Chapter 35Beck. End of December, Opening night. Five years ago
BECK. END OF DECEMBER, OPENING NIGHT. FIVE YEARS AGO
No one ever thinks about how it will happen.
But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not over whiskey.
Not in a bar that reeked of stale cigarettes, spilled liquor, and the kind of loneliness that settled into the walls.
Not with the word ‘dead’ hanging in the air like smoke he couldn’t breathe through. But there it was.
"Ma’s dead," Rodney said, his voice flat as concrete, like the news was just another fact to be filed away, like it didn’t blow a hole straight through Beck’s chest.
The world didn’t stop. It didn’t even slow down. It just tilted, off-axis and cruel, a sickening lurch that stole Beck’s balance. He didn’t speak. Couldn’t. The words hit harder than any punch he’d ever taken, cracking open something deep, vibrating through bone and memory.
One second, she had existed. Laughed. Fought. Cried. Breathed. And the next... she didn’t. No goodbyes. No final breath. No whispered last words through a scratchy prison phone. Just a void where she used to be. Just gone.
Since Rodney had said it, the words had rooted in Beck’s skull like rot.
She’s dead.
They looped endlessly, chewing through every other thought, eroding reason and silence. Every breath since felt like punishment, sharp and undeserved.
He’d seen the missed calls. He’d let them go to voicemail. Every time. He told himself there would be time to call back. Time to mend the damage. Time to forgive her. But time didn’t wait. Time bled out in silence.
Now there were twelve more years left on her sentence that no one would serve. And a lifetime’s worth of words they never spoke, choking the air around him.
He had been buying flowers for opening night when Rodney called. Peonies, soft and full, their petals the same shade as Ingrid’s cheeks after rehearsal. He’d stood in the market, phone buzzing in his back pocket, hands full of something beautiful. Something alive.
He remembered the way his stomach dropped when he saw Rodney’s name. Rodney never called unless something was wrong.
Still, Beck had answered. He had time, hours before Ingrid’s performance. Enough time to deal with whatever storm Rodney was dragging behind him. He’d met him at The Shanty, a place so dim the lights looked tired. One of those bars where even the jukebox had given up.
Rodney was already there, hunched over the counter, two glasses of whiskey sitting between them. The bottle was cheap, half full. He didn’t look up when Beck slid onto the stool beside him.
"Ma’s dead." No preamble. No softening. Just the blow, delivered like a backhand to the soul. Beck’s mouth went dry. His lungs seized up. He felt it in his teeth, in his spine, in the hollow behind his ribs where she had lived all his life.
"Liver failure," Rodney added, finally looking up, his eyes dull and rimmed red. "She was sick for weeks."
The words cut deeper than they should have. He could feel them sliding in sideways.
"She tried to call you," Rodney repeated. "You dodged her calls."
Each word cut like a blade. Rodney lifted his drink, the ice clinking against the glass.
"It’s your fault," he said. Not a suggestion. A sentence. A verdict. "You should have checked in with her."
Beck felt it like a weight dropping onto his chest, pressing the air from his lungs. It wasn’t just the words. It was the look in Rodney’s eyes, the silent judgment, the simmering anger.
Beck's hands trembled. His vision blurred at the edges. His brain scrambled for something, anything, to say, but all he heard was the static roar in his skull.
Rodney had always been this way, lashing out when the world knocked him down. He threw punches instead of apologies, anger instead of grief. And Beck had learned to take it. Because neither of them had been taught how to handle pain properly.
Growing up, love was a beer bottle sailing past your head, a slammed door, a screaming match at 2 a.m. It was fists through drywall, broken glass on the kitchen floor, the sting of words meant to wound. So yeah, Rodney had his fists.
But this hurt in a different way. Because Beck couldn’t argue.
Rodney was right. He should’ve called. Should’ve checked in.
Should’ve picked up when she reached out instead of silencing the calls and promising himself he’d get to it later.
She told him she wasn’t feeling well and he brushed it off.
Now, all he had left were missed calls, unread messages, and the unbearable weight of too late.
The whiskey on the bar taunted him, gleaming under the dim lights. He knew exactly what it would do. How it would work. It would quiet the noise. Numb the ache. Drown out Rodney’s voice and the sickening guilt curdling in his stomach.
So he reached for the glass. And drank.
The burn scorched down his throat, and for a fleeting second, he thought it might sear the guilt right out of him. But it didn’t. So he drank again.
Glass after glass. Pour after pour. Until the glass didn’t matter anymore, and he gripped the bottle with his hand, dragging deep, reckless gulps like a man trying to drown himself from the inside out.
Rodney left at some point. Beck couldn’t remember when. Couldn’t remember much of anything, really. Just the blur of the bartender’s voice. The heavy clink of bottles. The way the room spun faster and faster, like the world was tilting off its axis, dragging him with it.
Then–
A sharp shake. A voice. Blinking through the haze, Beck found himself slumped in a booth, his cheek pressed to the sticky leather seat. His head throbbed, a merciless pounding that made his stomach churn. His mouth was dry, his limbs weighted with exhaustion.
The bartender stood over him, arms crossed.
"Bar’s closed," he said. "You gotta go."
The words rang in Beck’s skull, hollow and distant, like an echo from some other life.
His gaze flicked to the clock on the wall. 1:07 a.m. The numbers burned into his eyes, and suddenly the booze-fueled fog vanished, wiped out by a brutal jolt of clarity. His heart slammed against his ribs. He couldn’t breathe right.
Ingrid.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck .
His stomach lurched. The whiskey turned sour, churning like acid in his gut.
Her opening night. The performance she’d been pouring herself into for months. Panic surged. It was instant. Primal. Electric.
He shoved off the booth and staggered to his feet so fast his knees gave out beneath him. He crashed against the table, grabbing the edge, his fingers digging into the worn wood until the pain cut through his skin.
And then it hit. The second blow. Heavier. Crueler. Mom was dead.
The thought slammed back into him like a freight train barreling through his chest. It knocked the air from his lungs, crushed every bone beneath it. He swayed, vision tunneling, breath shallow and ragged.
There was no time to sit with the grief pressing down on him. No space to grieve, or scream, or fall apart the way his body begged him to. Not now. Not when Ingrid was waiting. And he hadn’t shown up.
He stumbled out of the bar, shoving past chairs, past tables, past the bartender’s disapproving glare.
The moment the cold night air hit his face, he broke into a sprint.
His legs wobbled beneath him, the alcohol still thick in his veins, but he didn’t stop.
Couldn’t. He thrust a shaking hand into the street, waving frantically until a cab screeched to a halt.
The ride blurred past in streaks of neon and headlights, sirens crying somewhere far off. Ingrid’s name lit up his phone screen again and again.
Ring.
Voicemail.
Ring.
Voicemail.
Each missed call hit like a hammer to the chest, stacking panic on top of panic until it twisted into something sharp and breathless.
When the cab stopped outside her building, Beck was out before the driver could even speak. He sprinted to the front door of her apartment building but it was locked. He slammed the buzzer with his palm, again and again. His pulse pounded in his ears, in his throat, in his skull.
A tenant exited, and Beck lunged, catching the door before it clicked shut. He slipped inside without a word. He took the stairs two at a time, heart battering his ribs, hands shaking so violently he nearly tripped. Don’t be too late. Not again.
He reached her door and pounded with everything he had.
"Ingrid!" he shouted, voice already frayed. "Please, open up!"
Nothing. He hit the door again. Harder. Louder. His fists a blur of panic and desperation.
"Ingrid, please!"
A neighbor cracked their door. "Jesus, man, shut the hell up!"
He didn’t care. He kept pounding, kept shouting, even as his hands throbbed and his voice shredded in his throat. He was half-surprised no one had called the cops already.
And then his strength gave out. His knees buckled. His back hit the door, and he slid to the floor, breath coming in shallow, broken gasps.
His mother’s face flickered through his mind.
Faint. Distant. It had been years since he’d even seen her.
All he had left were scraps, her apologies, the broken promises, the silence after calls that never came.
She had always chosen the bottle over her boys.
Over him. He and Rodney had waited. Hoped.
Hurt. Until resentment settled in like rot.
And now she was gone. No second chance. No final conversation. No way to fix any of it.
And Ingrid. God, Ingrid. The only person who had ever believed in him, really seen him.
She was slipping through his fingers the same way.
The realization wrapped around his throat, cutting off air, thought, everything.
He had done to her what his mother had done to him.
He had chosen the bottle. The shame burned hot and relentless, eating through him like acid.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, minutes, maybe hours. Time blurred. His limbs were heavy, bones leaden, his mind a raw and hollow ache. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t leave. Not like this.