“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I can’t say. In the years I’ve known him, I only saw him like this once before.”
I nodded. “After Mabel.”
His brow pinched. “No, ma’am. He was different after Mabel passed, wouldn’t touch a drop.”
“Then when?”
The computer suddenly seemed twice as interesting to him as it had before. “Ain’t my place to say.”
He couldn’t mean . . .
When his gaze lifted to mine briefly, it was plain that it was something to do with me. Either after I left the first time or when Beau thought I was just playing with his heart. I buried my head in my hands.
How did things get so fucked up?
“Can I see him?”
Joe shrugged as he handed me the hotel room key. “He ain’t seein’ no one. But I’ll call up to the house and let ’im know you’re back.”
“Thank you. Can . . . can you tell him that if he needs anything, anything at all, I’m here for him. I want to help out as much as I can.”
“I’ll let him know.” Joe jumped straight on the phone while I carried my bags as I went in search of my room.
When I found the right place and opened the door, I was left breathless by the space. I’d assumed there were four floors of rooms, but each room was more like an apartment than a hotel room, and covered two floors. The bottom contained a kitchenette, powder room, and a living room with fireplace. Upstairs was a bedroom with one glass wall overlooking the lake. The bed was a mammoth king four-poster facing the window. I could just imagine lazy days in bed with a loved one staring at that view. It really was a special corner of the world.
I’d barely put my bags down when the phone in the room rang. I rushed to answer the call.
“Hello?”
“Darlin’, what’re ya doin’ ’ere?” Beau’s voice was slurred, and I couldn’t tell if my arrival was a welcome one or not.
“I heard the news, and I had to come. I’m so sorry, Beau. Is there anything I can do?”
“Can I see ya?”
“Of course. When?”
“Now?”
Even though he couldn’t see me, I nodded. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Thank ya, darlin’.”
It wasn’t until I was halfway between the hotel building and his house that I wondered why he wanted to see me. Where was Cassidee? What could I offer that she couldn’t?
TAKING A deep breath to ready myself for the worst, I rang his doorbell.
A little while later, Beau pulled open the door. His chest was bare and he had a pair of pyjama pants slung low around his waist. The ravages of the last few days were evident on his features. His skin was sallow; his eyes red. The scruff on his chin was wilder than ever.
He didn’t say hello or greet me in any way, just threw the door open and sucked at the mostly empty bottle of liquor.
I didn’t hesitate before throwing my arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Beau,” I whispered against his neck. Seeing his pain on his features in such a visceral way made my heart bleed.
Barely an instant passed before his arms wrapped around me in return, lifting me onto my tiptoes so I was surrounded by his embrace. He buried his face against my neck and breathed deeply.
Then he broke in my arms.
All I could do was hold him, wordlessly offering whatever support I could, while the sobs wracked his body. My fingers played against his scalp as tears danced in my eyes.
It was only when he tucked away the short burst of emotion that I grew aware of how inappropriate our position was, given his lack of clothing.
Unwrapping myself with some reluctance, I stepped away from him and pulled off my coat.
For a moment, he stared at me with a growing frown, but then the bottle was back at his lips as he drained even more of the drink. He turned and stalked into the house.
I shut the door, kicked off my shoes, and then followed him.
Instead of the couch, I found him sitting on the floor in the hallway. His back was against one wall and his feet were pressed up against the other. I took a seat on the opposite wall, facing him. He didn’t acknowledge my presence, just continued to stare at the space between his bare feet as he chewed on the inside of his mouth.
Seeing as though he’d asked me to come to him, I figured he didn’t want me to leave, so I chose to wait him out. I would take cues from him about how he needed me to act, because everyone grieved in their own way.
We sat in silence for a while. He stared at the bottle in his hands, drinking from it sporadically. The weariness that he’d worn a little more each time I’d seen him over the last couple of months was like a familiar cloak now, wrapped around him so tightly I wondered if he’d ever fully shed it.
My fingers twitched with the need to trace the worry lines over his forehead, to wipe away the bags under his eyes, to brush his lips up into a smile. I brought my hands into my lap, staring down at my fingers as I twisted and wrung them together to stop myself from doing anything inappropriate. I was there for Beau because he’d asked me to be there, but I couldn’t be there for him the way I longed to.
Despite knowing it was a bad idea, I wriggled a little closer to Beau, so our legs touched. It was my silent way of letting him know I was there if he wanted to talk.
The longer the silence stretched on, the less I could breathe. Why did he want me there? What could I give him with my silent companionship that he couldn’t have got from anyone else? Especially when he wasn’t even talking to me. Why wasn’t Cassidee sitting beside him in his hallway instead of me?
“There was a moment when I was relieved.” Beau’s voice startled me. He stopped talking almost as soon as he’d started, and then held up his hand as if warning me he was trying to gather his thoughts. “The first moment after the doc had tol’ me she was gone, I felt relief.” He spat the words as if they disgusted him.
I didn’t say anything, figuring he didn’t actually want a conversation. He wanted penance, and that was something that wasn’t mine to offer.
“She’s not been herself for years and it’s killed me. Seeing her alive but not really there. And the last few weeks . . . they’ve been dreadful, darlin’. So many seizures and strokes. Her body was shuttin’ down. So for a moment, one tiny moment, I felt relief that she was gone. That she was free.” His eyes searched out mine. It was the first time I was certain the words were actually meant for me. “Who does that, Phoebe? Who feels relief when they’re tol’ someone they love is dead?”
The words were filled with venom, but it was easy to see the hatred was directed inward. Nothing I could say would take away the guilt, so instead of saying anything, I just offered him my hand, letting him take it in his for comfort.
“With that, and everything I put ya through with my stupidity, I deserve this pain.” He tapped his chest with the bottle of Fireball before taking another swig.
The chasm in my chest filled with grief for him, but I couldn’t be the one to comfort him. Not forever. It wasn’t my place to offer that. Not when we both had someone else.
And yet, the warmth of his hand in mine, and the knowledge I could give him some modicum of comfort, made the trip back to Georgia worthwhile.
Where was Cassidee, though? The question was on my lips, but I didn’t want to ask it.
“No,” I said almost silently as I moved to sit beside him and wrap my arm around his shoulders. “You don’t deserve the pain. No matter what you did or didn’t do, you don’t deserve that. But as hard as it is to face, the pain reminds us to live. It reminds us why we need to keep going and enjoy the good moments for however long they last. Because there are no guarantees in life.”
He stared at me and swallowed heavily. It looked like he wanted to say something, but then after a moment, he extracted himself from my hold and staggered to his feet. At first, I thought that maybe he’d come to the same realisation I had—that it shouldn’t be me to comfort him—but he returned
soon after, armed with a new, full bottle of booze and found his way back into the same position against me.
“I wish I could believe that,” he said after taking a swig. He swung his gaze to me, his amber eyes swirling with hidden emotions. With precision-slow motions, he rolled to face me and lifted his free hand to cup my cheek. “Why’d ya come back here, darlin’?”
I blinked back the tears I’d been fighting since reading about his sister’s death. “Because I know what it’s like to lose someone and I thought you might need a friend. I want to be that for you.”
“I don’t wanna be your friend though, darlin’,” he murmured.
I closed my eyes in an attempt to shield myself from his words.
“I wanna be your everythin’.” He frowned and dropped his hand. “But that’s impossible, ain’t it? You and me . . .” He choked before he finished his thought. For a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut before opening them and trying again. “We shoulda been so happy. If I hadn’t screwed things up with ya, we mighta been. And life’s so dang short.” He took another long draw on the bottle before swinging his arm wide as he continued his speech. “Look at Abby. She ain’t never gonna find her everythin’. She ain’t never gonna do nothin’.”
Tears flooded his eyes, and I felt their counterparts welling in me. His words could have been mine. I’d experienced the same anger at the unfairness of Emmanuel’s life being cut so short. And at the potential for mine to be shorter than most others.
“And it’s my fault,” he finished, his words quiet. “If I’d been payin’ more attention, not arguing with her, I mighta avoided the car.”
“But you might not have.”
“Ya don’t know that.”
“No. And neither do you. You can’t blame yourself, Beau. I’m sure no one else does.”
He didn’t seem convinced as he sucked down another drink. “Ya wouldn’t know what it’s like.”
His words stung in ways he might never understand and I had to remind myself that he didn’t know my story.
“Do you remember the night we met?” I asked.
He scoffed. “As if I could forget.”
When he didn’t make the connection, I prompted him a little more. “Do you remember why I said I was out?”
He took another drink. “Ya said . . . Aww, darlin’. Ya said you were celebratin’ your brother’s birthday. Your twin. And that he was . . . gone.”
“Exactly. So trust me when I say I do know what it’s like. I know all about survivor’s guilt, Beau. It sucks, but your guilt won’t change anything. It won’t bring her back.”
“What happened?” The instant the words were out, it looked like he wanted to take them back.
I was ready to tell the story though. At least to him. “He, uh, he died when we were both just a few days old.”
I couldn’t meet Beau’s gaze, so I ran my finger along the chain of the MedicAlert bracelet around my wrist. The one I wore because of Emmanuel’s gift.
Would Beau think I was stupid for comparing a loss I couldn’t even recall suffering with his own?
Staring at the wall ahead of me, I readied myself to tell the story I hadn’t revealed to too many people, and a secret that even Mum and Dad didn’t know. “When Mum was pregnant with me and Emmanuel, she suffered a placental detachment. She was rushed to the hospital for an emergency caesarean. We were almost a month early and I . . . I was really sick.” I ducked my head and picked at the bracelet again. “I should have died.”
“Don’t say that.” Beau’s voice was strained; the tone he used almost made it sound as if he couldn’t imagine a world without me.
“It’s true, though. The doctors did everything they could, but it wasn’t going to be enough. I was going to die. But then—” I cut off as a sob rocked me. I’d never told my side of this story to anyone other than Angel, and I’d ended up a mess then too. “They said it was SIDS. Mum always thought different. She said he knew . . . that he knew I needed a kidney or I would die, and that’s why it happened.”
Beau’s arm wrapped around the back of my neck and he held me against his chest as my tears fell harder.
“I know it was because Mum needed to justify the loss. And I know her thinking like that was the only way she could compartmentalise what happened, but I grew up knowing that I was the one who should have died. That if it wasn’t for what Mum still calls Emmanuel’s sacrifice, I would have.
“If things had gone the way they were supposed to, he would have been the one who grew up. The one who got into racing. The one to continue Dad’s legacy. When I was in high school, it hit me harder than ever before. He’d never get to experience a first kiss. A date. Life. Everything. He should’ve had all those things. He should’ve had them and I should’ve been dead. So don’t tell me that I don’t know what it’s like to feel guilty when the only reason I’m here in front of you is because of my brother’s death.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, resting his cheek against my hair.
I wriggled free of his hold. Even though I was sure he’d argue that I was underage and shouldn’t have any, I reached for the bottle of Fireball whiskey. Instead of protesting, Beau stared at his now-empty hands.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said after taking a shot from the bottle, wincing as the alcohol burned down my throat. “I didn’t mean to turn it around and make this about me. I’m here for you, not to tell my sob stories.”
“No. It’s good. Actually, it’s nice knowin’ that ya do understand and ya ain’t just sayin’ it to make me feel better, like so many of them others.”
A small smile fought through my tears. “I’m glad my misfortunes can ease your suffering a little.” I nudged him with my shoulder.
He chuckled, but there wasn’t a lot of mirth in the sound.
“Emmie is a big part of the reason I got into racing. I feel like I owe it to him. And why I’m into the extreme things in life. I was given a life I was never supposed to have. I want to live it to the full, know what I mean?”
He nodded and turned thoughtful. I took another mouthful of the whiskey, relishing the burn because it gave me something to focus on besides the ache in my chest.
“So livin’ life with no regrets?” Beau asked.
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“I got a regret.” When he turned to me the intensity of the sorrow in his gaze warned me that whatever he was going to say would hurt—him or me, or both of us, I wasn’t sure which. “I regret lettin’ ya go. We were happy when ya were here last summer. And with ya here, racin’ beside me, we shoulda been so happy still. But I screwed it up. Can’t we please try to be happy ag’in?” he asked in a voice so quiet, so pitiful, I almost missed the words. At least until he stared at me, clearly demanding a response.
“Can we talk about this later?” It was getting late. He was drunk. And I didn’t want to get into our same old pattern just then. Not when he needed to grieve.
“I wanna talk about it now. I want ya, darlin’. I needed ya all day today, and I couldn’t call ya to beg ya to come ’cause ya ain’t mine. But ya came anyway. Don’t ya think that proves that we mean somethin’?”
“I came as your friend. Nothing more. We can’t be more than that, Beau. I-I can’t.” Even if things had been a misunderstanding, he was still with Cassidee, and I wasn’t going to get in the middle of a family before it had even started. Not to mention I was still involved with Xavier.
“Why not?”
“Because I won’t get in the middle of your family. I can’t. I won’t leave a baby without a father.” Just days earlier, I’d told him that if he knew the truth about me, he wouldn’t ask me to come between him and the baby.
Now, with all the other truths out on the table, it couldn’t hurt letting him know why I wouldn’t do it. We’d found our way back to something of a friendship, and I owed him a proper explanation. I rested my head back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, drawing comfort from within—from Emmanuel—as I did.
Th
en I started my story. The one that started when Mum and Dad were still in high school and ended with them breaking up the night I was conceived. The one that proved I was an accident. Not unwanted—at least by Mum—but a mistake nonetheless.
It was the story that left me fatherless for the first few years of my life, until Dad came back onto the scene.
“I OFTEN WONDER how different my life would have been if he’d never come back,” I admitted to Beau. Words I’d never spoken aloud to anyone else. Would Mum have found happiness somewhere else? With someone else? Would I have longed for speed and the track if I’d never known Dad? Was it ingrained in my DNA, or something he’d taught me?
By far the more painful thought was what might have happened if Dad had never left . . .
Would he and Mum have drifted apart after Emmanuel’s death? Or would the situation have been different if Dad was around? Would Mum have arrived to the hospital later? Sooner? Would I have died before they could operate and get us both out?
I dragged my ponytail around in front of me and started playing with the ends. “I can’t knowingly deprive a child of their parents. Either of their parents. I won’t get in the middle of that situation, regardless of whether the baby was a mistake like me or not.”
“So, it’s the baby? And Cass?” Beau asked in a whisper. There was something in his voice that didn’t make sense. Something almost positive. Hopeful, even. “That’s the only reason we can’t be together?”
“No. Even without Cass or the baby on the scene, I don’t know that I could try again.”
He flinched away from my words, and his frown deepened. Maybe I was being a cow, laying it all on him now, so soon after his loss, but he’d asked the question and pushed me for a response and I didn’t think it was fair to lead him on. Once, not all that long ago, I would have leapt at the chance to be with him. To try to move on from the sorrow, but now . . .
Well, now, I was just tired.
Of everything.
“So, ya don’t want to take the chance on us ag’in?”
A tiny part of me screamed, “Yes!” but the rest of me was over it. Love had taken me in, chewed me up, and spit me out. I was ready to turn my back on it entirely. To stick with the safe option—Xavier.
Phobic (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #2) Page 25
