Everlasting Light

by Shey Stahl

  That was what I had.

  Only a memory.

  Her mouth was moving, words spilling from her shattered, relentless heart full of pain, only I couldn’t make sense of anything she was telling me. I knew it was over when she looked at me. It was the hallow eyes and the distant way she moved.

  Sliding down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, I rested my arms on my knees.

  She couldn’t be serious, could she?

  Had I turned my back and let this happen?

  Taking a deep breath, I rubbed my forehead. “We can make it.”

  “I’m not sure we can, Beau. Too much…” she choked on her tears, a gasped breath leaving her chest, turning to face the door.

  It hit me then, that breath, the tears, all of it. I was angry, fucking livid, but what could I have said?

  Bentley was fragile, delicate, not in a way where I could show her my anger, even if it was killing me inside.

  I wanted to send my fist through the wall, give my pain an outlet, a reason, an answer she wouldn’t give me.

  Before she made it out the door, I stood, following her, hoping she’d reconsider. At the door, she turned, reaching for me one last time. “Honey, please...it’s the middle of the night. Where are you going to go?”

  “I’ll stay with my mom.”

  With her hand on the door handle, she paused when I asked, “Do you love me?”

  Come back to me. Don’t leave.

  Letting out a cry, one she attempted to keep hidden, I asked again, hoping maybe it would be a reminder enough that she couldn’t leave. “Do you love me?”

  “I will always love you, Beau,” she whispered into my chest, sobbing so badly she couldn’t breathe.

  Let her go. You have to. If she wants to leave, let her.

  “Then I will consider myself a lucky man,” I told her, never wanting to let go.

  Though I had her in my arms, it was over.

  She said it was.

  I looked at the purple under her eyes and I told myself it wasn’t that bad.

  Only it was that bad.

  I didn’t want her to be sad anymore.

  I didn’t want either of us to be sad.

  We were two people both silently trying to find ourselves again when we couldn’t.

  I felt like nothing we did worked out anymore, and then finally, she put an end to it.

  Blaine came over when she heard glass breaking and me standing the destruction. “Where’s Bentley?”

  I fell to my knees in the kitchen, holding my head in my hands. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I kept saying, as if I didn’t.

  I didn’t know.

  I didn’t know anything anymore.

  I TRIED CALLING her before I went back to Nashville, albeit drunk and sitting in the aftermath of what was my house, which I destroyed after she left, only she didn’t answer, so I left a message like any grieving drunk boyfriend would. “I’m begging you, Bentley, please don’t end it like this. Come with me to Nashville. We could start a new life there, together.”

  She never returned my call.

  Two days later, I moved to Nashville without her and moved in with Miles and Wade.

  I had this photograph of Bentley, and it was the only reminder she was still there with me.

  When I looked at that photograph on my phone, it didn’t do the moment justice. You couldn’t tell by looking at her lips they were a bright cherry red and her cheeks, so pink and hot. Her eyes were the color of midnight, and that smile was one of happiness.

  The picture was taken the weekend we met.

  It may have seemed silly to everyone else, but every time I looked at my phone, I was reminded of her and it didn’t hurt as bad.

  I still had this.

  I could still pretend.

  I could still fall for her, even if I was only living inside a photograph.

  It was late May now, four months after Dixie passed away and weeks after Beau left. Or I left. Either way, I was left with one single word.

  Gone.

  Not like Dixie, but gone from my life. Like a memory in the wind, he blew across my life in every way possible.

  How could I heal, or even move on, when my heart was with Beau and Dixie, and I’d lost both? It was more than the loss of Dixie, it was the loss of having something perfect and then it was gone again.

  I went back to Beau’s theory on jumping. You gotta jump sometime.

  I had to heal.

  But how could I truly heal when I felt so guilty?

  Unfortunately, now that Beau was living in Nashville—probably with Payton—I had to get up and go to work. I was now living in an apartment with a girl from work, Heather.

  Every morning, I would get up and stare at myself in the mirror. I stared at my freckles where he used to connect the dots, and my golden hair he twirled around his fingers right before he kissed me.

  My midnight eyes stared back at me, not completely convinced I wouldn’t ever see him again and wishing I hadn’t let him go in the first place. I didn’t know what part of me hurt, or why I was feeling that way; it was just an all-consuming feeling that destroyed me, crushed my bones into dust.

  When I finally went to work, usually rolling in twenty some minutes late, I didn’t make eye contact with most people, and it wasn’t out of bitchiness. It was out of insecurity. I didn’t want anyone to know me.

  If they knew me, they’d see who I was. The girl stuck on a summer and her daughter who died at birth. I couldn’t let go, because he wouldn’t let me. She wouldn’t let me.

  Kevin would never say anything when I came in late. He’d look up at me, weak-smiling and give me a nod, saying nothing.

  I also passed by the inconsiderate asshole who delivered our mail in the mornings too, and he’d pop of with the same phrase every day: Smile, it can’t be that bad.

  Yeah it could be, fuck face!

  On my desk sat a calendar with daily inspirational quotes Blaine left for me. I’d crumble them up and toss them in the garbage next to the coffee I drank half of, then discarded.

  I felt discarded.

  Like life had completely discarded anything I wanted.

  I was left grieving and trying to make sense of what the fuck had happened to my life.

  A LONELY FRIDAY night, a month after Beau and I broke up, among many lonely nights when Blaine felt like she needed to jump in and save me from drowning myself. Probably literally because I was in the bathtub when she came barreling in my bathroom.

  I blamed her recent going back to school again. This time it was psychology. Seemed fitting since her best friend was so messed up.

  Blaine sat on the edge of the tub. “What are you doing? You forgot the hair dryer in the water with you.”

  “Couldn’t find one.”

  “Let’s get drunk tonight or order Chinese food and fat girl it up.”

  “Do I know what that means?”

  “It means eat junk food.”

  “Ah, well, I’m enjoying a bath.”

  “No, you were enjoying a bath.” She reached in the bubbles and pulled the drain. “Now you’re going to get out and get dressed and come down to Rusty’s with me.”

  “That’s your dad’s bar. I’m not going down there.”

  “Fine, we order Chinese food and eat.”

  I sighed. I hated Chinese food. “Fine, bar it is. Beau won’t be there, right? This isn’t some kind of setup, is it?”

  “No, it’s not. Knew you’d reconsider,” she mumbled as she walked out of the bathroom and into my room, passing Heather in the hall.

  “Can I come with you guys?” Heather asked when I had my towel wrapped around my body, running a brush through my hair.

  Blaine looked to me for an answer, and then to Heather. “If you want, but are you allowed in bars?”

  Heather was a recovering alcoholic. Probably not the best decision for her.

  “Oh, right, probably not.” Her sad eyes dropped to the floor, drowning in her mistakes. I knew t
hose mistakes and suddenly felt like I could help her.

  “You could just drink water though,” I smiled toward Blaine, “right?”

  Heather perked up. “Yeah, I could.”

  We left an hour later and headed to Rusty’s, a place I hadn’t been since I was there with Beau, because of the memory it held. Him.

  A time when I was in that very bar with Beau.

  Drinking was my only answer.

  I thought for sure if I was drunk, it wouldn’t hurt so badly.

  Maybe Heather was onto something.

  Eventually, though, the night led to where I knew it would, dancing in the arms of someone else named Cowboy. I was sure his name wasn’t Cowboy, but it didn’t matter to me. No other name mattered to me but Beau.

  The alcohol had gotten the best of me, as did his thick accent, and I found myself contemplating going home with him.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  He was all hands-on. I enjoyed the fact he seemed turned on, so desperate that he fumbled around, but I couldn’t get Beau out of my head.

  The problem was, I thought about that night in the tent, belt buckle clanking and the sounds of rain on canvas. I fucking thought about it so much, his face close to mine, breath on my neck, grunting with each push, his hands on my body, so rough with need.

  If anything, it should have been a memory I forgot. But that same boy was also the one who held my first love, the father of my baby girl, and for that reason, he would never ever be forgotten.

  I was right when I said I would love him forever.

  “I will always love you, Beau.”

  “Then I will consider myself a lucky man.”

  Fucking memories.

  I couldn’t be with guys like this cowboy mauling me, as hot as he was, because I was constantly mind-fucked by Beau’s memory.

  I gripped the bottom of the cowboys T-shirt, pushing him away.

  Everything he was doing felt wrong.

  Wrong touch, wrong name, wrong everything.

  “I can’t…” I told him, stepping back.

  He stopped instantly, like the gentleman he probably was, putting a good two feet of distance between us. “Okay, sorry.”

  And then Cowboy stared at me, blinking in disbelief that I was telling him to stop. I was pretty sure, positive almost, this had never happened to him before. Any other time, in another life where I wasn’t me, the girl in love with a memory, I would have probably given into his slow southern drawl, but he wasn’t Beau Ryland.

  Sometimes I wondered what the fuck was wrong with me and why I couldn’t brainwash myself into curing the gaping hole in my heart, but then I realized you couldn’t heal a broken heart until it was ready. You just couldn’t.

  Back at the bar, I watched Cowboy leave and then turned to Blaine. “I’m ready to drink more.”

  Giggling, she motioned for Jensen to come over with a bottle of whiskey.

  “Anything but bourbon. I hate it. I hate the way it tastes and lingers in your mouth.”

  Jensen stared at me, his brow scrunched in confusion but said nothing.

  I waved my hand in his face. “Stop staring at me. You look like him.”

  “I’m nothing like Beau.”

  “I know that. And it’s sad really, because he’s amazing and you act like he’s not even good enough to be your brother. Jerk face.”

  Jensen rolled his eyes and reached for the whiskey on the counter. “I think you’ve had enough.”

  It was then I noticed a George Straight song playing in the background, “Easy Come, Easy Go” and I slapped my hand down on the bar. “What’s with the sad shit? Change it to a more exciting station.”

  “My bar, my station,” he replied simply, as if that were the rule.

  Blaine snorted. “Your bar, Jay? More like dad’s bar he makes you run.”

  He ignored Blaine completely and moved around the bar to flip the neon sign in the window off. “Closing time.” He gave a nod to the door. “Let’s go.”

  “Jesus,” I turned to face Blaine. “You’re absolutely right. He’s an asshole.”

  In the taxi on the way back to my apartment, we realized we had lost Heather.

  “Shit, I didn’t see Heather leave, did you?” I began to panic and looked in my purse for my phone to see if she called. There was a message she went home with the cowboy and not to come home for a while. I turned to Blaine. “Can I stay with you?”

  “Yeah,” and then she sprung into telling me about her dream last night where she was running through a hotel lobby in Vegas holding her own shit in a towel. The bellhop outside refused to get a taxi for her, so she threw her shit at him.

  Then she asked about the cowboy. “Who was that guy you were dancing with?”

  “Cowboy? I called him Cowboy. And now Heather is with him.”

  “There really shouldn’t be a question in that answer,” she reminded me. “But, damn, that guy was fine, and I’m engaged.”

  “I fucking hate your brother, Blaine. I think I need therapy,” I said, taking a drink of water from the bottle I stashed in my purse earlier. “I can’t get him out of my head.”

  “Well, if we’re being honest, I hate him, too. He stole my favorite flannel before he left.” Blaine shook her head, as if this was a major disappointment in her life. “Little motherfucker.”

  “It was his flannel.”

  “Still…I wore it all the time. It might as well have been mine. At least he could have given it to me. I am his twin.”

  I laughed, really laughed for the first time in a really long time. Over nothing but a flannel shirt and Blaine.

  Was it making me feel better?

  Not really. I thought it was helping with the healing process, though. With every smile, every laugh, a weight was lifted.

  I ended up spending the night with Blaine that night, and it was really hard being next door to where I used to live with Beau. Now there was apparently a single mom and her two kids living there.

  Still felt weird, but since Heather had Cowboy at home, I didn’t want to go back there.

  “I can sleep on the couch,” I told Blaine as she made me get in bed with her. “I feel weird sleeping in the same bed you two have sex in, with Gavin on the other side of you.”

  Blaine rolled over in the bed, Gavin snoring in her ear. “Bentley…can I ask you a question without you being mad at me, or breaking up with me too?”

  “Sure.” Adjusting the pillow under my head, I tried to get comfortable despite feeling the spins.

  “Why did you break up with Beau?”

  Maybe she knew, since I had been drinking that I’d answer her truthfully. Any other time, I avoided the topic of Beau. Mostly because it hurt too bad to know I broke his heart. “He…” I stopped and realized what I had done. Leaving Beau had nothing to do with him.

  Yeah, he was gone all the time.

  Yeah, Payton was a bitch, but I never told Beau she was the reason.

  I never told Beau my reason for leaving was because deep down, I never thought I was good enough for him.

  I walked out, so no, the reason would never ever start with him.

  It started and ended with me.

  “I was…afraid I was holding him back.”

  “You weren’t though…and he’s not doing good, Bentley. He’s a mess. He’s really…just not good.”

  I wanted to ask details but I knew if I heard any of it, just like hearing his voice, I would run back to him, and that may not have been what either of us needed.

  “I know it’s hard for him, and it’s hard for me too. But I can’t heal from this and be with him while doing it. Every day is a constant struggle for me. I have days when I feel good and I can go on. And then I have the more depressing ones where I want to die and wish I could, so I didn’t have to feel this pain inside.”

  Blaine seemed relieved, somewhat, by my confession. Something I hadn’t told anyone before. I wasn’t sure if any of it made any damn sense, but maybe it did, in an awkward ro
und-about way.

  Gavin made a noise, something between a groan and a growl as he turned over cuddling into Blaine’s side, his hand on her boob.

  Laughing, she moved it, only to have him move it back. “Can you promise me something?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, two things…hear me out?” I gave her a halfhearted smile. “When you’re ready…give him another chance. Talk to him and explain…and see a therapist. Someone who can listen to you and give you some tools to help you.”

  “That’s a lot of demands.” Rolling, I looked up at the ceiling. “And why can’t you be my therapist? Isn’t that what a psychology major would do?”

  “Well, yeah, but I’m certainly not a good one. My answer tonight was to get you drunk…and now you’re in my bed. Pretty sure that goes against privacy laws, or something.”

  As I laid there staring at white walls, I thought about what Blaine had said, and Beau not doing good. I needed to do something to change this.

  THE WEIGHT began to lift, peeled at the edges like a sticker being pulled off the strongest glue, I began seeing a therapist, as Blaine requested. I wanted to be better, I did. I just wasn’t sure how to do it.

  Before seeing Dr. Tori for the first time, I stopped by to see my mom, who was up and watching television while holding Shep.

  My mom knew enough that she understood what happened with Dixie. She may not have remembered to brush her hair in the morning, but she understood pain in a way I didn’t yet. And she gave me probably the best advice anyone could have given me.

  “You don’t see yourself clearly, Bentley. You think losing Dixie has defined your life as a mother who lost her daughter at birth. How you handle it, how you move on, what you learn from it, that defines you.”

  I wasn’t alone in my depression. I knew that much. Just like what my mom went through depression with Corbin, I wasn’t alone. I began to understand people who didn’t smile, or worse, the ones who smiled too much, like my mom. She was hiding a pain no one knew.

  Had she been able to comprehend my life now, she would have understood my pain and anxiety over it.