27. Beck
Beck
I see tears fairly regularly. Pain does that to people, and people tend to avoid the E.R.
unless they are in severe pain. I remain fairly unaffected by it.
But now I need to add qualifiers, because I am affected by Brooke’s tears.
Someone that vivacious should not be crying because of hopelessness about men, of all things.
Brooke’s dream of spitting out her dentures when she’s one hundred, in front of a huge family, is the opposite of what I’ve thought my dream is.
The dream in which I am left alone, unbothered, and honestly, I never considered what would happen when I got older because I’d need people, and I do not want to need anybody.
Brooke’s vision has people in it that she loves.
How is it possible to imagine loving people you don’t even know?
People that don’t even exist yet, just far-off figments of an idea.
It’s like that saying older folks are always offering kids when they ask, ‘Where was I when some event happened?’ and the older people say, “You were just a twinkle in my eye.” Was I seeing actual twinkles in Brooke’s eyes?
I don’t know, but something about this is clearly interrupting my typical thought processing.
My hands ball into fists as I walk up the driveway to my house. My lonely house. For so long, my house has been a refuge. A haven of peace after the fast-paced, high-stakes of an E.R. shift, and a place to hide after Addie. Today, the silence feels like a tomb.
Without meaning to, I find myself envisioning Brooke’s one-hundredth birthday party. I’m older than her by almost five years, so I’d be well over one hundred if I was there, but if I got to spend the rest of my life knowing Brooke, I’d be a blessed man.
It’s that thought that stops me cold. I’d be blessed to have Brooke in my life.
I want to have Brooke in my life. I want to see her happy and well, and I want to see her have the things she wants. I don’t want to see her cry. I want to give her the things that she wants.
Oh no . I’m in love.
Two slow-paced, get-to-know-you dates and several porch swing chats later, and I’m in love?
My blood pressure rises. A ringing starts in my ears. This is an emergency. I can’t be in love. I don’t do love.
I pull out my phone and dial the only person I can talk to about this, but my thumb hovers over Brooke Bastion’s contact info before scrolling to Ben Painter.
“Hey, man. How was the double date?” Ben’s voice drawls through the phone after one ring. He might be obnoxious at times, but he’s my best friend.
“It was a baby announcement,” I say dryly.
“Uh … congrats? But people around here are going to talk if you aren’t married. You know that, right?”
I roll my eyes. “Not my baby.”
“Uh…”
“Brooke’s friends. Brooke’s very married friends. They’re the ones having a baby.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize they were married.”
“Why? Wait … was Logan thinking of making a move on Paige?”
I’m met with silence, which I take as a yes.
“Is Logan there right now?”
More silence.
“Hey, buddy,” Logan says.
“Well, since you’re there, I guess you can hear this too. I have a problem.”
“And it’s not a baby,” Ben interjects.
“No, it’s not a baby. It’s just—” I scrub a hand down my face. “I don’t know if I can talk to you two about it. You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re in love with Brooke?” Logan asks.
I blink. The other end of the phone is silent except for the suspicious hissing of whispers and what sounds like cash exchanging hands.
“Uh … Beck? Earth to Beck? Are you still there?”
I shake my head before I can respond. “How did you know?”
Ben sighs. “Because we’ve known you for almost all of your life. And we were friends with you the…” He trails off, as if he’s thinking of how to put it delicately. “The last time you were in love.”
“I can’t be in love. I don’t do that. Not anymore, not ever.”
“Sure you don’t.” Logan snorts. “You have no desire whatsoever to have a wife and kids and to come home after a long day of saving lives to someone who actually likes you instead of an empty house.”
“I—”
“Nope. You don’t want that. You don’t want a honeymoon .
” I know him well enough to know he’s waggling his eyebrows at that comment.
“You don’t want someone to stay warm with on cold nights.
Nope, you don’t want to die lonely and old, and now that you’re almost twenty-nine and have enough distance between Addie and are feeling things, you could not possibly be experiencing love. ”
“Fine,” I huff. “I think I love her. But I can’t.”
“My sister.” Ben coughs. “Addie,” he corrects.
“She told me she saw you. And listen, Beck. Addie’s here to stay.
You can’t let the past control your future anymore.
Addie wasn’t it for you. And as much as I love her, and as much as I’ve been your friend for our entire lives, it didn’t happen.
It’s time to move on. Maybe she’ll move on, too, once she knows you have. ”
My brow furrows. “What?” I say dryly. “She’s the one who moved on. While we were about to get married in front of an entire church of people. I’d say she moved on awful fast comparatively.”
Logan clears his throat this time. “Beck, if you don’t want to be with Addie again, you’ll need to make that abundantly clear.”
“Huh?”
“Addie has…” Ben supplies an unhelpful sentence fragment. The reason he trailed off is clear when Addie’s voice comes through.
“I thought my ears were ringing,” she says, her voice coming closer. “Who are we talking to, boys?”
I can hear the flirtatious tone in her voice, imagine the way she’s sashaying her hips as she walks, see her reaching her hand out to flirt with whoever is on the other end of the line, so I do the only thing I can think of.
I hang up and toss my phone on the counter.
Addie is the past. I’m looking toward the future.
I turn around and walk as fast as I can out the door.