Beck’s knees bounced, and she looked up to the dusky sky. “Honestly, I remember nothing. I have these flashes, though. They’re like, um . . . like snapshots of memory. I’ve always thought they were repetitive dreams, and I’d had them so many times that they burned into my mind like a genuine memory would. I have this . . . memory? I guess you would call it? Um, it’s of us, and we’re underwater. There’s blood all around, and it’s cold yet numb at the same time. And I can just close my eyes, and you’re still there, still staring at me with those glacier blue eyes, until . . . until you’re not anymore.”
Beck’s eyes shifted, and her voice fragmented. She lifted her hand and shrugged her shoulders in doubt. “I don’t know? I don’t know. This is all so stupid! I don’t know what to believe!”
I pulled her in for a hug and this time she allowed me to comfort her. She buried her head into my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her back.
“And I feel things too! Like I have some sort of weird gravitational pull to you, and I knew there had to be an answer, but I just couldn’t figure it out! I want to feed the homeless! Like, I think about it all the time!” Beck choked out in a half cry, half laugh into my shoulder.
My face contorted in amusement and torture. Neither of us was able to define the flood of emotions tied to something so unlikely. I wanted her pain to stop first and foremost, but then I wanted to tell her stories of our past life. I wanted to see her laughing again. And I dreamed of fast-forwarding to the part where we left off twenty-one years ago. “I know it’s hard. I’ve gone through it too.”
“You have?” Beck pulled away, suddenly optimistic.
“Yeah, a long, long time ago.”
Her eyes narrowed as she tried to stifle her cry. “What does that mean?” She frowned with a subtle warning that I must answer her question but in a way that wouldn’t add to her already overloaded consciousness.
“I have this . . . gift?” I questioned myself by her reaction, and when she didn’t completely lose it, I continued attentively. “When my life ends, I simply get the opportunity to do it all over again.” Beck’s reservation was painted in the creases of her forehead. “And now, you have this gift too!” I couldn’t look her in the eye when I said it. I had always viewed my gift as a curse. A cage binding me to this world. I would never meet my maker or see what was on the other side of the veil.
Chapter 19
Wow, you’re immortal? I’m immortal!?” She’d been sucked into my phony optimism. I’d sold it for more than it was worth.
“Well, no. Not technically.”
“Oh . . .”
“Immortal people don’t die. We’re the opposite. We die . . . a lot.” And when it passed my lips, I knew I could no longer sell this as a gift.
I watched carefully as Beck started to see the controversy, but I desperately wanted her to think that this was a legacy we were chosen for. And perhaps we were? “But we get to do it together! And after a couple of times, you will have a pretty good memory of it all. It’s only the beginning when your subconscious blocks out these memories of past lives. It’s a defense mechanism, really.”
Beck fiddled with the taco wrapper between her fingers. “You remember all of your past lives?” Beck looked at me with pink puffy eyes and a hint of hope. She was taking this better than I’d thought.
“Yes, I remember all of my lives. My last one is where I met you. And we fell so deeply in love, somehow, you became Tethered as well.”
“Tethered?” Beck asked.
“Yeah, there’s a name for our condition. Gift. We’re called Tethered Souls, or at least that seems to be the most common name I’ve heard amongst our kind. I guess it makes sense because our soul is bound to keep coming back. But since I met you, I’ve questioned that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Um, I just mean that I’ve never known a Tethered Soul to love another, and I question its meaning.” I shrugged, and Beck stared at me like I was an open book she could no longer process. All the answers were there before her, ready for her to pick up, but she couldn’t.
“There are others?” Beck said in a worried tone.
I waved my hand. “Don’t even worry about that. They’re just people,” I said. She fed off of my temperament, and I could sense that her anxiety had started to dissipate. Her flustered skin was finally regaining its usual pale tone, and her breathing had slowed to a steady ebb and flow. We sat in silence until our attention fell to our dinner. Beck took her food out of the bag, and we ate in my backyard in reflection.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said, breaking the silence. Beck was so emotionally drained that she could barely respond. Her eyes glassed over as she chewed slowly and methodically. “Hey! I have the best idea!” Beck’s dreary face turned ever so slightly in my direction, as if she’d just woken from a deep sleep. Her flaxen hair draped over the corners of her eyes. “Do you want to demolish something?”
Beck brushed her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Like what?”
“Literally, anything!” The edge of her lips curled upwards as the light returned to her eyes, one sparkle at a time. “I bought this sledgehammer, and we can just . . .” I shook my thumb back at the house with an impish smile.
“Really?” Beck asked.
“I’ve always wanted an open floor plan!” I said with a shrug.
Beck picked up the sledgehammer with a gleam in her eyes. She found her grip while she lifted it up and down, trying to get a feel for the heaviness. I pointed to the wall that separated the dining room from the living room, and she approached it with determination. She took a wide stance as if she were playing baseball and took one last approving look in my direction with brows raised.
“Wreck it!” I hollered through cupped hands. Beck took a deep breath and swung the sledgehammer into the wall, yelping as it struck the drywall. She flinched, and the hammer stuck in the middle of the wall. Beck shook her hands and wiped them on her jeans. From my particular angle, I could see the hammer poking out on the other side of the wall.
“I . . . I need to try again. That one was just practice!” Beck tried to pull the hammer out of the wall, but when it didn’t budge, she stopped and looked toward me for help.
“You can do it!” I said.
Beck tried some more before turning her frustration onto me. “Seriously, the thing is stuck!” She slapped her palm on her side.
“Use your foot for leverage!” I said, busying myself as I tried to set up my Bluetooth speaker. Just finding the settings app was difficult enough amongst the sea of unused apps on my phone. Pairing was going to take me a while.
“Eerrr” Beck growled, and I turned, amused, just in time to see the sledgehammer break free and Beck propel backward onto her butt. The sledgehammer went flying backward over her head, clamoring down to the floor.
“Beck! Are you OK?” I approached her with an open hand for help up, but she wasn’t ready. Her chest was rising and falling in pure frustration. Her face was beet red, and loose strands of her hair lifted with each huff. As soon as I smiled, I knew it was the wrong reaction. Her brows furrowed, and her eyes squinted into a devilish glare. It was precisely the reason why my smile grew to an outburst of laughter. Beck liked that even less. She scrambled to her feet and grabbed the hammer that landed several feet behind her. “Wow, take it easy!” I said, baring my palms.
She didn’t. Every bit of frustration, anger, and fear came barreling out on that wall, and this time when she struck it, she didn’t recoil. The music kicked on, stoking Beck’s internal fire, and she tore into the wall as if it were every lie ever fed to her, every misconception she ever had, and every mistrusted person in her life. She broke into that wall like it was her cancer, and she’d had enough.
I wasn’t going to admire the view from afar, although it was quite satisfying. I wanted in on the action. To destroy that demon with her. Together. I picked up my crowbar and hooked it into a hole she had torn into the wall. Then ripped the side of the
drywall off. It was too easy. I tossed the crowbar over my shoulder as Beck took another overhead hack into the wall. I kicked at the exposed beam and it cracked. The music blared, and the beat drove another kick. The beam snapped in half.
Beck’s face was flushed, and pieces of her hair stuck to the sweat on her forehead. She took a moment to catch her breath before she tossed the sledgehammer onto the ground and tried her hand at kicking the beams with me. She wasn’t quite strong enough to get it on her first or second try, but the house was old and the beams gave way after a handful of her tries.
“This is for living a lie!” She kicked the beam and then looked toward me, waiting.
“This is for . . . having to lie!” I broke another beam in half.
Beck scowled at me, not quite approving of my confession. Then she let it go and yelled over the music, “This is for Nolan, that cheating son of a bitch!” She slammed a right hook into the only clean patch of drywall.
“Ahhh!” Beck pulled her hand back and tucked it in between her thighs, doubled over, holding her breath. The music blared on in the absence of our demolition.
I placed my hand on her back and waited for her to stand upright again. When I was convinced that would never happen, I lowered to my knees and gently pulled her hand out from between her legs. Without the pressure against her hand, blood rose to the surface of her knuckles. “Wow, you really did it, didn’t you?” I looked up to see Beck’s teary eyes and full cheeks.
“He deserved it!” Beck said as she lifted her hand to examine the damage.
I huffed and pointed to her bloodied hand. “But did your hand deserve that?” I asked. Beck rolled her eyes and pushed her shoulder into mine, causing me to take a step back to catch my balance. I smiled at her, then looked back to the wall. If I hadn’t known better, I’d say a bomb went through the center of it. “It’s just what I wanted,” I said as I framed the wall between my hands. Beck laughed, and I went to the kitchen to turn off the music and fetch her some ice from the freezer. Making do with what I had, I wrapped the ice in a small hand towel and took it to her. She held her hand out, trembling as I took it in mine and slowly lowered the ice down onto her knuckles. Beck winced, and I lifted the ice off for a moment before placing its full weight on top of her hand. “How’s that?” I asked.
Beck nodded, still panting from the workout. Heat radiated off her body, and I found a subtle comfort in the way her chest rose and fell with every breath. Pressed against my own, her palm was moist and hot. The whole thing made my heart regain its momentum, though I had been still for some time. I examined the green flecks in Beck’s eyes before my gaze dropped to her mouth as she bit down into her bottom lip. She was so close I could smell her cherry lip balm. But it wasn’t enough. I needed to taste it, too.
I lowered my lips to hers, and my chest exploded when she lifted onto her toes to meet me in the middle. My eyes closed, allowing me to see more clearly than I had in months. It was the moment that I was sure I could live this life over and over, and every drop of insanity would all be worth it. Beck backed me up against a standing beam in the ruined wall. My back pressed into shards of broken drywall as I deepened my kiss. She responded with matched passion and urgency. The flutter in my chest swelled. The heat in my belly deepened lower yet.
I carefully took my hand off the ice and ran my hands up into Beck’s hair. The ice pack slapped against the floor, and ice cubes kicked back at my legs. Beck wrapped one icy hand under my jaw while the hot one slid under my shirt and up my back. All the tension I’d carried with me came to a head in this heated moment, and I swept her up into my arms and carried her to my bedroom. She planted kisses down the side of my neck as I hurried down the hall. Grateful that I’d bought a bed just days earlier.
I took a deep breath, allowing my lungs to be filled to maximum capacity. Then, ever so slowly, I let all the strain I’d been living expel in one exhalation. The boulder had spared me, and I was unscathed.
Sometime after the passion had settled, when all was right in the world, and when Beck had finally found her way back into my arms, I closed my eyes and basked in the sublime. I could finally breathe again. We stayed there entangled as the sky grew black, and the house darkened. When Beck pulled away, I tucked my hands behind my head and watched her pull her shirt over her head and shimmy into her jeans. Her eyes trailed around the empty bedroom before settling on the bare mattress and sleeping bag tangled underneath me. “Is this all you have?” she asked.
“Yeah. For tonight.”
Beck singled out a thick lock of hair and wrapped it around her mouth, hiding her smile. A chuckle escaped me, though I was unsure why. She’d just looked so cute. So happy.
“You need me,” Beck said, sitting next to me.
I smiled and placed my hand on her knee. There was absolute truth to what she said. It was even an understatement. The moonlight cast shadows across the side of her face, and even then, her beauty was undeniable. “I love you, Beck,” I said as sure as the day we wed.
A slight curvature spread across her lips before she turned her head away and ran a hand through her hair. I wasn’t expecting to hear it back, nor did I need to. But I did have to tell her how I felt.
“I—” Beck started.
“You don’t have to say it back. I understand,” I said, sitting up to rub her back.
“No, I want to, it’s just—” Beck’s shoulders rose.
“Shhh.” I hushed her, leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead.
“I struggle because I feel like I know you,” Beck went on, pointing her good hand at her heart and tapping her chest. “But here . . .” She pushed a finger to the side of her temple. “I don’t have the pieces.”
Though I understood, it was difficult to be told that you were forgettable. Especially after the love we had just made.
“I just need a little more time.”
I forced a smile, thankful that my face was hidden in the shadows. “Well, you’re in luck, because there’s an unlimited number of days for you and me. Take all the time you need, but no more, you hear?” I said.
“OK, deal,” Beck said with a smile.
Beck and I spent another hour sitting on my bare mattress, discussing her past relationships. Nolan included. She had anticipated that he wouldn’t be faithful, but it never kept her from trying with him. Her intentions were to have fun, but she wound up liking him more than she planned. Because of that, she was hurt when he did what she knew he would. She talked about how she had an unhealthy pattern of picking guys who either couldn’t commit or couldn’t keep her attention. Of course, she didn’t need to tell me. I already knew from the conversations we shared before. Still, I enjoyed her new take on relationships, and I could spot the subtle changes in her growth even though she couldn’t.
I kicked myself for not having a first aid kit after I ran Beck’s blood dried hand under tempered water. I patted her knuckles dry with a clean paper towel and apologized for not having bandages. When Beck was ready to go, I didn’t press her to stay. I knew she had a lot to sort through in her head, and I was confident that she’d be back fairly soon. I made it my goal to have full bedding in place by the time she did.
The work progressed nicely with my house in the following weeks. I had replaced all the carpet with a light grey hardwood. Nearly all the smell left with the dead raccoon, and what had lingered was gone with the carpet. I spent my time working on the ruptured wall, while Beck went to school. Most days, she would come by in the evenings and help me with whatever project was on the list for that day. It was just how I imagined. We painted the bathrooms, and Beck decorated them in soft neutral colors. On the weekends, we spent hours in the dirt, planting flowers and getting sunburns. We cooked in the kitchen together, and she wore my T-shirts like tunics around the house. Slowly but surely, Beck began to feel comfortable in her Tethered skin.
Nearly a month had gone by when I said something that had shocked Beck. It never crossed her mind, and it seemed to have rattled
her to her core. I wanted nothing more than to continue our forward momentum, but it was a look in her eyes that told me to tread lightly.
Chapter 20
I’m . . . adopted!” Beck barked.
I stared up at her, dumbfounded, my jaw unhinged. I thought she knew. How could she not know? I lowered my paintbrush into the paint pan and tried to look anywhere but directly at her. The paint bucket was as good a place as any to wait it out.
“Seriously!? My mom and dad aren’t my mom and dad?” Beck’s mouth hung open. I knew she wasn’t looking for an answer, so I steadied my course while the seconds ticked by. “Well, then who the hell is?” she asked.
Unlike me, Beck had parents. In fact, I saw one of them on the bridge just moments after she’d left me high and dry. Had she stayed just a little longer, we would have caused her father a lot of pain. His healing would have torn open like a fresh split on a scabbed knee. If Beck wanted to know her parents, there were stories I could tell her. Though that wouldn’t ease her shock now.
The very first life I lived was under the roof of an abusive family. I never had the chance to grow up. I never had the chance to see my fifth birthday. Once I got a couple of lives down the road, I learned that how I had grown up was anything but normal, and for the most part, parents weren’t meant to be feared. I was a true lost soul. But Beck was different because even though she didn’t remember her parents . . . I did. And they were everything a child could ask for and then some.
“I’ve got to call my mom! Or whoever she is!” Beck lowered off of the ladder and tossed her paintbrush in the pan, causing white paint to splatter my pants.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. It just seems like something you should think about first.” I tried to save her from herself, but the woman was a damn tornado when she set her sights on something.
The Second Life of Everly Beck: The Tethered Soul Series Book 2 Page 14