by Lindy Zart
Instead of going home, she drove the Blazer out of town, slowing down as she passed the driveway that went to Harrison’s. She told herself it was perfectly normal to check up on someone to make sure they weren’t alone. Beth wanted to know he had someone. Trembles overtook her body and chattered her teeth in the cold interior of her vehicle. Lights shone from inside the house, and she could vaguely make out the form of a vehicle parked near the garage. Someone was there. Her heart unclenched just a bit, and she headed back to Crystal Lake.
Home wasn’t where she wanted to be, and after she parked the car in the garage, Beth walked around the neighborhood. A few houses had Christmas lights up, but most remained bare. When she was younger, every Christmas Eve her mom would take her and her two brothers for walks around town to look at all the different light and yard displays.
Eventually, as her brothers got older and left the house, it was only Beth and her mom. They’d stay up late and drink hot chocolate when they got back home, watch Christmas movies until Beth fell asleep beside her mom on the couch. Christmas Eve was one of her favorite memories because of that time spent with her mom. It made her think of Harrison exploring the countryside with his father.
Deciding it would be fun to walk around town and admire the lights with her family, and would help distract her from obsessing over Harrison, Beth grinned to herself as she headed back in the direction of her parents’ home. She was sure her sisters-in-law, Whitney, and her mom would be up for it, even if the men weren’t.
She didn’t realize whose house she was near until a shadow separated from the night, revealing a tall, lanky figure. Beth went still, making out an all-too-familiar form. Ozzy looked at her with eyes that matched the darkness around them. He stepped from the lawn of his brother’s house and stopped in front of her, directly beneath the light of a streetlamp. His hair was an unruly mop on his head, adding to his boyish looks, and he had on faded jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt.
“Did you have a good Thanksgiving?” His tone wasn’t pleasant. It was accusatory, like the hardness of his features.
Beth took a step to the left, and he followed, sharp-eyed and stiff-jawed. “Get out of the way, Ozzy.”
“Answer the question, Beth.”
“I’m not doing this anymore. I’m tired of it. Please, just leave me alone.” Beth stepped by him. “We are done.”
Ozzy forcefully gripped her arm and swung her around to face him. “What are you doing at that house outside of town?”
“What?” she whispered, instant panic crumbling her anger. What did he know? Had he found out about Harrison? Beth attempted to pull her arm away, and he tightened his grasp until a sound of pain left her. “Let me go.”
He put his face next to hers. Madness glowed in his eyes. “I know you’ve been hiding something. I followed you. You went there every day this past week and stayed for hours each time. That’s where you were that night you couldn’t come to work, isn’t it? There is no job, is there?”
“Listen to how you sound. You’re stalking me now? What happened to you? I don’t even know who you are. You are disturbed, Ozzy,” she ground out, more worried for Harrison than for herself.
For herself, she was enraged. Beyond fear. She was sick of him spying on her, sick of feeling like she was obligated to him in some way. Sick of feeling weak. Sick of it all. Beth’s body trembled, and it wasn’t from the cold. Fury, hot and thick, scorched along her flesh. She tried to wrench her wrist away from his grasp again, but again, it was to no avail.
“I don’t know who you are. You aren’t the girl I fell in love with,” he spat out, clenching her wrist hard enough that she gasped.
“Let go of me now, or I’ll scream.”
Something in her expression or voice registered, and with a sneer on his face, he dropped her arm and stepped back. “Patty said you spent more money at the salon in one day than you used to spend there in a year. That’s not you, not normally. Spreading your legs for some old geezer to make money? Is that what you’re doing up at that house in the country?”
The crack of her palm on his cheek was as loud and menacing as thunder. Ozzy’s face was imprinted with red, and her hand throbbed. Beth’s voice shook as she told him, “Don’t disrespect me like that again.”
He lowered his head and glared into her eyes. “You’re keeping secrets, and I’m going to find out what they are.”
“My secrets are not for you to wonder about. This ends now. Don’t talk to me, don’t show up where I am, don’t even think about me.”
“Or what?”
“Or this won’t stay between you and me.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “It won’t. Not for much longer. Secrets only last for so long, Beth. Good luck trying to keep yours.”
Beth shoved past him, his words freezing her insides.
“You were supposed to be with me, not leave me!”
She spun around and screamed, “You were supposed to love me, not hurt me!”
The door to his brother’s house opened and closed. Steve Peck rested his back to the door, crossing his arms as he faced their way. “Let’s go inside now, Ozzy.”
Ozzy’s chest heaved as he exhaled, the light going out from his eyes. Beth fought to breathe, but every time she inhaled, it burned. Ozzy looked at her, but she didn’t know if he really saw her. Did he see their past, remember that night? The night when their love became twisted, dark. When it died a little, and died more and more as time went on. She thought Ozzy saw it, as clearly as she did every time she looked at him.
He nodded, slowly backing away, and turned.
Beth pressed her hands to her mouth and stumbled in the direction of her house. She’d hit him. She’d hit someone she used to love. How could she do that? After everything they’d once been to one another, they were less than nothing. Enemies. Beth dropped her hands, looking at them as she walked. Tears choked her throat, and she let them fall, wondering how her life had gotten unrecognizable.
Maybe she should have stayed with Ozzy, pretended not to feel alone and neglected, pretended she loved him like she should. It would have been easier. At least one of them would be happy. Beth could have pretended he was enough. She could have talked herself into believing she didn’t need to be her own person, and that being half of Ozzy was what she wanted.
Pretended that he loved her like he should, like she needed.
Pretended like she didn’t know about his unfaithfulness.
Pretended that he never hurt her.
Her boots hit the curb to her yard wrong when she tried to step over it, and Beth’s knees banged against it as she crumpled to the frozen ground. She sat like that, huddled up within herself. Broken. Scared. Angry. Sad. Fighting tears that were stronger than her. Beth cursed herself, and Harrison, and Ozzy, and her stupid, stupid heart that forgave too often, and felt guilt over moving on, and ached for a man that wasn’t meant to be hers.
Come on, Beth. Put yourself back together. Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t help anyone. Get up. Get up and move.
When she was somewhat in control, she carefully picked herself off the ground, wiped snow from her, and with shaking fingers, the tears from her face. Beth straightened her lopsided ponytail and cleared her throat. Shoulders back, she strode past her Blazer and to the house, but at the last second, she continued back to the SUV.
THE VEHICLE WAS gone from the driveway, but a single room in the house remained lit. The reading room. Beth wiped dampness from her face, but more followed. She didn’t know exactly when they started up again, but she couldn’t stop the tears. It was too much fear, too much grief, too much worry, all pent up and needing to be released. And Beth ached. All of her ached.
She used the doorbell for the first time since she’d initially approached the door over two weeks ago, and as she waited, she half-turned to go six times. She shouldn’t be here. Harrison and she had gotten closer in the week since his meltdown, but there were still barriers between them. Unwritten rules. Even as
her stomach dipped with anxiety and she told herself to leave, each time she turned to go, she turned back. Beth thought she always would with Harrison.
If he told her to run away, instead she would run to him.
The lock clicked, and the door opened to reveal dark eyes in a pale face framed with black. The dead space behind him seeped out to her. The emptiness that had no thought nor feeling, a void of nothingness, wrapped her in its somber grip. And Beth welcomed it. If Harrison had to live in the dark, she’d stay there with him.
Beth was partially convinced he’d shut the door in her face and tell her to come back Monday during her assigned working hours. But he didn’t. He blinked at the sight of her, stepping back and allowing her room to enter. Harrison’s hair was damp, and he wore a worn gray shirt and black pajama bottoms. The scent of soap drifted out to her. Beth walked into the foyer and faced him as he shut and relocked the door.
“Am I your prisoner?” she tried to joke.
His eyebrows lowered. “Of course not.”
“Can I be?” She meant that more than she wanted to admit.
“Beth?” he questioned with confusion.
All he said was her name, and it was enough to wreck her. Her face crumpled when Harrison narrowed his eyes to better study her, and Beth inhaled a shaky breath. The tears were hot, and salty as they touched her lips. Uninvited. Her eyes burned, and her skin was swollen, and she was sure she looked quite unattractive. When her nose developed a drip, Beth’s shoulders slumped.
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” No question about her being at his house, like her unannounced arrival in the middle of the night on a holiday was a common thing to have happen.
“I wasn’t—I’m not…not crying,” she denied, wiping the tears from her face.
“Yes. I see that,” he said dryly.
Harrison waited. When Beth didn’t say any more, he moved closer. “Was it about your boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend,” she corrected, taking a deep breath against her chaotic pulse. “And why would you ask me that?”
“When women cry, it’s usually about men.”
What would Harrison think if he knew she cried more over him than Ozzy? Not with pain, but with sorrow, as if the reason would matter.
Harrison gestured for her to give him her jacket, and she did, watching as he hung it on the same hook she always did. It was a coincidence, but it struck her as noteworthy. She had a place here designated as hers, if only for her jacket. Beth kicked off her boots and wrapped her arms around herself as she met his inquiring gaze.
“Tell me about your boyfriend. What about him makes you cry?”
“Ex-boyfriend,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Tell me about him,” Harrison coaxed.
“Why?”
One shoulder lifted and fell. “Enlighten me as to the kind of man who could get Beth Lambert to love him, and then, break her heart enough to make her cry.”
She took a hitched breath, not speaking until the urge to cry had passed. Beth knew what Harrison was doing, however inelegantly. He was trying to get her to talk about things in hopes that it would make her feel better. When he gestured for her to follow him, she did, not speaking until they reached the reading room.
“My heart isn’t broken over him anymore,” she said quietly, firmly.
A single raised eyebrow hinted at his doubt.
“It just—it’s really messed up, remembering how things used to be. He acts so different now. It’s hard to believe he’s the same person I knew as a kid.”
Harrison’s expression was neutral.
Beth took in the room, feeling like she’d stepped into a sanctuary the moment she entered it. Just seeing Harrison, being in his presence, made some of the pain fade. He didn’t touch her, but it felt like she was hugged by him just the same. A single lamp shone from behind his chair, the atmosphere calm and dim. It cast the room in shadows, but it was peaceful.
“Were you reading?”
His lips pressed together. “Yes.”
“What?”
“What?”
Beth laughed shakily. “What were you reading?”
A glower sharpened his features, gave them an animalistic edge. He glanced at a stack of white papers resting on the coffee table, and she knew what he’d been reading, and why he looked like he wanted to take his time chewing her up. “Something we’ll talk about later. For now, tell me about Ozzy.”
“Ozzy,” she mused, her guts churning. Beth shook her head, not sure where to begin, or how to explain. “Ozzy is almost too pretty to be a guy, but there’s ruggedness to him that makes it impossible to think of him as anything other than masculine. And he’s charming, when he wants to be. He makes people feel important.” Beth picked at her tee shirt, frowning at her old perception of him compared to this new one. She didn’t see beauty in him anymore. She saw something that could be attractive corrupted by darkness.
“I didn’t ask you to tell me how attractive and wonderful he is.”
Beth smiled faintly. “Sorry, it just—let me explain and you’ll understand why I brought up his looks.”
Harrison gestured for her to continue.
“He’s also vain, and fickle. Childish and selfish. When I was with him, he was supposed to be my world, and he was, for a long time. But then I realized there was more to the world than him, and he didn’t like that.” Beth looked up, touched eyes with Harrison and felt the exchange in her center.
Without saying a word, Harrison told Beth he understood.
She dropped her gaze. “Ozzy made me feel special. He was this beautiful man, and he wanted me. He talked about us traveling, marrying, having kids. He talked about the songs he’d sing, and the money he’d make from it. He talked about dreams, and our life, and all the time, he never asked me if it was the life I wanted.
“Ozzy told me I meant everything to him, but any time we disagreed, or fought, I became nothing. He would ignore me, act like I didn’t matter. He would flirt with others, and worse. He would let women touch him, and he touched them. Right in front of me, like I wasn’t there, like it didn’t matter if I was. There were rumors of him with other women, but he always denied it.”
Beth shrugged. “He wanted me, but it wasn’t really me he wanted. And he would break my heart, again and again.” She took a shallow breath, let it out.
“And you allowed it, because you loved him.” There was no judgment in his tone, and for that, Beth was grateful.
“Yes.” She nodded, her throat thick from reliving the ups and downs of her and Ozzy’s relationship. “But when I told him I wanted to write, and he gave me no support, it was the start of the end. He didn’t believe in me. I always believed in him, and it hurt, far more than I can ever properly explain, to learn he didn’t have that same faith in me.”
Beth straightened her shoulders, the heat of her conviction spiraling through her like lava. “I would rather be alone than be with someone who makes me feel like I’m alone.”
Harrison leaned against the wall, crossing his arms as he studied her. “Are you sure you’re over him?”
Sadness and resolution fell upon her like a heavy blanket, nauseating in their entirety. “I don’t want to be with him, but there is a part of me that will always feel the loss of him. He was my best friend growing up, my first everything. Sometimes it’s hard to see past that, to see what’s there instead of what I want to be there. But I do; I see it. I know.”
He lowered his head, almost immediately lifting it to lock her in place with the intensity of his gaze. “It’s strange to me. To see someone cry over someone else,” Harrison added at her confused look. “I don’t understand it. At one point I did, but not anymore.”
“Why is that?”
He raised a hand to his face, studied the veined skin. “What does it accomplish? Why do it? You cry and then you still feel bad.”
“It’s good to cry,” Beth grumbled.
“You know what’s good? Laughter.” Harr
ison straightened from the wall. “I’d take laughter over tears any day. Find something to laugh about, Beth. Tears are selfish. Laughter gives.”
The power of his words slammed into her, wrapped around her mind, and splintered her perception of why she chose to feel the way she did about certain things. She didn’t have to be sad about the past. She didn’t have to hold on to regret and guilt. Beth could let it go. She remembered a saying she hadn’t thought of in years: Everyone died one day, but every other day they lived.
Beth sucked in air, felt the inhalation move her whole frame. She was living, Harrison was living. And because of that, they should laugh. It wasn’t fair for her to expect things from Harrison she wasn’t willing to do herself. It was time to believe in herself, fully, without the self-doubt that was always waiting in the dark. Beth would gather the light around her, and there it would stay.
“You’re right,” she told him.
“Was there any doubt?”
Beth narrowed her eyes at Harrison. “I don’t see you laughing.”
“I laugh on the inside every day.” The brown of his eyes sparkled as if diamonds were trapped inside the irises. “I’m laughing right now.”
“Tell me the last time you laughed, out loud.” A challenge was in her tone.
“The night we shoveled snow. I laughed.”
“Barely.”
He studied her, humor taking some of the hardness from his mouth. “There was a distinct chuckle.”
“That was one time.” Beth crossed her arms, fighting a battle with a smile she knew she was about to lose. “When else?”
“The day you climbed the hill and fell three times. I laughed each time you fell.”
“Great. Glad you found humor at my expense. Twice.”
“What can I say? I enjoy your misfortune,” Harrison deadpanned.
