Chapter 35Beck. End of December, Opening night. Five years ago #2
Then he heard footsteps. A soft shuffle on the stairwell tile. His breath hitched. His chest seized, like invisible hands had closed around his lungs and squeezed. He looked up and there she was.
Still in her Swan Lake costume, white as snow, glowing beneath the flickering hallway lights like something pulled from a dream too fragile to survive the real world. The leotard clung to her frame, and the tulle of her skirt fanned around her like mist curling through moonlight.
But as she moved closer, his eyes caught a vivid flash of red across her chest. It was blood.
The stain had cracked like old paint on shattered porcelain.
A bandage clung to her temple, but it couldn’t mask the bruise swelling beneath her eye, or the thin line of dried blood trailing from her scalp, disappearing into the golden strands that had slipped free from her bun, her halo undone and falling apart.
She was hurt.
His stomach pitched, sudden and violent, like the floor had dropped out from under him.
The kind of sick that grabs you by the spine and holds.
Was she okay? Panic surged in his chest, sharp and wild.
His hands curled into fists before he realized it.
Every worst-case scenario flashed behind his eyes, cruel and vivid.
But then she looked at him. And God, her eyes. Not anger. Not heartbreak. Not even fear. Just… nothing. They were empty. Vast. She stared at him like she didn’t recognize him. Like he was a ghost. Something that used to matter and didn’t anymore.
For a moment, she didn’t look human at all. She looked like grief made flesh. Like a dream bleeding into a nightmare.
And that was what broke him. He knew. He didn’t need her to speak. Didn’t need to hear the words. He felt it in his marrow, in the way the world tilted on its axis and never righted itself again. This time wasn’t like the others. This wasn’t a misstep or a misunderstanding. This was the end.
She had given him every chance. And he had squandered them. Burned through them like they would never run out. But this wasn’t a bruise they could heal from. This was a break. A shatter.
And then she turned away. The door closed. The click of the door was final. Quiet. But it hit him like a thunderclap. Beck stared at the wood, willing it to open.
Minutes bled into hours. He stayed there in the hallway, shifting between pacing and sitting, muttering apologies he’d never get to say.
His head pounded with every heartbeat. His throat was raw, choked with everything he hadn’t said.
The air felt thinner with each breath, like the hallway itself was shrinking, squeezing him in the fist of his own failure.
A door creaked open. Beck shot upright, his heart slamming into his ribs. But it wasn’t Ingrid. It was Eden.
She stepped out slowly, her arms crossed, wearing a look that could have been carved from stone. Her gaze landed on him and held. Not furious. Not cold. Just… tired. Like whatever had passed between them had taken something out of her, too.
"Can I talk to her?" Beck croaked. His voice scraped past the ache in his throat, barely a whisper.
Eden didn’t answer right away. She just looked at him, somewhere between anger and pity. Disappointment. Maybe even heartbreak for something that wasn’t hers to mourn.
"I liked you, Beck," she said finally, voice low and even. "I really did. But you messed it all up."
She shook her head.
"I don’t think she’ll ever forgive you for this."
The words sliced through him, each one carving deeper than the last. He didn’t argue. There was nothing to say that would make it untrue. But Ingrid had to know. It wasn’t because he didn’t care. He hadn’t been there because he was weak. Afraid. Broken.
"I know," Beck said, voice thick. "I just want to explain."
Eden sighed and the edge in her voice softened.
"She left five minutes ago," she said. "You slept through it. She’s on her way to the airport. Paris."
Paris? His mind raced, clawing at timelines, at flights, she wasn’t supposed to leave for another week. Which meant that she wasn’t performing in the final shows.
His stomach turned over, ice-cold and twisting. The bandage on her head. The blood on her costume. The bruise blooming beneath her eye. The way she’d looked at him, empty, hollow, like she didn’t even know him. Something had happened. Something awful. And he hadn’t been there.
"Subway?" he asked, voice cracking on the single word. It came out hoarse, frantic.
Eden hesitated. Her expression flickered, softening with something that might have been sympathy. Maybe pity. Maybe she just didn’t want to be the one to shut the door completely.
Finally, she gave a small nod.
That was all it took. Beck was gone before she finished blinking. Heart pounding a frantic rhythm that said one thing over and over again–
Find her. Find her. Find her.
The city blurred. Cold air tore at his face, burned in his lungs, but he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was reaching her.
His legs ached, but he pushed harder, faster. He cut through crowds, dodged taxis, nearly clipped a biker. None of it mattered. His pulse pounded in his ears, drowning out everything but the singular, desperate thought screaming through his head. Don’t let her leave.
The subway stairs loomed ahead, and he took them two at a time, nearly tripping. He shoved past a couple tangled in conversation, his breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps.
And then he saw her.
Her silhouette stood just ahead, unmistakable even in the crowded station. The sleek lines of her coat, the elegant posture. He would have known her in any lifetime.
She was pushing her suitcase through the turnstile, the fluorescent light catching strands of her golden hair.
"Ingrid!"
His voice tore through the noise, but it wasn’t enough. The station was a riot of sound. Trains screeching, footsteps pounding, announcements blaring overhead. His voice got swallowed whole.
She didn’t turn. Beck lunged forward, reaching the turnstile, hand flying to his pocket. His stomach dropped. His MetroCard was empty. His bank account was a joke, already overdrawn.
He cursed under his breath. His mind raced, grasping for any option, any solution, but there was nothing. Just the relentless tick of seconds slipping away.
She was already on the other side. Already walking away. Then he moved. He didn’t think, just leapt.
Vaulting the turnstile, his foot clipped the edge. He hit the ground hard, knees jolting, palms scraping against the filthy tile. Beck staggered up, breath sawing in and out of his lungs, but he didn’t stop.
"Ingrid!"
This time, she heard him. She froze. Turned. And their eyes met. Beck forgot how to breathe. For one suspended moment, everything else disappeared. The roar of the subway, the rush of bodies, the fluorescent flicker of overhead lights. It all vanished. There was only her.
It felt like the weight of the world pressing down on him, his world. Because she was his world. She always had been.
As Beck looked at her, a sense of doom settled in his chest. Even with all the emotions running wild inside him, Ingrid’s face gave nothing away. She was unreadable, a hollow, empty silence in the shape of the woman he loved.
His throat tightened, panic swelling like a flood inside his chest. This was it.
This was the moment. And yet, as he stared at her, at the unreadable expression on her face, a horrible, gut-wrenching feeling settled deep in his bones.
It felt like he’d already lost her, like there was no way to fix what had already fallen apart. But he had to try.
"Hey! You need to pay for a ticket!"
Beck barely registered it, his entire body locked on Ingrid. He took a step forward, desperate to close the distance, to reach her before she disappeared for good.
A firm hand clamped down on his shoulder. He turned, pulse roaring in his ears, to find a police officer staring him down.
"Come on," the officer said, his voice even, firm. "Pay for the ticket, or I’m gonna have to arrest you."
Beck fumbled for his wallet, his fingers trembling. When he flipped it open, the sight inside made his stomach churn.
There was only a single five-dollar bill. Crumpled. Smudged. Stained with the trace of lipstick. Ingrid’s lipstick.
She’d given it to him on the bridge that night. The night she told him she was falling in love with him. The night she kissed him like he was someone worth saving. And now, standing here on the edge of losing her for good, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t spend it. Not that bill. Not that memory.
His hands clenched around the wallet, and he swallowed hard, shoving it back into his pocket.
The officer raised a brow. "You're refusing to pay?"
Before Beck could answer, a crisp twenty-dollar bill slid into view. His breath caught.
She handed the money over without hesitation, her fingers steady as she handed away the money.
Beck froze. It was a cruel echo of everything they’d ever been, her stepping in to save him. Again. Always the one to clean up his messes while he barely scraped by, barely held himself together.
And now she was here, bailing him out of yet another mess he’d made. The shame settled deep in his bones, quiet and crushing, until all that remained was the weight of everything he had never been able to give her.
Beck exhaled shakily, his throat raw. His mind screamed at him to say something, anything, to fix what he had broken, to pull her back before she walked away for good.
But what was there left to say?
She had given him everything. Every chance, every ounce of patience, every piece of herself and he had wasted it all.
And he had let it slip through his fingers.
Not out of malice, but because he wasn’t ready.
Because he didn’t know how to hold something that precious.
Because he didn’t know how to be the man she needed.
And she deserved more than waiting. More than hoping he might one day become the man he should have been all along.
His heart clenched as he forced himself to say the only thing that mattered.
"Ingrid, I'm so sorry. Please, just know that," he murmured. It felt like ripping himself open, exposing every raw and ruined part of himself.
But she just stood there. Watching him. Her eyes tracing every line, every scar, as if drinking in the details, pressing them deep into memory, as if this moment might be the last time she saw him. And then a flicker. Not sadness. Not anger. Regret.
“Not as sorry as I am,” she whispered. Then she turned and walked away.
The loss hit Beck like a blow to the ribs, sharp and breath-stealing, hollowing him out. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t look back. Her steps were steady, but he saw it, in the tight set of her shoulders, the stiffness in her stride, that walking away hurt her too.
But she did it anyway.
Beck stayed frozen, helpless, watching her disappear into the crowd. Every step she took felt like a blade, carving deeper into him, slicing away something essential he didn’t know how to get back.
There were moments that etched themselves into the marrow of a life, impossible to outrun. His grandma’s funeral. The call that his mother was going to jail. Rodney’s voice as he said she was gone.
But this was different.
This wasn’t fate tearing someone away. This was her choice. Her turning her back on everything they had been. Choosing a life where he didn’t exist.
And as she slipped into the crowd, swallowed by the motion and blur of strangers, something in Beck gave way. Like the ground beneath him had shifted, like gravity no longer knew where to pull.
No scream. No goodbye. Just the quiet devastation of a life without her.
She wasn’t stolen from him. She walked away. And with every fading footstep, he knew nothing would ever be the same.