37. Greer
Greer
I saw the game highlights when I got out of surgery, but the slumped lines of his shoulders, the way one hand holds his forehead and the other grips his kicking leg, bouncing up and down against the step, tell me all I need to know.
Abandoned leaves on the sidewalk crunch under my shoes, and he looks up, green eyes dull and devoid of all the life that usually lives there, jaw tense as he tugs on the ends of his still-wet hair.
We say nothing as I follow the path to my porch, but I pause on the second step, running my hands through his hair, and he rests his head to the side of my thigh.
My eyelids flutter closed, and I inhale, my lungs already tight enough without the scrape of the fall air. Beckett presses his forehead harder against my thigh, and I twirl my fingers in his hair before whispering, “Come inside. It’s cold.”
I feel him nod against my leg, but he stays silent when he stands, and it’s just his heavy shoulders, crushed under the weight of whatever expectation he thinks he failed to meet today.
We don’t say anything when I open the door and he follows me in. It’s silent when we both kick off our shoes, and he looks like he’s seconds from finally crumbling when he sits back on the couch.
Our legs brush when I sit beside him, instead of on the opposite end, and I turn, exhaling gently. “It’s okay. It’s just—”
Beckett cuts me off with a shake of his head, practically wincing, voice dropping to a rough whisper. “Please don’t say it’s just a game.”
I shift on the cushion so I’m facing him, knees digging into the side of his thigh, and I reach forward, grabbing one of his hands. “I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say it’s just one game.”
“But it’s not though.” His voice cracks, I think a part of me does, too—his fingers wrap around mine before he breaks away and gestures around my living room, like everything hurting him exists in the oxygen that makes up the air he’s breathing. “Because if I don’t have it—if I’m not that at the end of the day—who am I?”
“Beckett,” I murmur, learning forward. My fingers stretch out for his again, but he makes a fist and digs it into his thigh. “Why is it always on you? This game, or the game—whatever game. There’s a whole team of players who have a responsibility.”
His eyes pinch closed, his fist tightens before he starts slowly pounding into his thigh. “Because it’s fucking always on me. If I don’t show up—if I’m not reliable—”
He cuts himself off, the words hanging there between us, and I think I do see them eating up all the air in the room. I think of all that weight, how hard it must have been to breathe his whole life.
“Reliable? Likeable? Is that still all you think you are?” I ask. “Beckett, you’re you . You show more grace and understanding to people than anyone I’ve ever met. You accept people as they are. You see them and you love them anyway. Flaws and all.” I reach forward and trace a finger along his jaw, the stubble rough underneath. “You’ve told me—and your brother told me—all the things you’ve done for them. You bought your parents’ house. You’ve taken care of your siblings since they were kids. You made sure they haven’t wanted for anything. That they’re living good, full lives people could only dream of. Do you do all that because you’re likeable and reliable and that’s all you are?”
He leans into my hand, exhaling slowly as I keep tracing patterns across his skin. His fist stills against his thigh, the lines around his eyes draw tight before he opens them and gives me a resigned sideways glance. “It’s what anyone would do.”
“No, Beckett.” I shake my head and lean forward, grabbing his hand in mine and pressing it to my chest. Right above my heart. I need him to hear this—to understand that he was already a real, beautiful, special person. “They wouldn’t. And they don’t. Reliable and likeable people show up when they’re needed. They drive their family members to appointments, and they pick them up at the bus stop. They don’t give and give and give when they’ve already had so much taken from them.”
Beckett swallows, eyes flicking down to his hand resting against my skin.
“I want you but I can’t fucking have you so I thought if—” He cuts himself off, wincing when he exhales. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Say it.”
He looks up at me, fingers twitching against my chest, his palm splayed out right above my heart. “I thought, hey, if I can’t have her, I might as well just resort back to the one thing I can do properly. But I couldn’t even do that, and I can’t have you because you’ve got these rules and these boundaries, and I’m trying my hardest to respect them, but as far as I’m concerned, the only purpose they’re serving now is keeping you from opening yourself up for something that could be really, really fucking good.”
“We’re not talking about me.” I shake my head ever so slightly again.
His lips tug to the side in a rueful smile, and his palm presses against my chest—firmer, like he needs me to feel him, or maybe he needs to feel me. “But we are. Because I don’t think there’s anything about me that isn’t about you anymore. You made me real.”
I press my eyes shut. My brain screams at me, and my heart feels infinitely heavy in my chest. “I can’t make you real.”
His fingers flex against my skin and then they’re gone. I blink, and he has both his hands on his thighs again.
Beckett smiles at me, but it’s endlessly sad, and he shrugs one shoulder. It barely moves, stuck under all that weight. “Funny thing, that. I know what you’re about to say—that I was always real and the only person who I need to be enough for is me. But I like being enough for you, and I wish that enough looked like something else.”
“I can’t—” I start, and my voice wavers because my brain and my heart are playing this internal game of tug-of-war I don’t think I’m going to survive.
“Why?” One shoulder jerks upwards, the lines of his jaw turn harsh, and he shakes his head. “We’re not friends, Greer.”
“Yes, we are,” I whisper, and I wonder if he can even hear it over the sounds of that rope inside me pulling tighter. All I can really hear is the sound of snapping as it frays.
“What kind of friends have you had if you think this is normal?” He raises his hand before gesturing between us, beautiful eyes sharper than usual and narrowed in on me.
I start to shake my head. “There’s some irony here, Beckett. You say I see through you, and I know you, and I made you real, but you’re ignoring what’s real about me.” I push a finger to my chest, right above my heart. It presses against my rib cage, and I think the beats say something else now.
Give me to him.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I told you where my lines were. I told you my boundaries. And you’re sitting here asking for me to take them down.”
“No. I’m not.” He tips his head back, taking a measured exhale. “I’m not asking you to take them down. I’m asking for you . Who you are ... lines around you and all. If I’m enough for you, why can’t you believe that you’re enough for me?”
There’s just a tiny, little string hanging between the two ends of the rope of me now.
Give me to him, he wants us just as we are. The way we want him.
No. We weren’t enough for anyone else before and look what it cost us.
“I can’t.” My voice is just this tiny crack, because I don’t want either of those organs to hear me—they’re going to pull too hard and there’s going to be nothing left.
Beckett shakes his head, exhaling again, eyebrows lifting and those beautiful lips tug into a rueful line. No dimple to be found.
He takes my hands, bringing them to his mouth before letting them rest against his thigh.
“Do you have to go to practice tomorrow?” I ask softly.
“Nah. Coach Taylor told me not to bother showing my face until Wednesday, so I guess I get an extra day off.” He runs a hand along his jaw. “Couple of the guys texted me. Asked if I wanted to do something tomorrow. Take a drive. Clear my head.”
“That’s nice,” I offer. “You haven’t really spent time with anyone outside of practice.”
“I spend every day all day with them.” His voice is rough when he continues. “And I didn’t think anyone wanted to spend much time with me.”
“I think you deserve a break from your own expectations.”
A wry expression steals across his face.
My hands feather against his thighs. “Are you sore?”
“Yeah.”
“I heard I have a great bathtub.” I lean forward, dropping my chin on his shoulder, and there’s the ghost of something living peeking out from the curtain of his eyes. “I could run you a bath. Salts. Bubbles. I’ll even join you. I can read to you from one of my books.”
He turns his head, nose brushing mine. “I know what you’re doing, Greer. I see you, too, you know. Distraction. Deflection.”
“Is that so bad?” I whisper quietly. “That I don’t want to talk about something that’s going to hurt you more? That I want you to feel better?”
A muscle feathers in his jaw. “I suppose it isn’t, no. But this ... it isn’t going to work for me much longer.”
“Okay.” I nod, lowering my voice even more so maybe my brain won’t hear me. The thought of this ending, whatever it is, even though I can hear quite clearly what my heart thinks, makes me want to give him something, the way he’s given me so much of him. “Tonight, you just be you, and I’ll just be me. We can just have fun.”
If my brain hears me, if it does try to tug on what’s left inside me, I can’t hear it and I don’t feel it because Beckett smiles, and my heart starts to sing louder than any alarm bell I’ve ever heard.
It’s a nice sound.
“And then Baxtian laid Gaia down and—”
Beckett laughs, dropping his head back against the edge of the bathtub. “It doesn’t fucking say that.”
I tip my chin, holding the book up higher so the pages don’t touch the bubbles. “It could.”
“Okay then.” Eyes wide and maybe happy for the first time all night, he leans forward, sending water and bubbles sloshing over the curved porcelain of the tub, grabbing the book from my hand. “Give it to me so I can see what my guy Baxtian is up to.”
My mouth pops open, indignant, as one finger, half covered in bubbles and droplets of water, drags down the book. “Hey! You’re getting the pages wet!”
“I’ll get you wet.” Beckett grins, glancing up from the book, dimple popping in his cheek and eyes flashing. But he holds his hands up before tossing the book towards the safety of the bathmat. “Relax. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“What if this one is special?” I tip my chin up again, and my ponytail dips below the surface of the water.
He gives me a flat look, running a hand through his damp hair, sending the waves every which way. “Is it?”
“No.” I laugh, sinking back against the edge of the tub and kicking my foot up, sending a small splash of water and bubbles towards him.
Beckett smiles when he leans back, too, arms stretching along the porcelain rim. He’s always an otherworldly sort of attractive—the kind that you’d only find in the pages of a magazine—with all that perfectly tousled chocolate hair, the eyes, the jawline, and the dimple.
But when it’s just us, he’s an entirely different kind of wonderful.
His eyes track across my shoulders, just exposed above the mountains of bubbles sitting on the surface of the water. They follow the curve of my neck to my jaw, and I think I can feel the reverence from here—the way his eyes skate across my lips, sweep up my cheekbones, and land on my own.
He swallows, the muscles in his neck and shoulders somehow more beautiful because of the thin sheen of water. “This is what I mean. This is—I like this. When it’s just me and you. We’re good together.”
Whatever symphony my heart was conducting earlier starts to swell again—and I imagine, as all those chambers fill with the oxygenated blood it needs to survive, it’s stretching beyond the bars of its cage, holding itself open like a conductor might their hands.
My foot finds his thigh under the water, and the corners of his lips twitch. His next words are low, rough, gravelly. Just the way I like his voice. “We could be good together.”
I press my eyes closed, exhaling, before offering him a sad smile. “You might be right, but that doesn’t change anything, Beckett.”
“Can you just”—he jerks his head and grips his chin for a minute—“explain it to me like you might explain something to one of your patients. Dumb it down for me.”
“You’re not dumb.”
“I know.” He flashes me a wry grin. “I know much more about most major historical events than you do. But just ... explain to me why. Why you don’t think we can work through all of these big, hard things together? Why we can’t be together while we learn?”
My lips part with a tiny breath, and any words I might throw up in defense of my boundaries and my barriers stall in my throat.
I hear Rav.
You don’t have to be alone to be enough .
I hear Stella.
Somewhere along the way you’ve confused setting a boundary with closing yourself off.
I give a tiny shake of my head.
My heart inhales, ready for the first note of this symphony that could be my life if I’d just let go—and my brain screams.
“I don’t—” I try, but my voice catches. “What does that make me if I tear it all down and try to run off into the sunset with the first person who made me feel something? I can’t do it again, Beckett. I can’t give away a piece of me when I have these diametrically opposing views again. I can’t even get through a day without thinking I’m a fucking hypocrite, and most days I think I hate myself more than I sometimes hate my dad for putting me in that impossible position. My brain is just so, so loud. All the time.”
The lines of his jaw sharpen, but not in anger, a bit like the idea that I’m in pain hurts him, too. “That must be exhausting.”
“Yes.” I close my eyes. I am exhausted , I think. Of my brain in general, but also of this war inside me being waged by two organs I desperately need who just can’t seem to agree. “I’m just ... not sure of anything.”
“I’m sure.” He sits forward, sending another tsunami of water and bubbles over the edge of the bathtub. One wave curls across his forehead. His eyes are on me, and he shakes his head ever so slightly, all the lines of his jaw firm now. “About you. About this. About us. About carrying things when you’re tired. About trying to help your brain quiet down. Does that count for anything?”
I shake my head again. “You said I made you real and that’s a scary thing. You need to be real enough for yourself. You want to carry everything, Beckett. It’s in your nature, and I don’t want to be another heavy thing you strap to your back because you don’t know who else to be.”
Beckett points towards my hands, gripping the edges of the tub and hanging on for dear life. “May I?”
I nod.
His hands find my wrists, and one by one, he takes each of my fingers, interlacing them with his, and he pulls me towards his edge of the tub.
My body has always seemed to know what to do with his; so my legs lift, wrapping around him, and he holds our joined hands up when our chests are flush. He presses his mouth to the back of my hands before letting go. Bringing his arms to wrap around my back, he traces my scar softly and tucks my chin to his shoulder.
I can’t see his face anymore. I wish I could—all those beautiful lines and those beautiful eyes that make up a beautiful boy. So, I press my eyes closed and picture Beckett the way I see him. The way I think he deserves to be. Unburdened, light, and free. Head tipped back in laughter, lines around his eyes digging in and making a home because he has so much to smile about.
“You misunderstood me. When I say you made me real...” He pauses, nose brushing along my jaw before he buries his face in my neck and inhales. “I mean that you breathed life back into a body that was just sort of there. I don’t think I thought much about myself at all before I met you. Thought I was reliable, likeable. Someone who served a purpose for other people but never really for himself. That’s what I mean when I say I didn’t think I was real. I just thought that was it. That was life. But then you came along. You were kind of mean”—I feel him grin against my neck—“but eventually you smiled. Eventually you laughed. I don’t think either of those things come for free with you. And they shouldn’t. Probably two of the best fucking things in the world. Turned out the cost was your voice sort of burrowing into my skin and kick-starting my heart.”
He presses his lips to my neck lightly before he follows it with a more purposeful brush, and I squeeze my eyes shut tighter.
My brain whispers to me and I think it’s telling me my heart can’t live outside my body with him, I need to keep what’s left of me so I can stay alive.
My shoulders tense, and I’m about to pull back, but he speaks again. “You don’t want to be another thing I take on because I think that’s who I am. But it’s not carrying a heavy thing, to know you.”
The symphony swells in my chest. There’s a clash of cymbals and this sort of crescendo you’d only see in the movies, every instrument starting at once. It reverberates and those beautiful pieces of Beckett, planted in the soil of all those empty places, stretch and grow and they sing, too, and it’s all so loud I think my brain might shut up forever.
Beckett’s lips move along my neck, pausing at my jaw, before he pulls back and drops his forehead to mine. “Would you be interested in taking a break with me? A break from being just friends? From the expectations and everything that goes on up there.” He taps his index finger to my temple. “Just me and you until Wednesday. And if it still doesn’t feel right, I promise that—”
I can’t really hear anything other than him, and I hold my pinky finger up.
Promise me you’ll only do what’s right for you.
I’m not sure anything has ever really felt right at all before him.
This grin that’s not quite like anything I’ve ever seen stretches across his face when he hooks his finger with mine.
This is the one people should want in photos and on TV. But I don’t want anyone else to ever see it because I think it belongs to me.