The Beat Around Us (The Heartbeat Series, #2)

by Meadows, Ellie

  “Just say whatever you want to say,” I snapped. He’d realized now that he didn’t want any part of the obvious mess that I was. It was easier for him to say it now, rather than break me later. I couldn’t stand any more breaks, I was taped together as it was—all scars and tears.

  “Who’s the father?” He said it so bluntly, without any sugar. He asked a question. Three words.

  And I was the one hit in the chest with a rogue ball. An arrow to the heart. I’d bleed rather than say the truth. He was looking so pointedly at me though, so clear-gazed, so unwavering. As if he knew he dripped acid, and was just waiting to see the burn.

  I could return salt for salt though. I didn’t have to say it nicely to save his sensibility; he hadn’t saved mine. He wanted to know. Then, dammit, he could know.

  “My stepdad,” I whispered fiercely, waiting for the flare of surprise in his eyes. And then the anger. It was comforting, so comforting, to see someone else holding the rage I’d been feeling, but kept buried in a shallow grave for the sake of my sanity, future, and little bean.

  “You’re. Stepdad.” He said the two words independently, swallowing them down like orange-hot embers.

  “Yes,” I bit out, bile filling my mouth and nausea returning with a tsunami force. “I have been raped over and over and over again. And when I didn’t think it could get worse, when I didn’t think being abused and unloved could be any more painful, he decided that ‘we’d both’ like it better if he didn’t use a condom.”

  “Does he know—”

  I cut him off. “That I’m pregnant. No. And he’s never going to know. Never. He doesn’t control me anymore. He doesn’t know where I am.”

  “What about your mom. Doesn’t she—”

  I silenced him again, because I need to keep talking. I need someone to ingest the horror that had been my childhood. “My mother didn’t care. She didn’t care. She loved him. Always. Always more than me. She didn’t believe me. She never...” my voice faded into nothingness. The sick feeling was gone. The tears were spilling from my eyes slow and steady. And I feel empty. And Silas was standing there in shock, the anger in his eyes a forceful, feeling thing.

  Empty.

  I felt so empty.

  An abandoned cave, where no one in their right mind would spend the night, let alone their life. Because no one would want me now. No one. He’d ruined me. And no one would want me now, just like he’d whispered between my sobs.

  I couldn’t even look at Silas. I turned away and tried to bolt for the sliding doors, but he was faster. His arms pushed around my body, and clasped around my chest. He pinned my arms down, and my first instinct was to fight my way free. I wouldn’t let a man trap me, mishandle me, hurt me again. But his touch was strong, yet kind. His breathing was fast and heavy, his face buried in my loose hair like he couldn’t face the world right now, and he needed the veil between him and reality.

  I couldn’t relax against him, my body wouldn’t let me. My heart wouldn’t let me. But I didn’t try push him away either. I stood there, a statue, knowing that he offered me goodness in response to the ugly truths I’d just spewed. I wouldn’t reject that goodness, just like I couldn’t reject the child inside me—who’d done nothing to deserve ill treatment. I hated that I always put my own feelings, and my own needs, beneath everything else.

  We stood there too long, with people having to push past us and giving us odd looks. I eventually closed my eyes against everything going on around us. And I waited, until the tears stopped, my heartbeat slowed, and I could feel the thunder of his own chest calm behind me. “We should probably get out of here,” Silas’s voice whispered against my neck, gruff and half-strangled by whatever he was feeling.

  I nodded almost imperceptibly. He pulled away, walked to my side, and didn’t look at me. He offered me his hand though and after a moment’s pause, I took it. And his fingers weaved so perfectly with my own. His palm, warm and slightly-damp, felt more like home than the building I’d lived in for so many years. His touch was a bandage for how I was feeling.

  Not a cure.

  But a barrier to protect my pain, at least for a fleeting while.

  Silas.

  I wanted to hold her forever, but of course I couldn’t. Not because it would be awkward, not because it didn’t feel right, but because people were having to sidestep around us to exit the building. We were inconveniencing people. But even knowing that...

  Damn.

  It was hard to let go.

  I hadn’t held anyone this close since Asher. The warmth of it, the very soul of human contact, quickly seeped into me like alcohol to blood. Flowing like a magnet drawn by its opposite pole. I wanted to stick with her, to feel the pulse between us grow so strong I couldn’t possibly, ever, pull away.

  But I had to let go.

  And the separation of it was a physical fucking pain that I didn’t expect.

  “Come on,” I murmured against her hair, then released her. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll get you what you need. Anything you need, Anna.” I didn’t mean to let so much intensity flow into my words, but I couldn’t stop them. I’d broken the proverbial dam. I’d thought about Asher. I’d remembered what it felt like to touch another person. I’d spent so long trying to un-break myself, and here I was slamming a wrecking ball into my body over a girl I barely knew. A girl who was possibly more damaged than I was. I wouldn’t have thought that was possible. Not until this moment, right now.

  “Okay,” she whispered and I took her hand. I took her hand gently and I felt sweaty palms—both of us nervous. A damn kid in high school, completely thrown out of order by a pretty human.

  I turned on music when we got into the SUV, I needed to fill the air around us and I didn’t want to talk. I was afraid of myself, of what I might say while riding a wave of emotions. I kept seeing Asher in my head. His smile. His eyes. I kept hearing his voice reading his letter he’d left me. His parting message, his wish for me.

  You’ll love again, and that person’s going to make you forget me. And that’s okay.

  It wasn’t fucking okay though. I wasn’t ready to forget him.

  I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready to forget him.

  “Can we change the station?” Anna’s voice was almost a whisper, hard to hear over the melancholy saga of regret pouring out of the crackly speakers in my vehicle. I’d thought about upgrading the system when Id’ bought the hunk of junk, but something about the static of it sounded authentic. It reminded me of recording in a back alley with Asher, using shit microphones and no dampeners to keep the city sounds at bay.

  “Oh, sure.” I fumbled with the controls until something more upbeat sounded. And though I didn’t like the happiness of the tune, I left it on when I saw Anna’s mouth quirk up in the slightest of smiles. She liked the song. And keep it on if it made her even a little joyful.

  God, it was a slippery slope. This want to please her, to help her, to hold her. I didn’t even know her, dammit. I didn’t even know her. Maybe in my heart, though, I realized I did know her in a way. The way one fractured soul recognized another. An unspoken kinship of pain. My sorrow was different, my past riddled with a totally different brand of shit.

  Again, Bree’s words sounded in my head. We all got bad shit ready to spew all over someone. Ankle deep in the waters of knowing Anna, and I was already willing to drown in her own brand of misery. Forget my own. I wanted hers, like a blanket on a freezing night, to keep me warm. Warm again, finally, since my Asher died.

  “This is my favorite song,” Anna said, looking out the window at the passing scenery. I wondered what she thought of the quaint buildings, manicured trees, antiquated phone booth on the corner of 5th and Maple. “I don’t hear it very often though.”

  “No?” I asked, turning right down Taylor Street towards the Mom & Pop pharmacy I chose as often as possible over the impersonal chain across town.

  “Yeah, I mean, I don’t have a radio or anything, so I only hear it randomly in store
s and stuff. I’m sure there are a ton of songs I’ve not heard. This one’s good though. Older. I like the message.” She glanced at me, and her cheeks were flushed. “Sorry, I’m rambling.” She went back to staring out the window and I desperately wanted her to look back my way, so I could see her eyes and the way they glinted when they were red-rimmed and damp. I wanted to erase the touches of sadness from her explosion of truth at the hospital. I wanted to erase her whole damn past.

  But if I had that power, I’d change other things too. Asher would be alive. I’d probably have never met Anna.

  Would I make that trade, right now?

  The answer should be ‘no’. Asher felt like a soulmate. Anna was just someone I’d met recently.

  But the answer wasn’t ‘no’. It wasn’t a resounding ‘yes’, but it wasn’t ‘no’ either. And that stunned me.

  “We should change that. Everyone should have access to music, whenever the hell they want. It’s ... it’s one of those things that can keep us going when we feel like being swallowed up and digested by the world.” I gripped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles started turning white. I focused on the road, on the light turning yellow, on the destination building in the near distance.

  I focused so hard that I didn’t see Anna’s fingers reaching out to touch my right hand, to gently rub a single stroke across my knuckles in an effort to pull me back from the brink. Did she see my edge? Did she just recognize that I frequently stood on a cliff of nothing, looking down at the great forbidden forever, hoping to be pushed?

  “I’m sorry.” Were her next words, and it bothered me to hear her say that. She’d been through as much as me. No, more. She’d been through worse. She’d been used and abused to the very core of her being. She shouldn’t console me. I didn’t deserve it. I’d paved y own path. I’d chosen Asher, despite knowing his habits. I’d always chalked it up to ‘the heart wants what it wants’, but I could have been smart. I could have realized he was too messy, too problematic. I could have rejected him and his drugs and his music... and his body.

  But I hadn’t.

  The heart wants what it wants was just an excuse people used to keep doing something, or someone, that’s bad for them. Just like people say ‘one more cookie’ when they’re trying to lose weight or ‘one more drag’ when they’re trying to quit smoking. I fell for Asher, and I decided to keep falling for him, over and over again, in every sense of the word.

  Falling for his pretty excuses. Falling for his inevitable spiral after every show. Falling for his line that he only needed one more hit and then he could really stop the habit. I’d believed him and fell for him until I went out and bought that last hit of heroin that had killed him. It had only been days since we’d used cocaine too. I remembered that hitting shortly after taking it—Asher by the vein, me going the snorting route. Heroin had been our go-to though, with everything else a need for strange.

  “Don’t say sorry to me, Anna. I don’t deserve it.” Harsh. My voice was harsh now, and I felt like crap for talking to her that way. Or at her. Because I was really only talking to myself—the past self who didn’t give a damn about my health and future, only the arms of the man I loved.

  “You do. I can see it.”

  “Anna, what I’ve been through? It was my own damn doing. Having sympathy for me is like... feeling sorry for a horse that’s stood by a perfectly-good body of water, but won’t drink it because he’s stubborn as hell. So don’t say you’re sorry for me. I’m not worth it.” I steered the SUV into the parking lot and an available spot, not caring that I parked sideways and almost made it impossible for the neighboring sedan to open its door.

  “You know what I see?” Anna’s voice had gone soft again, and I turned off the radio to hear her better. “You’re a guy who met a stranger. First, she was awkward and shy at a coffee shop. Then, she was dizzy and out-of-place at a bar. But when you found out she was sick, you dropped everything to help her. How are you not worthy of my sympathy or kindness? You can’t give away goodness and not expect to receive some of it back.”

  “You don’t understand. I ruin shit I touch.” Maybe that wasn’t the truth. Maybe I was the one ruined by Asher. I didn’t care for the semantics of it though—Anna needed to know that I wasn’t the kind of guy who was good enough.

  She shook her head and let out a small, startled laugh. “You ruin shit? Believe me when I say that I have lived under the storm of someone who ruins things. Who ruins everything. And you are not that person.”

  My eyes were damp now, fighting the pressure of a sob that wanted to force its way out of my body. I couldn’t keep this conversation going, or I was going to shatter.

  “Let’s get your stuff. I’m sure you’re exhausted.” I shut off the engine and opened my door. I didn’t look back at her as I exited and closed it. I had to lean against the vehicle, taking deep, shaking breaths. My entire body was quaking. Maybe I was already going to shatter. Maybe I hadn’t saved myself at all.

  Somewhere in the back of my conscious mind, I heard Anna’s door open and close. I heard her walking around the back of the vehicle. Then I felt her growing closer, that comforting realness of the human heart. When her arms went around me, I was the one who stiffened. But then I melted and we stood there again for several moments, recapturing the moment of rawness from our embrace in the hospital.

  I finally pulled away, looked down at her open and honest and pale face, with the tiny patch of freckles around her nose I hadn’t seen from a distance, and I smiled gently. “Okay, seriously, let’s go get your stuff. I’m okay.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  Stanley & Molly Dane’s pharmacy was about the size of a studio apartment—the public portion, at least. The rear area for storage was nearly twice that size. I knew, because I’d been called here last year when Molly thought Stanley was having a heart attack. It turned out to be a massive case of post-tacos indigestion luckily.

  “Silas!” Molly’s cheerful voice exploded through the store as if she was using a megaphone. It made the tinkle of the bells on the door seem silent in comparison. I looked around to find her plump face beaming from behind a row of shelves sporting protein shakes and weight loss supplements, though Molly firmly hated those. She said they were basically a lie in a bottle, and her Uncle Bugs had died from taking a particularly noxious brand stuffed with caffeine. “You’ve been cheating on us, haven’t you son.” She walked over and patted me on the shoulder, then her eyes widened when she caught sight of Anna slightly behind me.

  “Never, Molly.” I grinned.

  “Don’t you go fibbing to me, boy. I know the siren call of chain discounts just like any other consumer.” She winked, whilst keeping her gaze still on Anna. “And who might this be? In all the time I’ve known you, seeing you with a girl is a rare surprise. Hi, darling. I’m Molly.”

  Anna nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and then she reached out to shake Molly’s offered hand. “I’m Anna.” She said softly.

  “Anna, welcome to our little town, and our little shop.” She proudly surveyed her pharmaceutical kingdom, small as it might be. “We might not be biggest place on the planet, but I can guarantee no one will treat you more like family. So what do you need?”

  I took the reins now. “Anna was just discharged. She needs a few over-the-counter things, nothing too difficult.”

  “Sure, whatcha need? I’ll help you get familiar with the store, Anna.” Molly was still focusing on Anna, despite me trying to take the heat of the inquisitive, motherly woman’s attention.

  “Um...” Anna’s voice trailed off. I knew she didn’t want to say it. And, yet again, I was compelled to save her.

  “We’ve got this, Molly. I promised Anna I’d help her sort everything. And I don’t break promises, do I?” It was my turn to wink.

  “Don’t break promises?” It was the right way to get Molly sidetracked. “Oh, really?” She pointed at me, glanced at Anna, then back at me. “Do you know this guy ‘pro
mised’ to never go to a chain pharmacy and I know for a fact he did. Greta Blunt saw him in one last week. And don’t get me started on Greta—she shouldn’t have been there either.”

  I knew, the moment I’d run into Greta Blunt, the Great Gossiper, that Molly would find out I’d stopped at the other pharmacy to buy a few things.

  “Now, now, Molly. It was one time. And they had toilet paper on sale. A man needs a good deal on toilet paper.”

  “Don’t you give me that ‘it was one time’ nonsense!” She raised her hands and made a shooing motion now. “Go on, get your things and hop your traitorous tail out of my shop.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I saluted, watching her eyes twinkle. “Come on, Anna. Let’s get this over with before Molly bans me for good.”

  Anna was shuffling her feet, not totally comfortable, but she came willingly when I grabbed a blue basket and tugged her hand gently along with me.

  We made short work of picking a prenatal, some nutritional shakes, and a few other things—like ginger candies in case she felt nauseous again. I could see her face getting increasingly worried as I put more in the basket. “Is there anything else you need? Anything you want?”

  “No... but, Silas, I can’t afford all that. I literally saved every penny I had to come out here and I’ve got to be really careful until I get a job. And that’s not much, because my stepfather always took my actual checks for ‘rent’ money. I could only hide the tips I made.” Anna stopped talking quickly, maybe because of my face—which I could feel getting hot as the sins of her stepfather piled higher.

  “I’m buying this,” I said firmly. I shook my head as she went to argue. “No, I’m buying this.” Then I proceeded to toss every good-looking junk food item nearby into the basket, thanks to two obliging towards of chips and candy bars—absolutely unhealthy, but what college student didn’t want the occasional crappy eats over exam cramming.