Chapter 30 – Beau #2
“What?” My stomach turns to stone as I stare at her like she’s just spoken in a language I’ve never heard before.
Momma just detonated a bomb and expects me to pretend I’m not bleeding.
Her fingers squeeze mine, and suddenly, she looks so much older.
It’s like this secret has been pressing on her for years, unable to tell another soul.
“Although lupus isn’t hereditary, people can inherit genes that increase their risk of developing lupus, but they don’t inherit the disease itself.
My father had signs of the disease when I was younger,” she says, voice going quiet, almost reverent.
“And so did my grandfather. It’s passed down from first-degree relatives, so although I don’t have it, I’m pretty sure your father did. ”
There it is. The confirmation I didn’t want. The bloodline I didn’t ask to be part of. Momma reaches for me again, like that might soften the blow, but I pull back, needing the space between us to process what is happening.
“Beau,” she whispers, tears sliding freely down her cheeks now. “I didn’t know it would be you.”
“I know it’s not your fault, but Jesus, Momma. Do you know what it’s like to look in the mirror and wonder what else is hiding under your skin? What else your body is planning without your permission?”
She doesn’t speak, just presses her lips together like she’s physically holding back an apology.
Momma has always done everything she can to fix whatever is wrong with us and chase the demons away, but there’s nothing she can do to fix this.
Not this time. There is nothing she can say that will fix this, but she still needs to say it.
“I’m so sorry this is happening to you.”
Fuck, I believe her, but it changes nothing. It doesn’t pull the disease out of my body. It doesn’t erase the last few days of spiraling terror. Her eyes glisten with tears, but she doesn’t look away as she braces for the storm she knows is coming.
“There were signs, Beau. Before your dad’s heart attack. The joint pain. The unexplained fevers. The rashes. They didn’t test for it back then, not the way they do now, but when you got sick and now that rash on your cheeks, I knew there was nothing else it could be.”
I yank my hand away, the sudden movement sending a white-hot jolt from my shoulder to my wrist. Pain blooms sharp and fast through the joint, stealing my breath as I push to my feet.
I stand so fast, my head spins, and I almost lose my balance.
My knees buckle beneath the sudden weight shift, and I have to plant a hand on the back of the couch just to keep from collapsing.
“Jesus.” I stagger, a fresh throb radiating down my spine, everything tight and inflamed. “So, what? You didn’t think I needed to know that my father probably died from the same thing I’ve got crawling through my bloodstream?”
My voice ricochets off the walls, too loud and raw, but I can’t pull it back.
Honestly, I don’t know if I want to. The pain is fire now, radiating from the base of my neck and licking down my spine like it’s trying to gut me from the inside out.
I shift my weight and grit my teeth as a shockwave shoots through my hips and thighs.
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Right. God forbid I be scared.” A sharp, bitter laugh cuts my throat on its way out. “Better I just end up here, barely able to stand, thinking I’m falling apart because of a fluke.”
My chest heaves, lungs burning from the effort, like each breath is rasping through rusted pipes. My body’s screaming, but it’s nothing compared to the fury clawing its way up my throat.
“You should’ve told me. It might not be hereditary, but now it’s a goddamn pattern. First grandpa, then Dad, then me?” I choke out a bitter scoff. “Guess I really won the genetic lottery, huh? If there weren’t bad luck in this family, I wouldn’t have any at all.”
She flinches, but I don’t stop. I can’t. Fury is the only thing keeping me upright right now.
“You knew, and you still let us go our whole life thinking Dad died of a heart attack. That it was just a random thing that happened. But it wasn’t, was it?” I take a shaky step toward her, my knee nearly buckling under me. “It was this, and you just… what? Thought I—no, we didn’t deserve to know?”
“I was trying to protect all of you,” she says, voice breaking, arms crossed over her chest like she’s holding herself together.
“Well, congrats. That worked out real fucking well, didn’t it?”
Her tears finally fall, silent and slow. Some small, fractured part of me sees her pain, feels the guilt radiating off her like heat from an open flame, but I shove it down. I need to hurt someone. And right now, the only person here is her. I hate myself for it, but not enough to stop.
“I didn’t ask for this,” I snap, pacing the room with wild, painful steps.
Each stride grinds my joints together like bone on bone.
My ankles roll slightly with every uneven shift, pain jolting up my calves like electric shocks.
My whole body aches, but I can’t stay still.
My chest is splitting open, and everything I’ve tried to hold back is pouring out like acid, every ugly thing I’ve never said out loud.
“I didn’t ask to get benched by my body. I didn’t ask to wake up one morning and suddenly not know if I’d be able to walk without pain.”
Despite that, it keeps coming. Every word cuts deeper than the last.
“I didn’t ask to wonder if every fucking twinge in my knees means I’m falling apart from the inside out. Or to feel like I’m disappearing one joint at a time.”
My breath is coming too fast now, panic climbing into my throat like it’s got claws. My skin itches, tight and overheated, and my legs feel like they’re carrying someone else’s weight. My hands curl into aching fists that don’t even close all the way without resistance.
“I was happy for the first time in a long time. I was really happy. With hockey. With her.” My voice cracks again, raw and ragged.
“She deserves more than this. She deserves someone who’s whole and won’t be a liability.
Someone who won’t wake up one morning and realize his body has declared war on itself. ”
I glance at my mom—this woman who raised me, who kept this secret buried like a landmine—and the betrayal slices through me all over again.
“How could you not tell me?” I ask, lower now, almost begging. “How could you let me walk around my whole life, not knowing what might be waiting for me?”
Momma rises slowly, carefully, and walks over, but I don’t look at her because if I do, I’ll break.
“She loves you.”
“She doesn’t know,” I bite out. “Not the complete picture. Not yet, and if she knew I’m never going to be normal again, she wouldn’t stay.”
I finally look at her, my vision swimming. My voice is barely mine anymore, just a whisper dragged through broken glass.
“How can I ask her to love someone who can’t even promise he’ll be okay tomorrow? I can’t even promise I’ll be able to lace up my damn skates again.”
The weight of it crashes over me, heavy and suffocating.
It feels like something too big and too broken is trying to burst out and crack my chest wide open.
My fingers twitch like they’re remembering what it feels like to hold a stick, to feel the puck slam against my pads, but now even that memory feels out of reach.
A tremor rolls through me, and I brace my hands on my thighs to keep from collapsing, but everything hurts, shaking under the strain of pretending I’m not already crumbling.
And worse than the pain is the shame because what kind of man asks someone to stay when the best version of him might already be gone?
Momma reaches up and rests her hand against my chest—right over my heart, over the place that feels like it’s collapsing in on itself. I flinch at the contact, not because it hurts physically—though everything does—but because I’m afraid she’ll feel what I already know.
That whatever held me together before is coming apart. That the strong, unshakable son she raised is slipping through her fingers, and no one can stop it. Not even me.
“You’re still you, sick or not. And the people who love you? The ones worth keeping? They don’t want the perfect version. They want the real one.”
I want to believe her, but I shake my head, hot, shameful tears slipping free. I scrub at my face like I can erase them, but the movement makes my shoulder throb, joints pulsing beneath the skin like they’re too swollen to hold together.
“It’s not just about love,” I whisper, my breath catching. “It’s about living. And I don’t know how to do that with this shadow following me.”
She pulls me into her arms, and I nearly cry out at the contact.
Every inch of me is hypersensitive, on fire from the inside.
But I don’t resist. Instead, I bury my face in her shoulder and let the floodgates open.
The grief, anger, and heartbreak all tangle together in one aching sob I’ve been holding back since the first symptoms hit.
Because I’m not who I was, and I don’t know who I’m becoming. For now, I let my mother hold me like I’m still hers to protect because even if I can’t see the way forward yet, at least I’m not standing in the dark alone.