Chapter 22 – Beau
Chapter Twenty-Two
Beau
Idon’t remember falling asleep. One minute, I’m staring at the porch light like it’s a tether to everything I can’t say.
Next, I’m blinking awake in the hard light of the afternoon with my spine twisted sideways and the seat belt buckle digging into my ribs, like even my truck is trying to shove me out.
My heart stutters when I notice the porch light is off, like it wasn’t just a light bulb, but a sign from Alise that everything will be okay.
I stare at the spot where that warm glow used to be and feel the cold creep in under my skin.
I tell myself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
Slow and steady. I try to convince myself that if I keep counting—four in, six out—I won’t fall apart before I make it to the damn clinic, but my body doesn’t want to listen.
I peel out of the driveway on autopilot, tires crunching over gravel that sounds way too loud in the stillness of the afternoon.
I grip the steering wheel tighter than I need to, hands aching from it.
I should go home, shower, and pretend I got a full night’s sleep instead of passing out in my truck like a wounded animal.
But my appointment is in an hour, and there’s no pretending today.
Today is the day I find out if everything changes.
If the exhaustion, bruising, and all the damn swelling that won’t go down all become a name.
A diagnosis. My new reality. My stomach knots so tight it makes me nauseous.
I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon, but even the thought of food makes me want to hurl.
I roll down the window, needing air, needing something real to hold on to.
The wind rushes in, cold and clean, but it doesn’t clear my head.
Everything feels muted, like the world knows I’m about to unravel and it’s trying to give me space to do it, but space is the last thing I want.
I want her. Her voice, her arms wrapped around me like they’ve always known the shape of me.
It feels like proof I’m not too much, even as part of me braces for the moment she decides I am.
God, I didn’t even mean to fall asleep in front of her house.
I should be worried about what the doctor will tell me.
If it’s the end of my career and life as I know it, but all I can think about is how I want Alise by my side.
To hold my hand and tell me everything is okay, even when, deep down, she knows it’s not.
I open my messages to her, thumb hovering over the screen like an idiot. There’s a text I half-wrote at some point. when the cold set into my bones and all I wanted was to hear her voice.
Tiny Terror
You don’t have to come outside. I just need you to know I stayed. I always will.
I never sent it because I was too afraid it would scare her off. The second she responded, I would have broken and asked her to come sit beside me and hold my hand, like that would somehow keep me from falling apart. But that would’ve ruined everything, wouldn’t it?
How do I explain that I reach for her when I’m weak because she makes me stronger?
She’s never been a crutch; she’s been a tether.
A steady place to land when the ground gives way beneath me.
A breath of calm when everything inside me is chaos.
And the most important thing is that she lets me fall apart in her presence, not so I can stay broken, but so I can put myself back together.
So I can be strong for her when it matters, for the people I love, and for the world that keeps asking more of me.
Yes, she’s been all of that for as long as I can remember.
But not because she carries my weight, but because she reminds me I can carry it myself.
Alise isn’t someone I want only when things are hard. She’s someone I need when things are good, too. I don’t just want her when I’m hurting; I want her when I’m healing. When I’m laughing. When I’m building a life that feels like peace. She’s not my escape; she’s my home.
I’m halfway to the doctor’s office when my phone buzzes in the cupholder, and I answer without thinking, a part of me hoping it’s Alise calling.
“Hey,” I answer, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
“Beau Hendrix, did you sleep in your truck last night?” Momma’s voice fills the cab of my truck, sharp and full of worry. “You didn’t come home last night, and don’t lie. Your brothers ratted you out after I promised to make them cinnamon rolls for breakfast.”
“I would love to be angry at them for ratting me out, but we both know none of us can resist the promise of your cinnamon rolls.”
“I bring out the big guns when I need to. Now, please tell me that if I drive past your aunt Peggy and Alise’s house, I won’t find your truck parked in the driveway like a lovesick cow in the road.”
“You won’t,” I respond, not actively lying to my mother.
“Beauregard Ellis Hendrix, you better not have spent the night in that cold truck like some love-struck fool outside that poor girl’s house.”
I don’t say anything; the silence is more than enough of an answer for Momma because she gasps loudly. “You did, didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t outside her house all night.”
“Just part of the night?” she questions as I pinch the bridge of my nose.
My brothers might not have told Momma all the sordid details about my impromptu campout in front of Alise’s house, but if my aunt Peggy or anyone else has, she’ll know. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was already spreading through the family group chat as we speak.
I inhale deeply, deciding to tell her the whole truth. “Not the night, just most of the day.”
“Lord, you’ve been in love with that girl since you were what, thirteen?”
“Wait… what? No.” I blink, trying to think back to the moment I consciously knew I was in love with Alise Moore, but come up empty.
“Oh, please,” she says. “Ever since you rescued her at that birthday party when she was ten years old, you’ve been her silent protector.
The first person to be there if she needed anything.
You used to follow her around the house like a puppy.
Even though you’re a Hendrix and you all fight over cookies like it’s a bloodsport, you always offer her the last one. ”
I let out a soft, breathy laugh, more exhale than amusement. “That doesn’t mean—”
“Beau.” Her voice drops, soft and certain now. “A mother knows.”
I don’t respond. I can’t because, deep down, I know it’s the truth.
God, she’s so right it aches. I’ve been carrying this soft, slow, all-consuming kind of love for Alise since before I even knew what to call it.
Since before I understood the way she’d carved herself into me just by being near.
It’s lived under my ribs like something sacred, something patient and constant, waiting for the right time to bloom.
And now it’s here. Raw, real, and unraveling in my hands, but I don’t know how to hold it and hold myself together.
“She still means the world to you, doesn’t she?” Mom whispers.
I nod before I remember she can’t see me, voice rough with emotion. “Yeah.”
“Well, that’s something. I’m proud of you for going after her.”
“I didn’t think you noticed.”
“Oh, honey.” Her voice warms like sunlight through a window. “I noticed the moment you stopped looking at anyone else. You never even tried to pretend, at least not with me.”
That breaks something loose in my chest. My throat tightens, eyes stinging as I blink hard and fast, staring out at the traffic like it might give me something to focus on other than the ache pressing against my sternum.
“You gonna be okay at the doctor?”
“I don’t know.” I swallow, gripping the wheel tighter.
“You want me to meet you?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
She’s quiet for a second, then adds gently, “You don’t have to be fine, baby. Just go.”
“I’m going.”
“Good. I love you, Beau.”
“I love you, too, Momma.”
She hangs up, and I’m left sitting there with the echo of her voice in my ear and a flood of tears I didn’t even feel coming.
Momma is right about Alise and everything else.
The problem is, I don’t know what terrifies me more, losing Alise or knowing that I may have never really had her, to begin with.
By the time I make it to the clinic, I’m a mess of static like my brain is a radio, stuck between stations, buzzing and restless, too much noise and no clear signal.
I pull into a parking spot and turn the engine off, and my hands won’t stop shaking.
They twitch on the steering wheel as if they’ve forgotten how to be still.
The leather is slick with my sweat, and I can’t get a good grip, can’t unclench my fingers, can’t breathe right.
Every inhale scrapes up my throat like broken seashells.
My chest rises too fast, but also too shallow at the same time.
My lungs are staging a rebellion. My heart pounds like it’s trying to beat its way out of my ribs, and I swear for a second that I won’t go in.
It would be easy to just put my truck in reverse and back out of the spot and drive.
I don’t have a destination in mind, just anywhere other than here, where some doctor might have my future on a tablet.
Deep down, I know I can’t run from this, not when I’ve already lied to everyone I love to come here alone.
I shove the door open and climb out, every muscle locking in protest after a night folded up in the driver’s seat.
My back aches, my neck throbs, and there’s a knot under my shoulder blade that feels like it’s fused to the bone.
I stretch and roll my shoulders, forcing the air into my lungs again until I’m dizzy from trying before hedging inside.