even heard me.
He looked up, unable to meet my eyes, afraid, hurting, feeling everything I’d been feeling too. “If you were…you wouldn’t push me away when I still love you.”
I stared down at him. “It’s the only way, Beau. You have a life and a tour to start. I don’t fit into that world.”
He shook his head like he didn’t want to accept that. “It doesn’t have to be that way. I want you with me. We could start over in Nashville.”
“I don’t want to start over.” I took a step toward the door, reaching for my bag he threw earlier.
If there was one thing I’d never considered, it was that Beau felt the same pain. Of course he did. How could he not?
Beau’s head bowed, his eyes on the ground where his heart was. “I can’t let you walk away.”
“You have to.”
Life had the power to change in a heartbeat, a split fraction of a second. A moment when everything was taken and we were left with a memory of what it was like.
