I placed the cheese board on a table underneath the heater. Beck worked to get the heat burning, and I uncorked the wine. The backyard was beautifully manicured, and I admired the landscape and work that had been poured into it. “Did you want me to get some glasses for the wine?” I asked Beck. When the hot tub snagged the corner of my eye, my skin heated as I remembered my dream. Though just as quickly as it came, the memory turned from embers to ice as I realized that this weekend was anything but the one that I had dreamed up in my head.
“Nah, I don’t mind drinking out of the bottle,” Beck said.
“Oh. It’s going to be one of those nights?” Beck rolled her eyes at my sarcasm and we both made ourselves comfortable in the lounge chairs underneath the heater. I started on the cheese and crackers while Beck got to work on the wine. She passed me the bottle, and I took a sip, careful not to spill.
“I just can’t believe it. These people . . . I thought they were my parents, and now it’s like I don’t even know who they are. What’s worse . . . I don’t know who I am.” Beck’s stare sank to the bottom of the pool.
“I know who you are.”
Beck looked at me. “Do you?” I began to nod, but Beck was more serious this time. “Seriously, you say that, but do you?”
“Well, yeah.” I looked up into the sky briefly, confirming my answer. I knew I loved her. And I knew she had a large heart, a kind eye, and a loving touch. I knew my heart belonged to her. And I knew she was her own worst enemy. But would these things help her find her identity? Probably not. “I know your first parents. And your brother,” I said.
“I had a brother?” Beck straightened, shock passing through her eyes.
I took another sip of wine and tried remembering how long it took me to regain my memory. “You really don’t remember your brother?” I asked, passing her the bottle.
Beck shook her head and held the wine in her lap, tapping her nails against the glass. “I mean, I guess I do. Now that you say it, I feel like it must be true.”
After a moment of silence passed between us, I leaned forward. “You should try the cheese. I think it’s smoked Gouda.” The smoke on my tongue danced with the red wine, and I was happy to eat nothing more than cheese for dinner underneath the warmth of the heater.
Beck smiled at me before dropping her gaze to the rose petal charcuterie board and frowned. “Did you steal my mom’s roses?”
I froze, mid-chew. “What is wrong with you?” Beck asked.
I sucked in a piece of cracker and let out a barking cough.
Beck huffed. “You know you deserve that. Stealing roses from my mother’s mans-tress . . .” Beck rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of the situation, and I coughed up a cracker.
“It adds a romantic flare though, don’t you think?” I said, still hacking.
Beck smiled and begrudgingly agreed. She loosened up just enough to try the smoked Gouda, causing her eyebrows to rise with surprised delight. “You know, if I close my eyes, I think I can see them, and I wonder if it’s really my family, or just some fraction of make-believe I’ve conjured up in my head.” Beck licked her fingers before wiping them on her jeans.
“God, I really wish there was something I could do to help you remember them. I mean, not just them but everything. I wish you remembered it all! What was it like when we were on the bridge? You seemed to remember once you were back in that specific location. Maybe we could, I don’t know, imitate that by bringing you around town?” I asked.
“Yeah! Maybe? Do you think it could work?
“It already has, hasn’t it?” I asked.
Beck tucked her hair behind her ears and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Kind of. When we were at the bridge, I felt . . . unsettled. The feeling gnawed at my stomach until I could no longer ignore it. Then, I saw your name on the memorial plaque, and I just lost it. In that moment, I knew that my intuition was correct and that, while I had thought I was crazy my entire life for feeling things I couldn’t explain, finally, there was an answer. There was a plaque. I knew you were the secret’s keeper, and I both blamed you for keeping it from me and needed you expediently.”
“Lives,” I said.
“What?” Beck looked to me, resting her cheek on her knees.
“You get to say lives now. Plural.”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess.” Beck directed her gaze to the stars above us, and I lowered my lounge chair so I could see them too. “I want to see them, Easton,” she said in only a whisper.
“Who? Your family?”
“Yes. You have to take me to them.”
“Oh, no, no, no. That’s a big one, Beck. We can’t do that.”
“Why not!?” her voice rose.
“Beck, imagine you had a child. Now imagine you outlived that child. After twenty-one years of grief, you still wouldn’t be healed. What do you think it would do to them if you suddenly came back into their lives? At the same age, no less! It’s not fair to them.”
Beck sat quietly for a long while, digesting my comments. “But I need closure too.”
My stomach dropped. In my hundreds of years, I’d never thought about my own needs in the grieving process, and perhaps that’s why I never healed myself. I briefly wondered if I’d even given anyone other than Beck the chance to touch my heart at all. I’d been so afraid of losing everyone I loved, I never even allowed my heart to open up.
My chest was heavy with regret, and I vowed to myself that I would take down my walls. I watched a small shooting star dart across the sky before fizzling out, and I brought my hand to my chest. My slow, methodical heart beat under my palm. Sometimes, I couldn’t believe I was alive in the first place. I didn’t know how I’d come to be Tethered, but I knew that in that moment, I could do it better.
“I have a compromise for you to consider,” I said after much thought.
“What’s that?”
“We can stalk them.”
Beck let out a stunted laugh. “What? Really? You want to stalk my parents?”
“It could be fun,” I said, perching up on my elbow to look at her. “We can get binoculars and donuts, and we can sit in a stake-out car down the street from their house, waiting, for hours for them to check the mail. It will be nothing short of entertaining, and if we’re lucky, it might help bring some of your memory back, too. Maybe you could get a little closure that way?” I reached over and took the bottle of wine from Beck’s grasp.
“OK. Let’s do it.” Beck’s tone was devoid of excitement, and I might have gone as far to say that it was a little annoyed.
“What is it? You don’t think it will work?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah, honestly.”
“No. I don’t think it will work.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
Beck ran her hands through her hair in distress, causing my confusion to peak. “Because I don’t remember you . . . and I’ve seen every inch of you.”
I writhed in pain. The blow had been unexpected. I knew she was having trouble piecing everything together, but I hadn’t known the extent of it. My jaw tensed as I watched the pool’s surface ripple under the moonlight. This certainly wasn’t the way I thought the weekend would go. “You don’t remember me?” I asked in disbelief.
“Apart from your eyes, through the blood-stained water, and my lungs full of the icy river, I have no memory of you. Any of it, really.” Beck’s voice had run cold, and the vacancy behind her eyes had returned. No wonder she couldn’t say she loved me back. The only part of me she remembered was the worst moment of her past life. My eyes were her grim reaper. I shut them tight, wishing she didn’t feel pain every time she looked into them.
Our trip ended one day short. Beck’s dad was coming home, and her mom didn’t want us around when he did. Understandably, they had to talk. Beck never had her chance to sit down with her parents and ask them questions about the adoption. It was devastating for her to walk out the front door with no better sense of identity, but she clung to the ho
pe that she would find herself through the lenses of binoculars on her old street. During our trip home, Beck told Brooklyn everything—aside from being cursed to walk the earth forevermore, of course. And after hours in the car, she had finally let go of some tension. Brooklyn even got her to laugh a bit, and for that, I was thankful.
I spent the rest of the road trip reflecting on my lives, dedicating myself to making Beck’s life easier, happier, more enriched. That was the simple part. It was the poolside promise that I had made about loving without reservation that I’d need to work on. It was hard when everyone moved on and only I remained. It was hard to open up to the pain of saying goodbye. Especially when it wasn’t a matter of if but a matter of when. But despite the inevitable hurt, I vouched to not only feel the broken hearts but the beating ones, too. I was going to love again.
Chapter 22
I stopped at the donut shop before we got started. It was in every cop movie that featured a stake-out. And even though I’d had a plethora of career experience in my past, I never once considered being a cop. It was a real shame too, with my talent for regeneration. But could I live with all the crime at the end of the night? Was I strong enough to witness the corruption and the fate of the less fortunate? Could I then knock on homes of the unknowing? Could I continue to fight, through the thick of it, without letting it destroy me from the inside out? I’d like to think so. I steepled my fingers under my chin as I wondered if I could pass the physical entry test.
“You want this one?” The lady behind the glass window pointed to a pink sprinkled donut.
“Um, sorry, yes I’ll take one of those, and a powdered one, and two cronuts please.” I dug in my pocket for cash as I pictured myself as a police officer. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it didn’t look right in my head, and I shook the image away when the clerk asked if I wanted coffee.
“Two, please.”
“That will be $8.89.”
I handed the clerk a ten and placed a couple of bills in her tip jar. I picked up Beck from her apartment, leaving the donuts in the car but taking the coffees with me. The warmth from the cups were a welcome contrast to the brisk air against my knuckles. It felt nice to be near campus again, as I had avoided it in my attempts to finish the renovation of my house. After I climbed the stairs to Beck’s apartment, I kicked the door lightly with my foot, trying not to spill the coffees in my hands.
Brooklyn opened the door in short shorts and a crop top. She crossed her arms attempting to hide her chest as she called for Beck. “Becca! Easton is here! Oh . . . Is that for me?” Brooklyn asked, lashes lifted.
“Uh, yeah!” I looked down at the coffees, trying to remember which one I had been drinking out of, but when I couldn’t recall, I handed her the left one.
“You’re so sweet! Thank you!” I gave her a quick nod, my gaze lingering while I searched for what she claimed to know better than me. “Where are you guys off to?” Brooklyn said, sipping my coffee.
“We’re having a picnic,” I said.
“A breakfast picnic?”
“Exactly.” Brooklyn’s eyes lowered to half-mast as she realized she wasn’t the only one with secrets.
Beck was quick, and I’d have to wait for another time to finish my conversation with Brooklyn. She didn’t appear as worried as I was. Beck grabbed her bag before giving me a quick peck on the cheek. She took the coffee from my hand and waved Brooklyn goodbye with her pinky finger. “I have donuts and binoculars,” I said.
“I brought a trucker hat and oversized sunglasses!” I laughed, realizing that I typically had those things in my car, ready at all times. “I’m really nervous.” Beck tried to smile through a clenched jaw.
I stalled and pulled Beck in for an embrace. “You have nothing to be nervous about. We probably won’t even get a sighting. Not for a few days, anyway.”
Beck pulled away, and her brows stitched together.
“I mean, we’re totally going to see them. We’re going to see them so hard!” I smiled and slapped the bill of Beck’s hat, tipping it down to the bridge of her nose.
She smiled her pearly whites and lifted the hat to see again. “Now that’s the spirit! Let’s go stalk some old people!” Beck said.
We got in the car, and I made my way to Clover, trying everything I could to make Beck wait for the donuts until we were in position, but she didn’t understand my vision and swallowed the pink one nearly whole. “They’re such a treat! I never eat these!” she said through a mouthful of pink glaze.
“I can see that!”
“What are these brown ones? They look . . . incredibly boring.” Beck stared into the box, hunting for her next kill.
“Uh, those are the best ones! They’re a mix between a croissant and a donut. You have to at least try it. Not now, though. Just wait.”
Beck did as I asked, and I laughed every time I saw her eyes flicker back to the box. It wasn’t until I pulled into her old neighborhood that my excitement shifted and I became apprehensive of the whole plan. There were so many things that could go wrong . . . and so few that could go right. “Do you recognize any of this?” I tried to capture Beck’s expression, but her head was turned away, looking out the window. If only the back of her head could talk.
“I don’t know? I mean, it looks like every other neighborhood, doesn’t it?”
“True. But if you had to say which house on this street was yours, which one would you choose?”
Beck looked to both sides of the street before leaning forward in her seat. Her hands gripped her seat and her knuckles were taught and white. I drove slowly, allowing her time to look at each one in thoughtful deliberation. My heart fluttered at the sight of her house, but I tried to remain unbiased. “Well, if I had to choose, I’d say that one with the little bushes that lead up to the front door.”
I don’t know why it shocked me that she was right, but it did. “What makes you think it’s that one?” I asked.
Beck looked at her other options and then back to her old home. “I can’t say for sure, it’s not anything in particular. Just a feeling. A draw.”
“A tether?” I asked.
Beck turned her head slowly and looked into my eyes, “That’s exactly how it feels. Look!” She raised her arm between us, and it was covered in goose flesh. The tiny hairs on her arm were standing straight up.
I grabbed her hand and kissed the back of her knuckles, which were nearly healed from her demolition mishap. “You’re right. That’s it.”
Beck nodded, taking it in. I parked on the opposite side of the street, making sure our view was the best it could be without being too obvious. I looked to Beck who was no longer consumed with the pastries, and I handed her the large sunglasses to hide behind. I pulled my old trusty cap on and we sat in silence, staring at the house. After ten minutes or so, I reached for the box of donuts. I bit into a cronut while I held the binoculars up to my eyes and tried to peer through every window of the house. If someone was home, I couldn’t tell. “I think I might want to try being a cop,” I said.
Beck let out a snort. “Yeah. You should do that.”
I turned to her, but her face was no more than a blur. I lowered the binoculars slowly. “You laughed,” I stated.
“No . . . there was something in my throat.” Beck rubbed her throat, reminding me of the way she did when she had cancer.
“You literally snorted.”
“No, I just think, you know . . . if you’re going to be a cop that maybe you should start lifting weights or something. Maybe.”
I stared at her, unable to see her eyes through large tinted sunglasses. Her thin pressed lips were all I needed to know that she was stifling a giggle.
“Are you saying I’m not masculine enough to be a cop?”
Beck slid her glasses down the bridge of her nose and peered up at me with her large green eyes. “Honey, that’s precisely what I’m saying.”
My jaw unhinged, and my eyes grew with wild delight. “You!” I ripped my seatbelt off,
“Little!” I began to crawl over to the passenger’s seat and Beck squealed. My head hit the ceiling, and my knees kicked into my chest. My foot caught the center console, and my hands grabbed fistfuls of Beck to steady myself. She screamed, much too loud for a stake-out. It was a rookie move. Fully on top of her, I reached down, fumbling to find the seat recline lever. “Say it. Say I can be a cop!” When her mouth glued shut, I ripped the lever, and we both fell flat against the reclined seat. Beck laughed so hard her face turned red and a vein bulged in her neck. She looked just like her mother’s art instructor. I showed no mercy, jabbing my fingertips into her ribs and blowing puffs of air into her ear. She squealed like a boar and fought like one too.
In my attempts to seek revenge, I hadn’t even noticed a woman approaching Beck’s window. Two knobby hands pressed against my tinted window, making binoculars of their own. Eyes of papier mâché peered down at us. Who knew how long she had been watching? Beck hissed at me when I rolled my window down. “What are you doing?”
“Can I help you, ma’am?” I asked. The lady was appalled by either our display of affection or the fact that she had gotten caught—which one I couldn’t tell. She muffled some inaudible words under her breath before walking away, her wiener dog trotting behind her. I opened Beck’s door and nearly fell out of the car. I got up, dusting off my clothes, stood to my full height, and walked back to the driver’s seat in stride. The lady shot me several dirty looks over her shoulder. And by the last look of utter distaste, I wondered what she truly thought was happening in the parked car.
“Do you think she’s going to call the real cops? You know, the ones with muscles?” I asked Beck.
“Jesus, you can’t let anything go, can you?” Beck was amused by my sarcasm, which only made me want to lay it on thicker.
“Too bad we don’t have a dog to walk. If we did, we could get closer.” I regretted it the moment I said it. Something in the way Beck’s eyes sparkled screamed mischief, and I wasn’t sure I was up for it.
“I’ve got a . . . compromise.”
The Second Life of Everly Beck: The Tethered Soul Series Book 2 Page 16