In Pieces, page 10
“You’re staying at my place,” he deadpans.
“I don’t need all this for one night, David.” I gesture to the pile he’s laid out on my bed.
He stops short. “One night?” He shakes his head. “Beth, you’re staying with me indefinitely.”
I frown at him. “I can’t do that.”
He takes a step forward until I have to crane my neck just to meet his gaze. “Well I can’t leave you alone here, with him free, having full access to the building you live in.”
I swallow audibly at the implication.
“So you can either come stay with me, in my nice, big apartment, with plenty of room for the both of us, or I can stay here, sleep on the floor, and wait for Lani to take advantage of me while I sleep.” His lip twitches and I huff out a short laugh.
But the fact is, he’s right. I don’t know if Brody’s intention tonight was really just to talk or something more nefarious, but I do know I can’t be putting myself in the position to find out every time I come home from fucking class.
“Just until he’s arrested for real, okay?” David placates.
I nod. “Yeah, okay.”
Chapter Nine
David
Beth looks around my place as if she’s seeing it for the first time. She’s been here a few times since school started, of course, but she never had to consider it as her home. Her temporary home, anyway.
I grab the towel I carelessly left on the floor just outside the bathroom, and toss it into the hamper just as Beth steps into the living room. I knock the empty Gatorade bottles from the kitchen counter into the trash, and place this morning’s cereal bowl into the sink. If I knew I’d be bringing her back here, I’d have straightened up. It’s not like I’m a slob, but I’m a single twenty-year-old guy who lives alone, and one thing I’ve never been accused of is being a neat freak. I make a mental note to make more of an effort. My mother is the only chick I’ve ever lived with, and what can I say? She always picked up after me.
But I’ve shared a space with Beth before, so it shouldn’t be too weird. Of course, we were younger then. Vacations where the parents would throw us kids all together in our own room so they could screw in peace.
“Well?” I ask, waiting for her verdict on my place. I’ve only just moved in a matter of weeks ago and the apartment is pretty basic. One bedroom, one bathroom, a living room adjacent to an open kitchen full of rarely used appliances, and a small breakfast area. It’s furnished exactly how you’d expect a single male student to furnish an apartment—in boring black leather and glass, and not a single thing that can be referred to as decor.
As Beth runs her delicate fingers over the black leather of my new sofa, I’m glad I haven’t brought any girls here. When it comes to hooking up, I’ve always avoided bringing anyone home—easier to make a quick getaway at their place—but as Beth’s skin touches the soft fabric, I know it would have been wrong to let her come into contact with a couch I fucked some one-night stand on. I cringe at the thought. She is better than that. She is better than everything.
She is better than me.
“It’s…nice,” she murmurs.
I bark out a laugh. “Nice? You think?” I goad her. She’s so full of shit.
Beth reluctantly smiles. “Well you haven’t exactly put much thought into the design, have you.” It isn’t a question.
I quirk an eyebrow.
“No, you wouldn’t.” She answers her own non-question. “I could help if you want.”
“Help?”
“Yeah. You know. A few throw pillows, some picture frames…It wouldn’t take much to make it look less like a…”
“A…”
She shrugs. “Well, a temporary CIA safe house, or some other place no one actually means to live in.”
I burst into laughter and Beth grins. She’s right, of course. That’s exactly what the place looks like. But that’s what it is. A temporary lodging, not a home. I’ll be here for one school year—two at the most. But if Beth wants some throw pillows, then I’ll buy some fucking throw pillows. Whatever makes her feel comfortable at my place. She could be here for a couple of nights, or for the rest of the year for all I know. Because if Brody stays free, then Beth stays with me. No way will I let him get his dirty, depraved fucking hands on her.
She runs her palms over the seat cushions. “Do you have extra sheets? A blanket? So I can make it up?” She nods down at the sofa.
“I’ll do that,” I tell her. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, kid.” I start to lead her to the kitchen, but she doesn’t move.
“I don’t want to be a bug, David. I can make up my own bed.”
I stop short. “Your own bed?” I laugh again. She thinks I’d let her sleep on a fucking couch?
“I know I can be a thoughtless asshole, but you’re family, Bea. And anyway, I basically kidnapped you; I’m not making you crash on the fucking couch. Your bed is in there.” I gesture to the bedroom door. “I’ll make up the couch for myself later.” I turn my back on her and head around the island into the kitchen, and grab a beer from the fridge. “Want one?” I offer.
Should I be offering her a beer? She’s only eighteen, but we all drank whenever we wanted as freshmen. Who am I kidding, we did it in high school, too. But Beth is still Beth. She’s still Cap’s little sister, even if the more time I spend with her away from him, the easier it is to forget why she’s off limits.
“No thanks,” she murmurs, and proceeds to grab herself a water bottle from the fridge. “If I’m going to stay here, I’m not going to be waited on like some guest.”
Ooh, my assertive little rebel has a point to make. I chew the inside of my cheek to fight my smirk.
“And I can’t steal your bed, David. If I were Sammy—”
I hold up my hand. “If you were your brother, there wouldn’t be some sicko fucking stalking you.” Or there might, because Cap has definitely had his share of overzealous chicks. We all have. But the difference is Cap, me—we can take care of ourselves.
But I know Beth well enough not to articulate my silent elaboration. The dumbest thing I could do right now is to make her feel inferior because of her age or gender. But what she doesn’t understand is that it isn’t about inferiority. It’s about value. It’s not just that she needs protecting, it’s that she’s worth protecting.
Beth’s lips lift into a small smile. “They wouldn’t dare fuck with Sammy. Rory would kick their skinny asses.”
I smile. Also true. Cap’s girl, the one who suddenly showed up halfway through our senior year and converted him from infamous teenaged playboy into love-struck, doting boyfriend, is a fucking badass.
Beth takes a swig of her water bottle, her eyes skating into the living room, back onto that damned couch. And I get it. She wouldn’t be Beth if she wasn’t reluctant to kick a man out of his own bed. If she wasn’t ready and willing to forgo her own comfort for that of someone she cares about.
My chest swells with warmth. I know she cares about me, and owning the affection, sisterly or not, of someone like Beth…it’s not something I take for granted.
“You have dinner?” I ask, partly to get her attention off the damned sofa, and partly because I’m fucking hungry.
Her cheeks heat with a telltale blush, and I wonder what it’s about. “No, I just had coffee.”
Well, that explains nothing. “I’ll order from Mama Nona’s. You want to see the menu?”
Beth shrugs. “I’ll just eat whatever you get.”
I tell her I’m just going to have some pizza, and, predictably, she asks for extra cheese. I tell her to make herself at home and ask her to give me a minute, which I use to straighten up the bedroom and change the sheets for her. When I emerge, Beth is sitting on the floor of my living room, books sprawled out on my coffee table, furiously jotting down notes.
I smile. I want her to feel like it’s her home, too. The more comfortable she is, the less awkward it will be.
I sit on the corner of the sofa—my new bed—and pick up my copy of Angels In America, delving back into “Millennium Approaches” both for my playwright class and because Tony Kushner is a fucking genius.
The buzzer rings, announcing our pizza’s arrival, and I realize that the last half hour passed by in what feels like a single breath. I glance at Beth. I’ve never experienced such comfortable quiet with another girl, and I wonder if it’s another sisterly thing, or it it’s simply a Beth thing.
I buzz the delivery guy in, and he’s at our door a minute later.
Beth asks if I mind if she studies while we eat. I don’t, and I down three slices while I read ahead of my assignment—something I’ve done my whole life, but never would have admitted to in high school.
Beth finally closes and packs up her books around ten, and I close Angels and set it back on the side table. I take a peek inside the pizza box to check how much she ate, and she glares at me in accusation. I grimace, caught. She hates being checked after, and I make a mental note to be more subtle about it in the future.
Because I can’t just let it go. I will never forget the version of her destroyed by that scumbag, Brian Falco. How much weight she lost when she was already barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, how she stopped changing out of sweats, or washing her hair, for that matter. But it was more than the obvious physical changes. It was her spirit. It was like the light drained from her eyes just as surely as the color from her cheeks.
I tried to help her. Even if it wasn’t really my place. Especially not after my role in the whole clusterfuck. But I couldn’t bear to see her that way. Still, no matter how many words of encouragement I offered, how many books I dropped off for her when she wasn’t feeling well enough to even come down from her bedroom, or how many texts I sent, she just seemed to spiral further and further into an abyss of misery until she wasn’t even her anymore.
I don’t even know what happened in the end. Supposedly her mom and Cap finally just had enough, and they intervened and got her help. I suspect there’s something I haven’t been told, some detail too personal to discuss in front of someone considered like family, but not actually family. Someone who, when all is said and done, isn’t bound to Beth by anything more than a lifelong friendship with her brother and the friendship of our parents.
“I ate two slices.” She lets the sarcasm drip from her tone. “Happy?”
I ignore her snark. “So who did you have coffee with tonight?” I ask.
She composes her startle quickly, but I don’t miss it. Her eyes flit from mine to her books, deliberating between truth and lies. But when her gaze meets mine again, and her deep blue eyes gleam guileless and anxious, I know before she speaks I’m about to get a truth I’m not going to like.
“Look, don’t be mad, okay?”
My eyes roll toward the popcorn ceiling. “I fucking hate when people start sentences like that.”
Beth blows out a deep exhale. “I had coffee with Brian.”
She is right—I don’t fucking like it, and I am definitely mad. “’The fuck, Bea?” I try not to growl.
Beth launches into her mile-a-minute ramblings about Falco just wanting to talk, and his supposed apologies. She says he invoked the age-old excuse of youthful stupidity, and swore his unending regret for making such a monumental mistake.
But it wasn’t a mistake. It was his mistake. And he doesn’t get to take it back. He doesn’t get another chance. We all have to make choices, and I made mine years ago, and accepted what that meant, but in the end Falco made his, too. And yeah, I had my part in it, but I was looking out for her.
I thought I was looking out for her.
But even as I think it, my gut rolls with dread at the old fear that Falco could blow up my spot. He has no real reason not to, and Beth may not see things from my perspective. Not for the first time, I think I should just tell her myself. But I am a fucking coward.
“David, please don’t be mad,” Beth pleads, her eyes lined in worry.
She cares what I think. I need to remember that. Because there’s power in it, and I’ve learned my lesson when it comes to influencing the lives of others.
“I don’t want you seeing him.” Or not.
Beth’s eyes narrow. “It’s not your choice to make, David.”
Well, fuck.
I grit my teeth, swallowing down all the things I know better than to say. I have to trust she already knows them all—remind myself she isn’t a kid anymore. “You’re giving him another chance?” My voice is low and toneless.
Surprise widens her eyes and her mouth gapes slightly. “What?”
I don’t speak. She heard the question, and her hesitation makes me take whatever her response is with a grain of wound-stinging salt.
“No, David. I’m not interested in him like that anymore. He burned that bridge a long time ago.”
My eyebrow arches all on its own.
“Okay, fine,” she concedes. “He strung it up with dynamite, lit the fuse, and walked away without a backward glance. Happy?”
I exhale the tension coiling my muscles, glancing down at my socked feet for a moment to compose myself. Beth waits for me to meet her gaze again, eyes wide and expectant. “I just don’t want to see you hurt again,” I admit.
There’s that small smile. “I know.”
I nod reluctantly. “Are you gonna see him again?”
Beth shrugs, her oversized v-neck slipping off her pale, delicate shoulder. I don’t know why I find it so goddamned sexy, and I hold my breath until she unconsciously fixes it. “I told him I would consider a friendship.”
I bite my tongue. I literally hold it between my teeth to keep the words in.
“I know,” she says. “He doesn’t deserve my friendship.”
Damn fucking straight.
“But I don’t want to punish him, David. It took me a long time to get over Brian, but I did get over him. The love, if that’s really what it ever was—it’s gone. But so is the hate, the resentment…all of it, you know? And now? Honestly? I’m kind of indifferent.” She shrugs. “I wouldn’t have pursued a friendship with him. But he’s here, and I’m not going to pretend I don’t know him.” Another shrug. “It is what it is.”
With a sigh of surrender, I let it go. I don’t want to think about Brian-fucking-Falco. I don’t want him here with us, in my goddamned apartment.
Beth says she’s tired, so I show her where the towels are, but she waves me off. She uses the bathroom while I make up the couch.
“Are you sure about this, David? I’m really fine sleeping on the couch.”
I snort. Like that’s fucking happening. “Bea, I pass out watching TV on this thing most nights anyway. It’s comfortable. It’s no big fucking deal.”
Her eyes narrow subtly, and I remind myself she knows me well, too. Enough to know I definitely don’t watch TV nightly, or much at all besides sports. But she doesn’t call me out on it.
Our first awkward moment announces itself with deafening silence. We say good night, facing each other uncertainly across the room. It feels like I should do something. If she were leaving, and we were saying “good-bye” and not “good night,” I’d give her a hug, or maybe playfully muss her hair. But she’s staying. So, like an idiot, I give her a halfhearted salute, and she lets out a hiccup of a giggle, and gives me one back before heading to bed.
I curl up on my couch and grab Angels from the side table, planning to read until my eyes close of their own accord. Because this couch is uncomfortable as fuck to sleep on.
Chapter Ten
Beth
I scroll through my emails and check my assignment for my Shakespeare class, glancing at the clock yet again. Fifteen minutes more. On Wednesday evenings I’m the only one who mans the new student chatline—the anonymous messaging guidance program Professor Bowman recently implemented. It’s usually all but radio silence, save for your random bored prankster, and, once, an exceptionally unimpressive dick pic.
But there have been a few students using it sincerely, and slowly but surely it’s been gaining popularity. Well, as popular as a student mental health outreach tool can be expected to become, anyway. But this particular shift tends to be especially quiet, and aside from getting a good amount of studying done, I’m all but bored to tears.
And as much as I care about volunteering, I’m anxious to get home to David’s—to banter and bullshit and talk about our day.
I text Lani to check in. She’s still staying with Elise—who I’ve become pretty friendly with—but even if Brody hasn’t been on campus since the attack, we’d both rather be safe than sorry.
Ping.
I’m so surprised by the chime of the incoming message that I actually jump in my chair.
Hi, the message says.
Hi, my name is Beth. How are you doing today? I reply with the standard greeting. It’s up to us whether we use our real names or not. I couldn’t think of a reason not to. I’m not ashamed of who I am.
I’ve been better.
My attention focuses and I sit straighter in my chair as I realize this is not, in fact, a prank. Rough day? I prompt.
Ha.
I wait for a follow-up, and it comes a second later.
Rough life.
I swallow hard. I can empathize. But I also know there’s a way back from the emptiness. What should I call you? I reply. It’s a non-pressure tactic, but I already doubt I’ll get an actual name from this one.
You? Fucking trash, probably.
My heart aches for this stranger. That isn’t true, I assure the person who thought I would refer to him as fucking trash.
You sure about that, Beth?
The response sets my anxiety alarm off hard. Even though I know I gave him my name, something about his using it now, in this context, makes me uneasy. I don’t even actually know that it’s a him at all, and I don’t know why the few messages he—or she—has sent have given me that impression. But they have. That I wouldn’t call you trash? Yes. I’m sure, I reply. When two minutes pass without a response, I add, No one deserves to be treated that way.
