She tried to smile. "Right. You … you either." Beth's tongue stumbled over the words. Was that the proper response? Was it misleading? She wasn't sure what to say, how to act. She hesitated with her hand on the door handle. Should she say more?
"It's okay."
Beth twisted to face Ozzy, taking in his fractured smile. "What?"
He looked at his hand, opened and closed it. "It's awkward … this … you and me … but it's okay. I mean, I understand. Or I'm-I'm trying to. I'll give you space. I just-I really do miss you. I meant that."
She met his gaze, her throat tight with unsaid words. Beth wanted to tell him she didn't want space-that she wanted an end, but that would hurt him. And she also wanted to tell him things would be okay, but she didn't know that they would. Ozzy with his bright eyes, selfish heart, and too much charm.
She said nothing.
"I didn't want to let you go," he whispered.
Beth blinked, pressing her lips together hard to keep from saying something she shouldn't. It would be so easy to tell him it was okay. It would be so easy to give in. Her teeth dug into the tissue, causing pain to ripple through her mouth. Don't forget. You can't forget. Don't forget, Beth. A single sentence, a certain look, and all the bad could be forgotten. Some days she had to fight to remember.
Ozzy nodded at her silence, his eyes hidden from her. "Anyway, have a good night."
She mimicked the farewell, her steps slow as she heard the engine roar and fade away. Her heart squeezed at the thought of him hooking up with someone, maybe even Kelly Burbach. It wasn't painful, it wasn't debilitating. But it stung, just a bit. Not your business. Beth took a deep breath, hurrying for the front door as the cold slithered up and down her body.
Once inside, she stood for a moment in the dark, collecting her courage as, not for the first time, she patched up the pieces of her frayed heart. Already she felt better, more confident of her choices. Just from removing herself from Ozzy's presence.
Beth locked the door, reminding herself that however long she and Ozzy had been a couple, it didn't mean they should have been. It wasn't always an accomplishment to count the years spent with someone-it could be something to grieve as well. Lost opportunities and dragging something on that should have ended long ago.
She removed her coat, hat, and gloves, setting them on the small table located beneath the key hook. She turned on the lights and made her way through the living room with its cream walls and carpet, took a left down a short, dark hallway, and entered her bedroom.
When Beth had first come to look at the house with hopes of renting it some months ago, she'd been overjoyed to see that the bedroom walls were painted gray with hints of lavender. It was a pretty, soothing color. She'd kept the decorating minimal-pink mini-lights strewn along the top of the walls, an eight by ten canvas of her with her mom, dad, and two brothers above the dresser.
A chest painted black with white and teal stars rested at the foot of her bed, and situated near the door, there was a wooden desk and lime green chair meant to be used for her writing. Most days she was either on the comfortable plum-toned chair in the living room or propped up in bed with her laptop.
The bed beckoned her forth, and she turned her back on it. Feeling fidgety, she paced a small path before the desk, needing something to focus on so she didn't focus on the past. Finding out more about her employer would fill the space from consciousness to slumber.
Clothes removed and tossed in the hamper inside her closet, Beth tugged on a pair of soft hot pink lounge pants and a yellow long-sleeved shirt. Hair in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck, she made her way to the tiny kitchen with its sunshine yellow walls, smiling at the striking color. It was eye catching and demanded notice. She felt like that sometimes-insignificant but noteworthy, if anyone chose to really look at her and realize it. Overlooked, that was Beth.
Fighting to be seen without knowing how to shine.
Within minutes, she had a bowl of air-popped popcorn tucked in the crook of her arm and a large glass of chocolate milk in her other hand. Beth turned on the television, the low hum of it making her feel like she wasn't alone. After living with Ozzy for two years, living on her own was strange. Not exactly lonely, but different. It took some getting used to, the sounds of another person living beside her taken for granted until it was gone. She didn't miss him, but she missed the space he'd filled.
And more than that-more than that-Beth missed herself. That was something she hadn't realized until recently, and she was stumbling in her trek, but she was getting there. Learning about who she was and who she wanted to be. Slowly. Painfully. Beautifully. Like a caterpillar finding it had wings, and could fly.
Beth smiled with self-derision, wondering if she should have designated herself a poet instead of a novelist.
She paused with the remote control in her hand, her thoughts turning to Harrison with his mysteries and black-fire eyes. Beth took in the solitude, the realization that she was a party of one, like him. What was it like for Harrison without a television, without anything but the sound of his voice to give him comfort? Maybe there was a radio. He hadn't said there wasn't that. She turned off the television, the silence instantly consuming her. So quiet it was loud. Beth closed her eyes and tipped back her head, trying to put herself in his place, trying to figure out his brain.
Beth shook her head and opened her eyes, her lips lifted in the merest of ways. Did she want to know how his brain worked? Yes, and no. It seemed to be a dark, endless corridor. Beth opened the laptop, braced it on her legs, and waited, her pulse jumping around inside her veins. Once the screen was up and she was on the internet, she froze with her fingers posed over the keys. Whatever she found, she couldn't go back and unlearn it, she couldn't unread the words.
He knew she was going to look him up. He'd told her whatever she learned, she was obligated to remain in his employ. That sounded ominous. What was left unsaid was what would happen if she tried to break the contract. She would be sued. It was plainly written on the paper she'd signed. Maybe she should have thought everything out in a more detailed manner before taking the job, but she didn't want to be stuck bartending in Crystal Lake, Minnesota the rest of her life, and especially not with her ex-boyfriend. She wanted to use her passion for words in a creative way. She wanted to write.
Beth's fingers shook and she swallowed, sweaty with indecision, her flesh clammy with foreboding. She chugged the chocolate milk like its cold goodness was going to give her a boost of fortitude, gnawing on a handful of popcorn when the glass was empty. She methodically chewed the buttered and salted popcorn, talking herself into Googling Harrison Caldwell as she did so. Wiping her greasy fingers on a napkin, Beth took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and typed his name in the search engine.
HUNGOVER WAS AN apt description of how Beth felt, never mind that she hadn't had any alcohol the previous night. Her eyes felt heavy and gritty, and when she opened them, she quickly shut them, the sliver of light finding its way in around the window blind directed straight at her eyeballs. She'd spent hours late into the night reading articles, studying pictures, getting a fragmented tale of Harrison Caldwell.
She slapped her palms against her closed eyelids and groaned, her stomach churning in protestation of the information she now knew. Beth pressed hard against her face, a hitched breath all she could form as she tried to shove the knowledge she'd learned through the back of her head and out of her mind. She felt sick. And sad. Hopeless. All for a man she didn't know, and after last night, wished she'd never met.
Beth turned to her side, one arm hugging her midsection, and pointlessly tried to erase him from her brain. She thought of flowers, their silky petals, their scent, and somehow, her brain tripped to an image of him, lying in a meadow of sunflowers. Eyes closed, skin reflecting the sunshine. Still and somber. Dead or alive, Beth didn't know.
She counted instead, but only made it to thirty-one. Beth swallowed, her breath catching at the number. When her attempts to drive him from her thoughts did nothing but pull her further into despair, made him an even brighter beacon for her to dwell on, she went over facts in her head, something she did to calm herself. Some of them were already written down on paper, paper she'd stared at in disbelief as the night grew and turned into dawn.
Beth tucked herself into a ball as her heart pounded faster. He was only thirty-one years old. She took a breath, her body shaking, and took another. You barely know him. Get ahold of yourself. It didn't seem to matter that she'd physically known Harrison Caldwell all of one day. All Beth could focus on was that she did know him, and that made him matter. He was a person. She tried to swallow and couldn't. He was a person and that made him important.