Chapter 15 – Beau #2
My chest cracks wide open. I close my eyes, trying to get a grip, but my body won’t stop trembling. The patch tugging at my chest scratches against my shirt, and I instinctively press a hand over it, curling my fingers as if I could hide it from her.
Her eyes flick down. “Beau… what is that?”
“It’s nothing,” I respond, panic spiking sharper than the pain in my hip.
“Don’t you dare,” she whispers, her voice raw. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s nothing.”
“It’s a cardiac event monitor or CAM for short. The doctors want me in it for thirty days.” My voice cracks as I finally say it aloud. “It records every skipped beat, every misfire of my heart. Every second I can’t control.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not exactly. It just… itches sometimes and pulls at the edges when I sweat. But mostly it’s feels like a brand stamped on my chest.”
“Can it get wet?” she asks, her voice small, glancing toward the bathroom like she’s rethinking he plan to get me into the shower.
“Not exactly. I can shower with it on, but need to avoid direct water spray and keep my shower brief.”
Her breath hitches; her free hand fumbles at her pocket. “I’m calling 911.”
I catch her wrist weakly in my hand. “No hospital, please. They’ll tell me to hydrate and probably give me some pain meds, before telling me to follow up with the doctor. I just… need a minute a few minutes.”
She stares at me, torn between doing what I ask and fear of making the wrong decision. “Then we set rules. If your chest pain gets crushing or spreads to your jaw or arm, if you pass out, if your breathing doesn’t ease in sixty seconds, I’m calling. No arguing.”
“Okay.”
Alise exhales slowly, her fingers brushing gently near the edge of my shirt but not lifting it. “And you’ve been carrying this alone.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know. Didn’t want you to look at me like I’m broken. Like I can’t play. Like I can’t be me.”
She shakes her head fiercely. “You’re still you, Beau. Monitor or no monitor. I don’t care if it records every heartbeat for the rest of your life, I just care that you’re still here.”
A jagged, choking sound escapes me, and I bury my face in her shoulder for a second, grounding myself in her warmth, her steadiness.
“I was an asshole back at the rink. I’m so fucking sorry—” I rasp as the pain flares bright behind my eyes. “For everything I said. I didn’t mean—”
Her hand presses gently over my mouth, grounding me, quieting the spiral. “You don’t have to explain right now.”
Alise slips off her jacket, folds it, and tucks it beneath my head like a makeshift pillow. Her hands are shaking, but she moves with the quiet certainty of someone who refuses to leave. Who refuses to look away.
“Do you need heat? Meds? Ice?”
“I need to stop feeling like I’m being crushed from the inside out. That’d be great.”
She lets out a soft, watery laugh. “I can work on that.”
I try to hold still, but blinking hurts. Breathing hurts. A deep, bruising ache pulses behind my eyes. My skin is too hot. The floor is too cold. My body feels torn in half, like every nerve is fighting itself, unsure which kind of hell to settle on.
And through it all, Alise stays. She sits right next to me on this hard-ass floor, waiting for my body to cooperate with me.
“Don’t pass out,” she whispers, brushing damp hair from my forehead. “Please, don’t pass out.”
“I’m still here,” I breathe, voice thin and frayed.
Her hand finds mine, lacing our fingers together like she’s anchoring me to the ground. “Then stay, just stay.”
I grip her hand like it’s the only thing tethering me to this world because it is.
She is. Not the people I’m failing by not getting my shit together.
Not everyone else I’ve been pushing away to protect them from whatever is going on with my body.
Just Alise. No matter how hard I push her away, she always comes back anyway.
I don’t deserve her. I know I don’t, but it doesn’t stop me from letting her hold me while my body breaks because she’s the only thing keeping the pieces from shattering completely.
Eventually, the worst of the pain loosens its grip, and I can breathe without white-hot spikes lancing up my spine.
She leans in closer, her forehead nearly touching mine.
Her eyes are wild and wet, fierce with something I can’t name but feel down to the marrow.
“What do you need right now? Tell me what you need.”
I swallow hard, shame burning like acid down my throat. “I need to get up and shower. I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin, but I can’t… I can’t do it alone.”
“Okay. Then we’ll do it together. One step at a time,” she murmurs, already shifting closer, bracing her body against mine. “We’ll go slow. Just tell me what you need, okay?”
I let my forehead rest against her shoulder for a moment, letting the feel of her calm my heartbeat, my breathing, and my shaking hands.
We shift together. Every movement is agony, but she’s always there.
Her body is steady beneath mine, her voice in my ear counting breaths, soothing me when the tremors hit too hard.
She half-carries me into the bathroom, my feet dragging across the tile, every step sending a white-hot spike up my spine.
Alise leaves the door cracked behind us, one hand braced against my waist, the other wrapped tightly around mine like a promise she refuses to break.
My legs threaten to give out as we near the shower.
She moves fast—shoulders under mine, guiding me to sit on the closed toilet lid before I collapse.
I sink like a stone, breathing hard, my palms planted on my knees to keep from folding in half.
“I’ll start the water,” she says, voice soft but certain.
She crosses to the shower, turning the knobs.
The pipes groan for a moment before a deep, sudden rush of water explodes into the tiled stall.
The steam hits almost instantly, curling around my legs and rising into the air like smoke, thickening the air in my lungs.
The sound is too loud, too relentless. It feels like the entire room is closing in around me.
Alise returns to me, crouching in front of where I’m hunched over. Her brow creases as she studies me—my too-pale skin, the fine tremors in my hands, the way my jaw’s locked so tight it hurts.
“You okay?”
“No.”
Her gaze flicks worriedly to my chest. “If your heart rate spikes again, we’re calling. I mean it.”
I nod once. “Deal.”
“I’m gonna help you out of these,” she says softly, fingers brushing the waistband of my sweatpants. “Then I’m getting in with you.”
“What, no dinner first?”
It’s technically a joke, but the words fall flat. The usual flirtatious edge is gone, scraped out by exhaustion.
“Not in the mood for your fake flirting, Hendrix.” Her voice is steady, but her hands tremble slightly. “Arms up.”
I try, but my shoulders seize before they’re even halfway there. Pain radiates from my spine like ripples across a fault line.
“Fuck—” I breathe, body curling instinctively. “I can’t—”
“Okay,” she says quickly, kneeling between my legs. “One side at a time.”
She moves slowly, threading my arm out of the sleeve like I’m made of glass.
When my shirt is off, she helps me stand, inching my sweats down with clinical precision, before helping me sit down again, and pulling them off my feet.
There’s no shame in it, only necessity. Once she’s finished, she strips quickly.
Not for seduction or comfort, she just wants to make sure I won’t fall. So I won’t be alone in it.
“Come on. You can lean on me.”
Somehow, we manage to get in despite the slick floor and my lack of balance.
She steadies me onto the built-in bench, then sits next to me, thigh to thigh, steam blooming between us like a veil.
We sit there for a few moments before she pushes to her feet.
Steam swirls around her silhouette, then she turns and holds out a hand.
I grip her fingers and rise, knees shaking, breath held tight in my chest. Just standing and taking a few steps forward into the water is potentially the hardest thing I’ve done in my life to date.
By the time I finally step into the water, I’m already halfway to collapsing, but she catches me.
“I got you, Beau.”
She holds me steady as I turn around, her arms wrapped tightly around my waist for support.
Alise is almost a full foot shorter than me, barely coming up to my shoulders, and I outweigh her by at least one hundred pounds, if not more, but somehow, she manages to support my weight.
Maneuvering me around the shower like I weigh nothing.
“You’re stronger than you look.”
“Nah, just a lot of practice.” She moves around the water, careful not to get her hair wet. “I have to help Momma move around when she’s having bad days. Her physical therapist taught me how to do it without pulling a muscle.”
“I’m sor—”
“Nope, none of that.” She cuts me off, practically silencing anything else I might have to say on the subject.
The water hits my back, and I gasp. It’s too hot, but I don’t ask her to change it. I deserve the burn, or maybe I’m hoping it’ll sear something numb back into place.
“Jesus Christ,” I choke, curling forward. “It feels like my spine’s trying to escape through my skin.”
Alise presses a hand gently between my shoulder blades. “Breathe. Just breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“Try slower.”
Her hands move up and down my back as she reaches for the body sponge on the ledge beside us.
She makes quick work of squeezing body wash onto the sponge and soaping it.
She starts at my arms, working with quiet, methodical care.
Then my stomach. My body jerks when she hits a tender spot on my ribs, and she pulls back immediately.
“Here?”
“Yeah.” I breathe through my teeth. “It’s like my whole nervous system is short-circuiting.”
She nods, shifting slightly and sliding one arm behind my back to support me.