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." Harrison 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.