Chapter 35
Beau doesn’t ask any more questions, and I don’t offer any answers as we drive back to his house in Oakland.
I sleep. I wake and stare out the window.
He reaches out periodically to rub my shoulder, squeeze my thigh, hold my hand, until I recline the seat and fall into a deeper sleep, emerging into half consciousness as he exits the freeway.
It reminds me of road trips with Dad, when I’d wake upon parking but fake sleep so he’d carry me inside.
I feel drugged—aware of the sun on my face, the steady strum of tires against city streets, but I’m in a partial dream state where I imagine we’re pulling up to a new town filled with new truths where Mary’s is the face of each confessor.
I drift out again but am trying to claw my way back to consciousness when the car stops.
I hear Beau say, “Phe,” in a soft hush. A warm hand comes to my shoulder, jostling me. But my lids are so heavy.
There’s shuffling beside me, the car door creaking open.
“Bianca, what are you doing here?” he asks, his voice muffled as the door closes behind him.
And I’m wide awake, going shock still on the reclined seat.
Bianca says something I don’t hear. But then her voice is closer, clearer, and floats in through Beau’s open window.
“You said you’d be home days ago. You didn’t answer your phone, and I was worried.
” She sounds like a concerned wife, like someone accustomed to his updates.
For the second time today, I wish I could disappear into mist.
Why is she here? Has she been waiting on the porch for days? Popping in just in case he’d come home? Who would do that without reason to hope they’d be greeted with open arms?
“You can’t keep coming over unannounced. That’s not how this works.”
I wish someone could tell me how it’s supposed to work—how I’m supposed to handle myself. I can’t pretend to be in love with Beau—now that I am. I can’t be his wingman, because I have to be my own, and right now I feel like I’m flying solo without a parachute.
I take two deep breaths, smooth my hair away from my face, and open the door. Their voices silence as I step out.
“You’re awake,” Beau says. His eyes are wide behind his glasses.
There’s something in his expression I can’t read—apology, sympathy, guilt?
My meter is off. As I look from Beau to Bianca and back, I want to ask him again whether I’m getting in the way of their reconciliation.
But my heart wants to ask a different question—whether she’s getting in the way of ours.
Because whatever vows they made, she broke. And he feels like mine now.
I swallow and nod before turning to Bianca.
“Hi,” I say, unable to find other words.
She’s in periwinkle scrubs, as if she came straight from a long shift at the hospital.
She has no makeup on but still looks pretty and composed as she inspects me.
There’s no malice in her expression—just hurt, confusion, panic, surprise.
I know instantly that she didn’t know I was still traveling with Beau.
He must not have mentioned me when they last spoke—or maybe she assumed I was “out of his system by now.”
“I didn’t know you’d be here.” Bianca tightens her arms across her chest, confirming my suspicion.
“Ophelia is my research assistant,” Beau says, and there’s an irrational part of me that hates him for explaining me away as anything other than, what—his girlfriend?
We’ve made no promises to each other. But two weeks ago, he rushed to my side so Bianca would think I was important to him.
And now, just when I thought I was, he’s made me feel insignificant.
But for some reason, I double down. “I transcribed the interviews.”
For a few moments, the three of us say nothing, trapped in a stalemate.
Bianca looks from me to Beau and back, and her eyes well up with tears.
And despite how terribly she hurt him, despite how she may have the power to hurt me, too, I feel sorry for her.
She wants him back. And if anyone knows how much it must hurt to lose him, it’s me.
My phone rings, piercing the silence. I fish it out of my pocket and sigh when I see Ronald’s name light up the screen. “I’ve got to get this.”
Beau moves to me. I picture him wrapping me in his arms, giving me some assurance that we’re okay, but instead, he hands me his keys, the house key clutched between his index finger and thumb.
“Thanks,” I mumble, taking it without letting my hand brush his, without meeting his gaze. Bianca steps aside as I climb the steps.
The lock is merciful and allows me inside quickly. I close the door and pace across the polished wood floors as dust floats in panels of light, and Beau and Bianca pick up their conversation in the front yard.
“Ronald, hi,” I say when I answer the call, my voice shaky and raw from my earlier sobs. I’ve said almost nothing since I admitted that my mother sent me away. It feels like a lifetime ago—as if it happened to some other broken version of myself.
A half hour later, Beau finds me on the back deck, sitting on the steps leading to the lawn.
When he closes the French doors behind him and turns to me, his expression is such a tableau of regret that I know something is off. I don’t know what question to ask. But either way, I don’t think I’ll like the answer.
So I sidestep. “I agreed to the buyer’s demands. I need to get back to sign the documents and grab the last of my dad’s things I stored in the attic.”
“How do you feel about it?” He sits next to me—but there’s more space between us than there has been in days. It feels like a gulf.
“I bought my flight back to San Diego; I leave this evening.”
He exhales, runs his hand through his hair. “Oh. Wow. I thought you said you’d stay?”
“Is Bianca gone?”
“I’m sorry, Phe.” He slouches, leaning against the spindles of the railing like he can’t keep himself upright.
“She still has my phone hooked up to her tracking app. I didn’t think to disable her access.
So she rushed here when she saw I was on my way.
She says she was worried because I stopped answering her calls, but I don’t know. ”
“She still thinks there is hope for you two.” It’s obvious. And she’s a smart woman—a doctor, for fuck’s sake. She’s not delusional or crazy. Something—someone—has given her hope.
Why didn’t I ask him more questions?
Because I didn’t expect to sleep with him. And I certainly didn’t expect to fall in love with him. And what she did seemed unforgivable. She betrayed him, lied to him, made him believe her baby was his, and let him take the blame for her miscarriage. How could he possibly trust her again?
And the answer appears like a puzzle piece found on the floor, waiting to complete the picture.
A professor would seek to understand in order to forgive.
I’ve been so stupid.
“This trip wasn’t about just understanding why she did what she did—it was about forgiving her. It was about reconciling.” My voice is a rattle.
“No.” He shakes his head and scoots closer.
“If you could understand her deception, then maybe you could forgive her and take her back.”
“No,” Beau says, but he stands and drums his fingers on his leg.
I look at his hands, and he stills them, shoving them in his pockets as he paces in front of me.
“Okay, maybe at first,” he sighs, and then he unleashes like he’s pleading a desperate case.
“When Bianca finally spilled the truth, I asked for a divorce that day. I was done—unwilling to listen or forgive. And then after the miscarriage, I began to wonder whether I had given up too soon. Was I unforgiving? Too rigid? Too judgmental? Could I forgive her if I understood how people could lie and still love? And I made the mistake of mentioning it to Bianca in a moment of weakness—months ago. That’s when she started all her games, her stalling tactics.
She refused to sign the papers until I was back because—”
“Because you’d told her you might change your mind. That there was a chance you’d take her back.” I don’t recognize the thin sound of my own voice. This awareness, this recognition, has taken all the air from my lungs. Why the hell didn’t I see it before?
He drops his head.
“Beau. How could you keep that from me? We promised each other the truth.”
“You knew I wrote the book to understand,” he tries.
“To understand—and maybe for closure. But not to take her back.” I’m sick to my stomach, and my hands are shaking, but I don’t want to show him how much his lie by omission has crushed me. Obviously, he was keeping his options open while pretending he was a real option for me.
“But it didn’t matter, because I realized that maybe I could forgive her, but that didn’t mean I should be with her again.”
I stand, meeting him at eye level from where I’m perched on the second step. “But you wanted to?”
“No.” His voice cracks on the syllable. “I didn’t. Not since—”
“Since when? Since the last time we were here when you pretended we were together? You weren’t trying to show her you’d moved on—you were trying to make her jealous.”
“No, Phe. I knew before that.”
I should have seen this coming. Beau married her. He vowed to love her forever in front of their families and friends. All he did was whisper confessions against my skin in private.
He’s promised me nothing. But I’ve surrendered to him my whole heart.
He convinced me to drop my weapons and let down my guard and then took aim when I finally felt safe. What the hell was all this stupid growth for—the intimacy and honesty—other than to prime myself for the knife to slide in easier?
“You lied to me. I never would have ...” I can’t even say it. “If you told me there was a chance for your marriage.”
“There isn’t. Not now. Look ...” He slides his hands through his hair. “You’ve never been married. It’s complicated, and divorce is messy, and this year has been painful and confusing and—”
“So now it’s complicated? You’re confused?” Not only is he trying to justify his dishonesty, but he’s using my sad relationship track record against me and implying it’s my fault I don’t understand. I want to find deflection or indifference—my trusty shields—but they’re both failing me.
Beau stops in front of me, shakes his head, and tries to reach for my hand, but I yank it free. The hurt on his face makes me want to run away, to collapse, to rewind to the time when he was a sacred piece of my history and not the person breaking my heart.
“Beau, I just wanted the truth. The full truth. I didn’t ask you for anything else.” It’s what we promised each other.
“I was embarrassed to admit that I considered taking her back after she got pregnant with another man’s baby. That wasn’t something I wanted to share with the woman I hoped would respect me.”
“You lied to me to protect your pride?”
“Phe, please.” His voice is desperate now.
He steps closer, and the proximity makes my heart hurt from wounds so old that I can’t distinguish between this moment and a million others.
I’ve heard Phe, please too many times by the other man who broke my heart.
Every time Matty dismissed me, belittled me, or cheated on me, it was Phe, please.
Overlook this, be cool, don’t make it a big deal, feel less.
I can’t tolerate that from Beau of all people, who has been insisting that I stop ignoring my feelings and doubting my worth.
“You used me to even the score with your wife so you could take her back.” My voice cracks on the words, and anger and mistrust are coursing through me, pouring from this gaping wound.
This morning, I still had hope that the reason my mom left me—and my dad lied to me—was somehow forgivable.
This morning, I had hope that the love Beau and I found could survive when we stopped running.
But there’s nothing I can do to make the people I love choose me. I can chase them across state lines, forgive them for past transgressions, and open myself up to new hurt—but I can’t make them love me back.
“Ophelia, it isn’t like that. You know it isn’t like that. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—but I didn’t tell you because I knew it wasn’t going to matter, not because I was hiding how I felt.” He reaches for my hand, and I pull it back before his touch can burn me.
“Were you getting something out of your system? Was Bianca right?”
“No!” he yells, pacing again in front of me. “How could you ask me that?”
“I don’t know, Beau. I don’t have a stellar track record of knowing when someone is telling me the truth.”
His chest rises and falls, his hands on his hips. “Well, here’s the truth. When you came back into my life, I came alive again. And I want us to figure out how to be together. Finally.”
“I don’t believe you.” I want to—I want his words to be the truth.
But I’m the worst version of myself right now—scared, insecure, lost, and so fucking angry.
And my memory reel is replaying all the worst versions of him, too.
I see the Beau who avoided me after our first kiss.
I see the Beau who begrudgingly rescued me from all my poor decisions but judged me for them.
I see the Beau who tossed aside the last crumbs of our friendship when he moved away.
I see the Beau who asked another woman to marry him, and who considered forgiving the unforgivable to be with her forever.
I see the shiniest version of Beau, too—in soft-filtered shots beside his beautiful wife. What can I possibly offer Beau but nostalgia, but a broken girl trying—and failing—to figure out who she wants to be. I’m nothing more than a consolation prize.
“Phe—”
“But why?” I whisper. “Why would you want to be with me?” My only real relationship ended when he found someone better, smarter, more suitable.
And my own mother doesn’t even want me.
“Why?” he sighs, exasperated. “Because I do ... Because I have always wanted you,” he stutters out, anger making his words hollow. “How has that not been embarrassingly clear?”
He is close enough to pull me into his arms but doesn’t. His mouth is near enough that I could seek solace in his kiss. But I don’t.
I love him. But not enough to trust him.
Or maybe not enough to trust myself.
“I don’t know how to believe you.”
He steps closer still, his toes touching the bottom step and leaning toward me like a trust fall. He finds my gaze and his well-deep eyes bore into me. “I don’t know what more to say, Phe. If you don’t believe you can be loved, I don’t know how the hell to convince you I do.”