Page 22

I watch as Beau takes his medicine and dutifully drinks his tea, working hard to keep a respectable distance between us.

The problem is, I’m used to sleeping in a king-size bed, but this one is a queen, and Beau is a giant.

When he bends over to deposit the empty mug on the bedside table and turn off the light, his thigh presses to mine beneath the blankets, and I have to fight to keep from shivering or jumping away.

My skin feels too tight and my nerves feel too sensitive, and I’m acutely aware of how Beau’s leg hair feels against my thigh. I’m even more aware of what happened the last time we were in a bed together and exactly how long it’s been since then.

I think I might combust.

Before I can wrench myself out of the bed and run across the hall with my tail tucked between my legs, Beau slides down beneath the covers and places his head in my lap. I freeze, but he just says, “Will you scratch my head?”

The heat coiling inside me dissipates, and I slide my hand into his hair, running my nails against his scalp.

He hums, the sound muffled by the blankets.

I can feel the feverish heat of him through the sheets, hear the wheezing sound he makes when he breathes, although it’s a little better since drinking the tea.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” Beau whispers, and my heart pinches. His breath is warm against my thighs, his body so familiar against mine.

“I’ll always take care of you, Beau.”

He rolls his head to look up at me. I can barely make out his features in the moonlight filtering through the windows. “Will you let me take care of you?”

The question hits me in the solar plexus and I have to swallow heavily, weighing my words. “I’m working on it.”

He nods and slumps back onto my lap, his hair tickling my exposed skin. “I can live with that.”

“Thank you for being patient with me,” I say, scratching his scalp lightly. I don’t miss the way he makes a little keening noise in the back of his throat, his body sinking deeper into mine, relishing the feel of it.

He’s quiet for a long moment, and just when I think he’s fallen asleep, he says, “I’ll wait as long as you need me to, Els, as long as you promise you will come back to me one day.”

Outside, the wind howls, and the clouds block out most of the moonlight, illuminating only a small sliver of the room.

It feels like I’m speaking directly into the darkness when I say, “I never wanted to be away from you. I was trying…” I trail off, not knowing how to finish my sentence without revealing too much.

I already feel raw from this conversation, and I need to be strong enough to care for him.

“What were you trying?” he asks softly. He’s not looking at me now, but that doesn’t make this conversion any easier.

I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. “Nothing.”

For a moment, I think he might push, like he’s been doing more and more often of late. I think he might ask again and again until I tell him the truth. But he must be tired, because he just says, “Okay.”

The silence stretches between us for a long time after that, but it’s not awkward.

I keep scratching Beau’s head, and his breathing slows until I think he’s asleep.

I’m tired, too, feeling dragged under by the tempting pull of drifting off in the same bed as Beau, of getting truly restful sleep again.

The kind I haven’t gotten since the last time he was in my bed.

So I’m surprised when Beau asks, “What happened to the paintings?”

I almost think I dreamed it, but then Beau coughs, and when he shifts his hand up to cover his mouth, I realize he’s still awake.

“What paintings?” I ask, even though I have a pretty good idea which ones he’s referring to.

“Our paintings.”

The ones we made at that drunken paint and sip party. The portraits of each other. The ones that hung over our bed ever since. The ones I took down after he left, unable to look at them anymore.

“They’re in the attic.”

Beau is quiet for a moment, only the sound of his ragged breathing and the howling wind cutting through the silence. “Why?”

I consider not answering him, or at least not telling him the truth, but I’m so tired, mentally and physically. This is the longest stretch I’ve gone without vomiting in the last month, and I’m exhausted from growing organs all day.

So the truth slips out, raw and unfiltered. “I couldn’t stand to look at them and be reminded of another way I’d failed.”

Beau rolls over onto his back, his head still in my lap, but it’s too dark for me to make out much besides his shape. Even in the dark, he’s so familiar. “What do you mean?” He sounds more alert now.

My heart beats in my chest, and I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a precipice. One that I’ve been dancing around my whole life, avoiding no matter the cost, and now I’m considering just…falling.

For a moment, I can’t breathe. The words are there, pressing against my throat, begging to be spoken. But if I say them, if I let them out, they’ll be real.

I exhale, slow and unsteady. Ragged. Then, finally—

“I failed at dance,” I say out loud for the first time ever.

It’s a thought that’s been going round and round in my head since my injury, that I failed at the one thing I’d been working my entire life for, but this is the first time I’ve said it aloud.

“I failed at dance. And then I failed to keep my baby alive. And then I failed at my marriage. And I would lie awake in bed at night and stare at those damn paintings and be reminded of how I failed at that too.” My breath comes out heavy now, jagged. “I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Elsie,” Beau says, sitting up.

I cut him off. “No, I don’t want to talk about it, okay? I just want to go to sleep. Please.” I hate the way my voice breaks on the last word. How brittle and broken I sound.

And Beau, because he knows me better than anyone else, knows it too. He’s quiet for two long heartbeats, but he finally says, “Okay, Els. Let’s go to sleep.”

He lies down then and waits for me to lie beside him before wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close.

With his mouth in my hair, he says, “But just so you know, I don’t think you failed at any of those things.

The dance floor, the canvas, and especially our baby, were lucky just to be touched by you, for however long you had them.

Not all endings are failings. Some are just chances for us to start over. ”