Chapter 59
59
BLAKE, 2001
20 years old
Beverly was asleep, tangled in the sheets beside me, one arm curled under her cheek and one leg thrown across mine. As for me? I was a mess. I tried to close my eyes, tried to count backwards from a hundred, tried to pretend I wasn’t painfully, pathetically aware of every soft breath she took.
How was I supposed to sleep with her looking like that? Hair messy and splayed across the pillow. Face relaxed, skin glowing under the low light like something carved out of moonlight.
Every time I closed my eyes, I opened them again just to check if she was still there. And every time, she was.
I watched her and tried not to drown in the weight of everything I felt. The sheets felt too warm. The room too quiet. I was restless. Unmoored. Shaking with a need I couldn’t name. Restless in that full-body, soul-deep way that made it hard to be still. She breathed in. I exhaled. Her nose scrunched a little and I thought, Jesus, you don’t even know what you do to me, do you ?
I had no idea what to do with myself.
I’d spent too many months wondering if I’d ever see her again. Months convincing myself that this—her, me—would never happen. And now it was. And all I could do was sit here, heart in my throat, haunted by every stupid mistake I’d ever made and terrified I’d make more.
My hand hovered near her face, not touching, just there. Close enough to feel the warmth of her. I blinked up at the ceiling, teeth clenched, heart pacing as if it knew something I didn’t. My mind was loud. Too loud. Every apology I still hadn’t said. Every promise I hadn’t made yet. Every plan, every fear, every unspoken hope crammed into the same five inches of space between my ribs.
I was still wide awake when the clock blinked 3:46 a.m.
By 4:21 a.m., ‘restless’ didn’t even begin to cover it.
I was on fire.
I started counting the cracks in the ceiling, still wondering how the hell I was supposed to sleep with everything I ever wanted within reach. Beverly, letting out a soft sigh beside me, looked like something that makes priests question their vows.
At some point, I gave up.
I needed more than borrowed sleep and shared warmth.
I slipped out of bed as quietly as I could, tugging on my shirt, grabbing my keys, pacing. Then I stood by the bed like an idiot, staring down at her like a boy at the edge of a cliff.
I reached out and brushed a knuckle along her jaw. “Beverly,” I whispered. “Wake up.”
She stirred. Groaned softly into the pillow.
I nudged her gently. “B,” I whispered again. “Hey, wake up.”
She shook her head slowly, confused, her voice a sleepy rasp. “Did I fall asleep on the Fruit Loops again?”
“No, baby, you didn’t. But I need you to?—”
“Is someone dead?”
“B—”
She cracked one eye open. “Are you dying?”
“Yes. Of restlessness.”
Her face scrunched. “Blake…”
“Please,” I whispered. “I need you to come with me.”
“If this is about equations, I swear?—”
“It’s not,” I cut in, brushing her hair back from her forehead. “Put on some shoes.”
Beverly sat up slowly, propping herself up on her elbows as if weighing her options. She blinked up at me, bleary and adorable. “Are you kidnapping me again?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But gently.”
She must’ve heard something in my voice, because she didn’t ask any more questions. She rubbed her eyes, rolled out of bed, and stepped into her shoes with the kind of practiced stubbornness I’d missed like hell. Five minutes later, we were back in the Impala—the windows rolled down, the radio turned low, and the warm night air flowing in. I drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting between us like a dare. Beverly didn’t take the bait.
We didn’t say much. She sat curled in the passenger seat, yawning every few seconds, her arms tucked inside her sleeves. The sky was still dark—just before dawn. The kind of hour most people missed unless they were hurting or healing.
As soon as Beverly saw where we were going, she sat up straighter. The closer we got, the more her expression changed.
By the time I parked near the beach—the same spot she dragged me to all those years ago—she was smiling. “The beach?” she said, her voice laced with surprise.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Thought we could watch the sunrise.”
She pulled her sleeves over her hands, stepped out of the car, and started walking toward the water without a word.
I watched her go, a dozen things clawing at my throat, but I swallowed them down and followed. The beach was empty, the kind of quiet that only existed in the earliest hours of the morning.
The ocean spread out in front of us like it was waiting.
The sky was just beginning to change—inky black giving way to the faintest traces of deep blue.
Beverly stopped near the shoreline, her sneakers sinking slightly into the damp sand. After a beat, she said. “Déjà vu.”
“You remember what happened last time we were here?”
“I remember you wouldn’t kiss me.”
I huffed a laugh. “Yeah, well, I was actually talking about the part where you ended up with pneumonia.” A lie. A blatant one.
Because how could I forget the first night I almost kissed her—and chickened out?
We kicked off our shoes without a word.
She looked at me. I looked at her.
And then we ran straight into the ocean.
The water was shockingly cold at first. Beverly let out a sharp breath, swearing under her breath, but she kept going. I followed her until the water was around our waists, lapping at our ribs.
The same place where she’d looked at me four and a half years ago, silently begging for a kiss. I knew it now. I hadn’t back then—but I knew it now. That look. That longing.
And here we were again. Full circle.
She turned to face me, her lips parted slightly as she caught her breath. I couldn’t stop staring at her. A million thoughts tangled in my head, each one fighting for space. A thousand different ways I wanted to fix it all. Rewrite history with my own hands, stitch together a version where I had stayed. Give her everything. Anything. Whatever she asked.
A version where I never walked away and gave her everything she ever needed before she even had to ask.
I would’ve bought her every studio in the city, every dress she ever looked twice at, every goddamn shade of nail polish she ever smiled at in a drugstore. I would’ve dropped to my knees in the sand and begged her name until my mouth bled with it.
But what did any of that change?
I was still the boy who left.
Beverly stared out at the ocean, her expression unreadable. “Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
She turned her gaze back to me then, studying me. “Did you…see anyone? While I was gone?”
I blinked. Stunned. “Did I, what?”
“Sleep with someone,” she clarified, her gaze unwavering, as if she was daring me to be honest. “Date. Hook up. Whatever.”
Jesus Christ. “Beverl?—”
“I just want to know,” she said quickly—too quickly, like she was bracing herself, like she had already convinced herself of the answer and was just waiting for confirmation.
I took a slow breath, the salt air filling my lungs, the cold water tugging at my legs as if it, too, was waiting for me to speak. “No,” I said firmly. “There wasn’t anyone else.”
Her lips twitched. “Shame. You had options, I’m sure.”
I stared at her, my heart thudding. “Options? I repeated, disbelief creeping into my voice. “I spent my nights alone, reading romance novels and highlighting anything I thought might help me understand you better.” I let the words fall, not quite believing I had just said them out loud.
Her mouth parted in surprise, but she didn’t say anything. Just swam a few feet away, her back to me.
“Wait—what about you?” I asked.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Yeah. I did.”
The words hit like ice down my spine.
My chest caved in. Not from jealousy. Just pure fear. A sharp, blinding panic that someone had touched her, and worse, hurt her. Taken what she didn’t want to give. “Did he hurt you?” I asked, panic rising like bile. “Did you want it, or did he?—?”
She blinked, then burst out laughing. Full, bright, wicked laughter that rang out over the waves.
“I’m just messing with you.”
I stared at her, heart still thundering, half relieved, half ready to dive underwater just to cool my face.
“You should’ve seen your face,” she laughed.
My pulse still hadn’t slowed, but I found myself laughing too—somewhere between relief and something more primal.
I wanted to be mad, but all I could think about was how much I wanted her. How badly I wanted to pull her close, bury my hands in her hair, taste the salt on her skin, and undress her with my teeth. I wanted to make the ocean jealous. I wanted to kiss her with a desperation that was almost painful. I needed to kiss her until I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be apart from her. Touch her in ways that would erase every fleeting doubt that held her back. But before I could act on the sudden surge of desire, Beverly swam further away, suddenly and quietly, gliding into the deeper part of the ocean without a word.
Something in me panicked. I swam after her and caught her wrist under the surface. “Don’t swim away,” I said, breathless. “No more running, B. And no more fighting.”
She stared at me. Her lips were parted. Her skin shimmered, damp and divine. “You won’t ever run again?” she asked softly.
“No,” I promised, my voice steady, unwavering, even though my heart was still racing in my chest. “I’m not going anywhere. Not this time.”
Her brows furrowed, and she glanced down at where my hand still held her wrist. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I don’t want it to be someone else, Beverly.”
Her eyes searched mine like they were looking for lies. There weren’t any. I meant it with every broken piece of my heart.
“I want it to be you,” I said, my voice softer, but no less sure. “Always.” Wanting anyone else—the mere thought was laughable. If I tried, I’d be working against every calculation in my mind, every piece of my heart that had been rearranged by her.
She stared at me. Her mouth trembled. Her lashes were wet. Her whole body seemed to shake with something fragile.
I moved closer until our noses brushed, the space between us shrinking, the years of pain dripping off my shoulders.
“I love you,” I said it without hesitation, without fear, without any of the doubts that had haunted me before. “I’ve loved you since the day I told you lions don’t leave each other behind.”
A choked sound left her throat. “I remember that.”
Her hands slid up my chest, fingers curling into the soaked fabric of my shirt, tugging me closer until there was no space between us—just heat and water and need.
“You had glitter in your hair. Gold and silver,” I added, my voice quieter now. “I didn’t even know what love was back then, but I knew I wanted to stay wherever you were.”
Beverly’s mouth opened like she wanted to say something, but instead she kissed me. Her body pressed into mine as if she was trying to climb inside my skin and live there.
I cupped her jaw and deepened the kiss.
The water lapped against us, waves crashing around our waists, but I couldn’t hear anything except her. The sound of her breath. The tiny whimper that slipped from her throat when my hand moved to the small of her back. The way she whispered my name like a plea.
She pulled back, catching her breath. “Say it again.”
I brushed my lips against hers. “I love you. And I am yours. And when I say I am yours, B, I’m not speaking in poetry, I’m speaking in fact, in physics, in every universal truth I know.”
A sob slipped from her lips, but she managed to smile despite it. “Do you love me more than your books?” she whispered.
I laughed softly, brushing a wet strand of hair from her face. “You’re beyond the written word, Beverly. You’re the plot twist. You’re the ink that breathes life into the blank pages of existence.”
I saw it—the exact moment the words reached her, not just in her ears but in her bones. A single tear rolled down her cheek.
I leaned down, taking her lips in a kiss that spoke all the things I hadn’t found the words for—because some things, some emotions, could never be confined to words or phrases. Some things were meant to be felt.
Love is a series of choices, a commitment that’s renewed every second of the day. In theory, people are capable of loving multiple times throughout their lifetime, experiencing different kinds of love with different people, each one distinct in its own way. In reality, some people leave such an imprint that the concept of love itself begins to change. Some people enter our lives not simply to be loved, but to change the way we understand love.
Beverly was one of those. She wasn’t just someone to love; she was the missing variable in the equation of my life. Without Beverly, nothing added up. And so, I chose her—again and again, in every version of time.
I chose her in the past, when I first saw her, when she first smiled at me like I was something worth looking at.
I chose her in the present, swimming in the ocean, with the salt on our skin and our hearts in each other’s hands.
And I would choose her in the future, in every tomorrow, in every unknown, in every possibility the world could offer.