Chapter 20 – Alise
Chapter Twenty
Alise
The couch creaks as I sit, tugging the blanket higher and trying and failing to make myself disappear. I haven’t moved in hours, maybe longer. Time seems kind of irrelevant since I left Ramona’s house after spending the night at Beau’s.
The sun dipped behind the trees a while ago, leaving the house in that bruised-blue dusk that makes everything feel a little too quiet and still.
The TV’s playing something—I think it’s a cooking competition—but I haven’t heard a single word.
My brain is full of static because I can’t stop looking at my phone sitting face down on the coffee table, screen untouched, like I’m punishing it for not lighting up with his name.
Not that I should expect it to. He told me he wouldn’t chase me, that he’d give me space to think things through, but isn’t my lack of answer enough?
Beau and I haven’t gone more than a few days without texting each other.
Well, not counting when he was avoiding having to tell me that something was seriously wrong with him, but that doesn’t count.
I’m the one who asked for space, asked him to stay away, so why the hell does it feel like my chest is caving in on itself because he hasn’t so much as sent me his usual goofy emoji?
I don’t get to be upset about any of it, right?
But goddamn it, I am, because it’s Beau. I thought he’d show up anyway, like he always had, but that’s not the type of man he is. He’s steady, respectful, and a heartbreakingly good man, and it’s fucking killing me.
I could stop being a coward and just pick up the phone.
I could send him a message like nothing happened that night and things are business as usual, but I don’t know how to do that.
And that is the crux of the situation. I have no idea how to act like Beau didn’t change my entire genetic makeup with that kiss.
I press my knuckles to my mouth to stifle the sound building in my throat. It’s not really a sob, but grief that’s settled in my chest and is expanding by the second, blooming like a bruise I can’t hide.
“He didn’t call, huh?” Mama’s voice drifts in from the kitchen—casual, like she’s commenting on the weather.
“Mama, don’t.” I flinch, hoping she doesn’t catch it.
She leans against the doorframe, one hand wrapped around a single steaming mug, the other resting on her rhinestone-studded cane.
She’s perfectly tied her silk headscarf, with strands of silver curls peeking out the edges, and she draped that gold-threaded cardigan over her shoulders like royalty in loungewear.
The look on her face is maddeningly calm.
One lifted brow, mouth curved in that barely there smile that says she’s trying to be gentle but has exactly zero intention of minding her own business.
“You want tea?” she asks, like this is any normal Tuesday night and not the quiet unraveling of everything I’ve been trying to hold together.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Sure.” I sigh.
She moves slowly, the quiet tap of her cane echoing against the hardwood as she crosses the room and gracefully lowers herself onto the other end of the couch.
“Yours is on the kitchen island,” she says, setting her mug on a coaster and leaning back like she has all night to wait. “Don’t let it get cold.”
I drag myself off the couch with a groan and grab the second mug, feeling the weight of her gaze the entire way. I return and sink back down, curling into the corner with the tea clutched in both hands.
We sip in silence for a minute. The tea is sweet, warm, and familiar. None of which helps.
“So,” Mama says eventually, voice casual but eyes sharp. “You gonna tell me what flavor of self-sabotage we’re drinking tonight because I’d like to pair it with the appropriate snack.”
I glare at her over the rim of my mug. “I’m serious, Mama.”
“So am I.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“And yet, here you are. Curled up like a heartbroken burrito with your phone flipped face down like it personally betrayed you.” She tilts her head to the side, eyeing me skeptically.
“Because I asked him to stay away, and now he is. So why does everyone think I’m being ridiculous for feeling like shit about it?”
“Baby, no one said you were being ridiculous.” Momma sets her tea back down and folds her arms.
“You don’t have to lie to me.” I press the heels of my palms into my eyes. “I know you, along with everyone else, think I’m being stubborn.”
“No. I think you’re scared,” she says, softer now. “And I think you’re trying so hard to protect yourself, you forgot he’s not the one swinging.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
I slam my mug down on the table, tea sloshing over the rim. “You think I want this? That I enjoy pushing him away? You think this is me being petty, like I’m punishing him for loving me too well?”
She meets my outburst with silence. I keep my eyes locked on the far corner of the room so I don’t have to see her expression. Those same looks of pity, concern, or worse, understanding that Ramona and Michele gave me last week..
“I know what I should do. I know. And God, I want to do it. I want to run to him. I want to climb into his lap and bury my face in his hoodie and stay there until I stop shaking. I want to ask him to hold me and mean it.”
“Then why don’t you?” she asks, voice so gentle it cuts deeper.
“Because he has enough to carry. Because I am too much. And I’m not saying that from insecurity. I’m saying it because it’s true. He’s trying to hold his career, his body, and his family together. If I let him love me right now, I’ll only break him.”
“Maybe he should be the one who gets to decide that.”
“No,” I say quickly, shaking my head like that’ll make it hurt less. “He’ll choose me every time, even if it hurts him. Even if it costs him everything, because that’s who he is, and I won’t let him do that.”
“So instead, you’ll punish both of you?” Mama leans in, her voice low and fierce.
“I’m protecting him,” I hiss, the words sharp and defensive, like maybe if I say them hard enough, they’ll sound like the truth.
“No, baby,” she says, her voice softening in a way that always makes me feel seen and exposed all at once. “You’re sacrificing yourself to save a man who hasn’t asked for it.”
I go still because she’s not just close to the truth, she’s standing in it.
Holding it out to me like a mirror I’ve been too afraid to look into.
The silence stretches as I grip the edge of the couch cushion to keep from falling apart, nails digging into the fabric like it’s the only thing anchoring me.
My chest feels too tight, my skin too thin.
Everything hurts in a low, aching way, like grief with nowhere to go.
“I’m trying to do the right thing,” I whisper, and it’s not a defense anymore; it’s a plea.
A cracked, trembling thing I barely recognize.
“Even if it rips me in half. Isn’t that what grownups do?
Isn’t that what love is? Choosing the hard thing and doing what’s best for someone even when it destroys you? ”
My voice breaks on the last word, and I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, because if I let myself fall apart now, I don’t know if I’ll come back from it.
“I know he’d choose me, and that’s the problem.
I know he’d do it without thinking. He’d put me first. He always has.
Even when he shouldn’t.” I suck in a shaky breath, staring at the blank wall, my voice hollow now.
“If I let him love me right now, pour one more drop of himself into someone else, it’ll break him.
I can’t be the reason he breaks, Momma.”
She just reaches out and rubs my back in slow, soothing circles—the way she used to when I was little and overwhelmed and didn’t have the words for what hurt—and I fold in on myself. Now I have all the words, a way to describe everything I’ve been feeling, but it still doesn’t change a thing.
“I don’t want to be the girl he only turns to when he’s hurting. I don’t want to be convenient or a safe bet. I want to be wanted. Chosen. Not out of need. Not because I’m the soft place to land. Not because I’ve always been there.”
I choke on a sob, tears spilling down my cheeks before I can stop them.
“I want him to want me when he’s whole. When he’s standing tall and strong and the world isn’t falling down around him. I want him to look at me with clear eyes and say, Yes, still her. Always her, not because he needs saving and is in pain but because it’s me.”
“Then why don’t you let him see all of you?”
“Because if he sees all of me—all the mess and the noise and the broken pieces—I don’t know if he’ll still say yes.”
There it is. The deepest wound, dragged into the light and trembling in my hands.
“I want to believe he would. God, I need to believe he would, but I don’t. I’ve been too much for people before. I’ve been the thing they thought they could carry until they couldn’t.”
And suddenly, I’m eight years old again.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, feet dangling and heart pounding, as my father stood in the front doorway, bags packed, trying to explain to my mother why he was leaving.
He wasn’t angry at either of us, but he was just done.
I was too needy. Too sensitive. Too much.
That’s what he’d said before walking out the door.
“I want to live my life, Peggy. I can’t keep navigating my life around her issues.
” And a part of me still lives in that moment, still bracing for the next person I care about to walk away from me.
“I don’t think I could survive it again,” I whisper.
Momma leans in, forehead pressing to mine like she’s trying to infuse her strength into me. Trying to remind me I’m not alone and never will be.
“Maybe the right thing isn’t what keeps you safe, but maybe it’s what makes you brave.”