Steady as the Snow Falls(29)

 

He started toward the house. "If you really want to help me, you'll go."

Harrison refused to look at or speak to her once they were back to the  house, locking himself in the bathroom before she could even try to talk  to him. Beth didn't want to leave him, but she wouldn't stay where she  wasn't wanted. Feeling helpless, she chewed on a fingernail as she came  to the decision that she had no choice but to go. She decided to make  her departure a positive experience and take the time to write more on  his book.

It was madness, but part of Beth thought, if she just kept writing his  story, then Harrison's life wouldn't be able to ever end. His story was  left unfinished, and what kind of person would step out of their own  tale before it was time?

Beth left as he instructed, but not before she retrieved the ten pages  of the manuscript from the Blazer and set the beginning of his novel on  Harrison's bed. She lingered in the room, feeling him like a mark upon  her skin, smelling him in the air. Masculine, clean, sensual in his  plainness. Her footsteps were heavy, lingering. Beth let the tips of her  fingers slide across his dark bedspread before leaving the pristine,  sparsely furnished room of a single dresser, one bed, and a solitary  desk.





THE FOLLOWING DAY, fear spiked her pulse as she entered the house. No  text came telling her to stay away, but even if it had, Beth would have  ignored it. Harrison could only avoid her if she allowed it. It wasn't  about her writing his story anymore, although that was an important part  of their association. It was about them-the thread that stitched her  life to his.

Beth didn't announce her presence. She took off her jacket, hat, and  boots, and marched to the laundry room. Opening the linen closet, she  found cleaning supplies and a wood polishing agent. Logic wasn't  necessarily a factor in what she had planned, but it didn't matter. Even  as she understood why it was the way it was, the trophy room was no  longer going to live in disharmony.

She knew that making a shrine out of his past wasn't the way to go. The  awards he'd earned weren't him. They were a reminder of what he'd once  been, who he'd been. Harrison wasn't that person anymore, and that  person had never really been Harrison. He was more, deeper. He was all  the stars, and all the galaxies, and everything beyond; held in the hand  of all the worlds. Secret rooms, unknown floors, whispered passages.  Beth wanted to discover them all.

Following that train of thought, he was more than the person he was  being. He said he wasn't hiding, but he was. Harrison was hiding from  himself. He gave the disease power over him, just as she gave Ozzy power  over her. It wasn't the same, she knew, but power was power. And no one  and nothing should have it over another.

As she entered the room, dust swirled around her like tiny dancers, and  she blinked against it. Juggling in her arms the bottles of disinfectant  and whatever else she'd grabbed, she moved to the center of the room  and dropped everything on the floor. Beth closed the door and then moved  to the window, unlocking it and pushing it open. Cool, new air wafted  in, and she closed her eyes as she popped her head outside and inhaled  deeply.

Beth tightened the ponytail on the top of her head as she turned from  the window, tugged her pink tee shirt back into place, and eyed the  daunting task before her. The room appeared unending, filled as it was,  but in reality, it wasn't all that big. The task was not unmanageable.

"Don't think about it," she told herself. "Just do it."

Sliding her cell phone from the pocket of her black leggings, Beth found  a playlist of fast-paced music and turned the volume as high as it  would go before she started moving all of the trophies and awards from  shelves and desks to the floor. Beth coughed as she worked, sweat  forming in the small of her back and in the hollow of her neck. Her  fingers were covered in thick gray matter that made her nose wrinkle.

‘The Sound of Silence'; remade by Disturbed, came on as she set the last  trophy on the hardwood floor. Beth swept loose strands of damp hair  from her face with the back of her hand and went still to better  appreciate the music as she waited for her tired limbs to rejuvenate. As  the singer's voice swelled and reverberated through the room and in  her, Beth closed her eyes and did a lazy pirouette with a smile on her  face. The music wasn't loud, but it didn't have to be to pulse with her  heart. Ballet, tap, jazz, and hip-hop-she'd learned as many of the  different forms of dancing as she could as a kid. This was a haunting  song that deserved to be savored.

She sprayed wood polisher on a desk and wiped circles onto it as she  shook her hips back and forth and bobbed her head to ‘I Am' by  AWOLNATION. The wood gleamed back at her and she moved to the wall  shelves. Beth spun and dipped backward, her arms loose and flowing as  she surged left and right, turning the cleaning into a performance. By  the time she was done with the woodwork, it shone back at her like a  shiny penny. Beth grinned and turned, her ponytail swinging with the  motion, and reached for the first of the trophies.         

     



 

The music shut off, the silence stinging in the wake of the song. Beth's  head shot up, and she was met with the formidable being that was  Harrison. The black of his shirt mirrored his expression. He stood in  the doorway, one hand braced on the woodwork. The pose was casual,  deceptive. Because his eyes leaked menace, as well as pain. Beth's hands  unconsciously loosened and she dove for the trophy before it hit the  floor, landing on the floor with it.

"Why are you always turning off music?" she grumbled, not knowing what else to say.

"What are you doing in here?" The measurement of his words was off, thicker.

Beth put down the trophy and stood, wiping her hands on the front of her pants. "Dancing. And cleaning."

"Why?"

She shrugged and twisted her hair around her hand, letting it go when  her scalp stung. "Just because this part of your life is over, that  doesn't mean you have to pretend it isn't there, or hide it away. You  should be proud of what you've accomplished."

It took him a tense minute to respond, his eyes penetrating hers, taking  her breath. "I am proud of it, but I also don't want to look at it."

"Fine. Don't." Her heart beat in her ears as Harrison stepped into the  room and looked around. "But in case you ever decide you want to, it'll  be here."

"It's a mirage. Looking at this reminds me of what I once was, and what I  now am. My own body is fighting me, Beth." His eyebrows pinched  together, and he lowered his eyes as his throat worked to swallow. There  he was, the real Harrison. She was seeing more and more of him, and  she'd give anything to keep him here, but not at the price of the hurt  he was experiencing.

"Fight back," she whispered.

"I can't."

Anger lashed through her, and Beth slapped her hand on a desk, pain  slamming through her palm and into her arm. "Yes, you can. Fight back!"

"I can't!" Harrison shoved his face next to hers, his eyes black with  fury. His mouth was nothing more than a slice of pink against white.  "Look at me. Look at me."

Beth looked into the tormented eyes of a man brought down by something  no one ever should. She lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders.  "I am looking at you."

Bloodshot eyes stared back; a fine layer of sweat covered his skin. His  eyes were fevered, wild with hopelessness. "I am a disease."

"No. You're not. Don't say that, don't think that," she told him,  shaking her head. "You are not defined by this. You said it. You said it  and you have to believe it."

"I try to. Sometimes I try to." Harrison swallowed, covering his eyes  with his hands as if to stop seeing the reality awaiting him. He let his  hands fall away, revealing the splintered pieces of his soul in the  brokenness of his expression. "When I'm with you, I forget. But then,  like yesterday, I am reminded. Again and again I am reminded."

"It's okay to have bad days, Harrison. You're having a bad day, that's all." Beth reached for him, and he stepped away.

"It's not okay to hope. It's not okay to pretend. It's not. It's not okay," Harrison muttered and showed her his stiff back.

He paced near the trophies and awards. He paused with his profile to  her, and his hand trembled as he swiped it across his mouth. Harrison  stared through the window to outside, looking at a freedom he couldn't  feel. He glanced at her, his mouth contorted with anguish, and then he  moved again. Back and forth. His steps jerky, his body wired with  discontent.

"You don't have to lie to me, or to you." Beth followed the movement  with her eyes, aware that Harrison's composure had cracked at some point  during the time from yesterday to today. That look in his eyes, that  desperation, it killed a tiny part of her. "You're right, you don't have  to pretend. You don't have to act like you're okay when you're not. I'm  here. Let me help you."