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

by Meadows, Ellie

  “Yeah, I’m headed that way,” I said, feeling defeated.

  “Want me to stay on the line for a while?” Tanner’s voice was still a lifeline as I headed back the way I’d come, my SUV pulling hard to the right like it didn’t agree with my decision.

  “No, Tanner. I’m okay.”

  “You’re not, but I trust you to make it home and wait for Laurie. I remember those days, Silas. And I remember you saying you were never going back down that road. She’s just a girl. If she’s got you this bent out of shape now? Shit, man. You got to cut it off. Period.”

  My gut reaction was to agree, but that larger-and-larger mass in my chest was yelling ‘don’t listen to him. I haven’t felt anything in so long. You can’t kill me again. Not now, when I can see blood rushing toward me, when I might beat again’. “I know, Tanner.” My voice shook. I hung up.

  And I drove again.

  Mindlessly as my heart kept bloating ever larger like an anemic balloon.

  I realized I’d bypassed my house and headed back to campus as soon as I saw the emerald green stretch of front lawn and the aged brick in the near distance. I muttered a string of expletives that would have sent me straight to bed without dinner as a teen. And I, again, turned back around the way I’d come and drove. This time, I made it home. And Laurie, life bless her, was waiting for me—leaned against her car, arms folded, her face smiling. She was sunshine to me right now, and I could appreciate, then and there, why Tanner was so in love with her. I’d honestly never seen a person looking so angelic.

  TELL ME ABOUT HER. Laurie wrote on a kitchen shopping pad.

  “You can talk, Laurie. I’ve heard your voice before. And you’re healing. It’s good to keep using it whenever possible. And it’s just me. No judgment.” I pushed the pad back towards her, knowing despite my words that she’d continue to write rather than speak. “Tanner told me the good news by the way. I’m glad all your tests came back clear again.

  She smiled and wrote ‘thanks’ on the paper. Now tell me about her. She persisted.

  “You’re not going to let it go, are you?” I couldn’t help but quirk a smile. Laurie could be like a dog with a stuffed rawhide bone, worrying and worrying until the inside meat was exposed and ready to eat. So I might as well give in, and give her what she wanted.

  “She’s beautiful,” I started.

  Laurie shrugged and made an ‘obviously’ face, poking me in the arm to tell her something she hadn’t already guessed.

  “She’s... in a lot of pain,” I added after much debate. At that, Laurie quirked an eyebrow and made a hand motion like she wanted me to come closer to her. When I didn’t continue speaking, she resorted to American Sign Language, which she wasn’t totally comfortable with. More. Now.

  When I still didn’t open my mouth, Laurie picked up the pen she’d been using earlier to write and brandished it at me menacingly. I held up my hands in defeat. “Okay, okay. You win.”

  Looking a little too satisfied with herself, Laurie sat back on the sofa, pulling her legs up and under her before tugging my old red blanket off the back of the couch to wrap around her body. She was settling in for the story, and there was no going back now.

  “I saw her for the first time at our gig, remember? She wasn’t feeling well. Nearly passed out. She wouldn’t let me and Tanner take her to the hospital or anything. That sort of willful disregard and stubbornness isn’t something I... appreciate in another person. I’ve learned that you take care of yourself. You go to the doctor. You kill the habits that break you down.” I sighed, rubbing my hands together as my own stubborn, ever-present memory of itch flared to life in my veins. Seconds was all it would take, to sink back into habitual self-destruction. “But there’s something about her. Something...”

  Laurie lifted both hands in the air, palms facing one another, and she pushed them together slowly until they met. Skin to skin. The way her fingers curved together. All I could see was Anna and me. Our bodies coming together.

  And I shouldn’t be fucking thinking that way. I shouldn’t be. After all she’d been through.

  “It’s magnetic,” I say nodding. “And every second, every damn second I’m away from her, the need to race to her side gets stronger.”

  Her forehead wrinkled as Laurie took up the grocery notepad and pen again. What do you want when you look at her? Is it... she wrote the ellipse deliberately, point by point.

  “It’s not sex, Laurie. I’d be some kind of bastard if it was just about sex.”

  She quirked an eyebrow.

  “Okay, it’s a little about sex.” I smiled, she grinned at that. “But with what she’s been through? It’s the last thing. The last thing after... the way she bites her lower lip. The way she seems to care, very deeply, about every stitch of clothing she owns. Her determination to keep the baby, no matter what it costs her. I’ve never met anyone so brave, Laurie.”

  You barely know her though, Silas.

  “You don’t think I know that? I know that...” I let my voice trail off. “It doesn’t matter. With me? Love is all kinds of sideways and I’m just along for the damn ride.”

  Hey, I found love during the worst period of my life. If you like rollercoasters? Love is never a bad thing. Ever. It teaches us so much.

  She hugged me then, and I awkwardly hugged her back. “You know, I give Tanner grief about you all the time. That he’s ridiculously head-over-heels and I worry about him. I mean,” I pulled away and genuinely smiled at her, “I used to worry about him. He’s lucky though, Laurie. Luckiest damn guy I know.”

  Laurie blushed and acted like she was going to write something down on the paper, but then she stopped, set down the pencil, and whispered to me. “Tanner is my person.” Her voice was strained, a hundred-year-smoker after a chain binging. Yet, the courage it took her to open her mouth and say the words versus write them down? I hope I was that brave when the time came, to love and carry Anna.

  If she’d let me. I don’t know if she’d let me. Hell though, I was bound and fucking determined to try.

  “Hungry?” My stomach rumbled as if I’d willed it to, which made Laurie laugh as she nodded. “Thai?”

  Anna.

  It’d been three days since Silas took me shopping and brought me back to campus. Nat had grilled me for details over and over, hoping there’d be more juice to the story. Despite Silas’s assurance, I had missed plenty whilst sick. Another pop quiz in Sociology, the new reading in literature and the accompanying three page paper on Faust due today that I’d stayed up all night in the library working on because it had to be typed and I didn’t have a computer.

  Nothing was easy, nothing was ever going to be easy, but I had to keep pushing forward. Each time little bean moved inside me? That was more reminder that I didn’t have a choice, or time to dawdle and think about the extremely hot guy who’d been my white knight for a short time.

  “Okay, seriously, she needs to answer my request today. I’m exhausted.” Nat barged into the room without knocking, as was her habit now. I’d made her a key, so I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. I didn’t think I’d ever be okay with someone coming into my room all the time without my permission, but Natalie wasn’t ‘that’ someone, and I already trusted her—maybe I shouldn’t, but I did.

  “She said a few days, right?” I pulled the covers around my stomach and closed Lolita, the reading assigned literally seconds after everyone had handed in the Faust papers. “I really don’t want to spend all night at the library typing another paper for Lit.” I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall.

  “One of the perks of me moving in?” Nat didn’t really make it a question, but a teasing rhetoric. “I’ve got a laptop, a tablet with a detachable keyboard, and a printer that hooks up to both. No more slow library computers for you, roomie.”

  My eyes widened and I shifted in bed as she plopped down next to me. “Are you serious?”

  “As a heart attack,” Nat nudged me; her gorgeous curls were tamed into two m
icro-buns atop her head today. “I mean, no sense in having a dad who spoils the crap out of me if my bestie can’t reap the benefits.”

  “Bestie?” I felt dumb for acting surprised and repeating the word.

  Nat leaned away from me, her face curious. “Is that weird? I mean, I guess we’ve not known each other long and I basically forced myself into your room and life.” She chuckled. “I’m always that way, do it to everybody. You were just dumb enough to let me.”

  “Not dumb,” I mumbled. “I’ve just not had a best friend before. It’s new. Good, but new.”

  “Well, let me give you the rundown on best friends, Anna.” She held up her right hand in a fist and flicked one finger up. “Best friends don’t lie to each other.” She flicked up a second finger. “They don’t betray them or cheat them.” A third finger. “They don’t put bros before best hos. I mean, there’s a whole bestie code. Don’t worry though, I’ll keep you on the right track.”

  Without thinking, I launched forward and threw my arms around Nat’s shoulders. “Thank you for being here, Nat. At this college, I mean, and for pushing your way into my life.”

  She laughed. “Alright, best ho. Let’s go hit the dinner train before they close up shop. Your few snacks from tall dark and handsome are long gone, and I’m down to ramen and warm coke.”

  THE WALK FROM THE DORMS to the cafeteria isn’t long, but I love it. Weaving between the well-loved brick buildings, the grass like emerald oceans between the dark islands filled with students in various states of learning. The sun was warm in places where the tree cover was thin, and cooled where the leaves stretched overhead in canopies of color. I was finding happiness between these walls, and in the fleeting moments of travel to and fro, I was able to envision a time when I was already a mother with a degree and a job, waiting for the bus on Monday afternoon to see what... my son or daughter did in school that day.

  I’d been thinking about names a lot lately.

  I still didn’t have a proper OBGYN. I hadn’t looked into local pediatricians. I couldn’t, not until I got my medical card through the school coverage. It should be soon. I’d asked the day after the hospital discharge. Soon. Then I could care for little bean properly, then I could start being the sort of parent I’d mentally pledged to be. When I was exhausted and needed a Faust break last night, my fingers had tip-tapped their way to baby supplies. I didn’t know what was scarier to me—medical bills, or the after needs. Diapers were insanely expensive, and Lord help us if I couldn’t breastfeed. Formula was... I mean, like high dollar liquor prices, but for infants.

  “You’re about to face plant into the door,” Nat’s voice called me back to Earth just as I was about to, sure enough, slam into the closed glass door twin of the one Nat was holding open for me.

  “Whoops,” I yelped, instinctively putting my hand on the glass in an effort to slow my body’s motion faster. “That’s what I get for daydreaming.”

  “I almost, almost, let you walk into it. It would have been funny, but then there’s the bestie code and all. Besties don’t embarrass one another on purpose.” She held up her thumb, as if to continue the counting-off of bestie rules. I was going to remind her that we were on rule number four, not five but then I caught a glimpse of a flyer a kid was putting up on the community board directly beside the tray table. I started reading it as soon as Nat and I were close enough.

  “Parent weekend,” I said, frowning. It was a little more than three weeks away.

  “Yeah, Dad’s coming up. It feels early for something like that already, but I guess the school wants parents to see that their Freshmen are still kicking and not getting too thin or too stressed or too... whatever else. There’s another weekend next semester. That one’s cleverly named Family Weekend, and it’s for everyone you’ve ever known to come and ogle you while you’re trying to cram for Calculus. I kid you not that anyone my dad can invite for that, he will invite. It’s going to be a madhouse.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I sound halfhearted, even to me. I just can’t muster up any enthusiasm about Nat’s lovely dad and his obvious adoration for his kid.

  “Will your folks come?” Nat asks innocently, picking up a navy blue tray and eyeballing the first line of food. The normal college pimple fare—pizza, burritos, mac and cheese. “Any siblings?”

  “I doubt it. And no, just me.” I take a tray too, hoping she won’t ask any more questions. Thankfully, the food has her distracted now. I bypassed the junk and went straight for the salad bar, picking up a Mexican number that made my mouth water. Seasoned chicken, tortilla strips, avocado dressing. I was drinking mostly water nowadays, but I couldn’t help myself. The sugary strawberry lemonade was calling my name.

  I was glad that Nat didn’t pry further, and I could just enjoy eating.

  It was so nice to eat decently, to know I had a guaranteed meal three times a day—one that wasn’t a week old from the fridge, or gross leftovers from my mom and stepfather’s many weekly trips to the bar. Soggy black bean nachos were a constant.

  Nat and I took two chairs at an empty table near the windows. The sun was setting and there was just enough space between trees and buildings to watch the colors spray across the sky like there was an anarchist street painter beautifully rioting over some tragic injustice.

  “You nearly always get salad, you know that?” Nat eyed my plate as she dipped her gourmet grilled cheese into a mountain of ketchup.

  “And you always get junk food.” I poke my fork towards her tray.

  “This is not junk food,” she gasped out, holding up a sandwich triangle and looking at it with Catholic-style reverence. “This is a masterpiece of provolone, sharp cheddar, and gouda. Also,” she dipped her bitten sandwich into the ketchup again, “I am also having the pureed carcass of a fruit, scientifically speaking. Though, I’m in the ‘it’s a vegetable’ nutritionist camp.”

  I giggled when Nat took a huge bite and ended up with a ‘fruit-vegetable’ red mustache.

  “Bestie code,” I handed her a napkin, “never let each other wear food mustaches in public, unless it’s on purpose and for a good cause.”

  “I like that one,” Nat mumbled around a mouthful of food. “Consider it added to the rule book.

  NAT AND I WERE CHATTING and laughing, and scheming over becoming roommates soon, when I looked up and spotted Silas in the distance. He was leaning against the large tree outside the entrance to our dorm. His plaid shirt was rolled up to curve around his elbows and the top two buttons were undone, exposing a peek of tattoo. My heart jumped inside my chest, and little bean jumped inside my stomach like a swarm of butterflies. Butterflies that had already admitted how I felt about him, even though my brain was in ‘armored city’ lockdown.

  I winced when Nat elbowed me, and rolled my eyes when she waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Looks like someone can’t forget about you.”

  “Shush,” I mumbled. “Isn’t there something in the bestie code that prohibits teasing about boys.”

  “Honey, that,” she cocked her head towards Silas and whispered, “is not a boy. See you inside.” She winked and scurried away before I could grab her arm and make her stay with me.

  I stopped walking, still ten feet or so from Silas. I smiled softly, then looked away. No words would form in my mouth. I lifted my right foot and scratched the back of my left leg. I bit my bottom lip.

  Silas moved away from the tree and towards me, stopping when he’d halved the distance between us.

  “I haven’t heard from you,” Silas’s voice was just as I remembered. I thought maybe I’d just imagined his tone over the last few days. Warm like whiskey, sweet like honey, a lullaby sound when no music was playing.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just been so busy. I missed a quiz, and I had to tackle this Faust paper. And,” I touched my stomach softly, then dropped my hand quickly—even though Silas already knew my secret.

  “Here,” he shoved a brown bag at me. I’d been so focused on his voice, and his mere freaking pres
ence, that I hadn’t noticed him holding it. “I know you don’t want more help, and you’re doing fine without this, but just take it.”

  I bit my lip again, struggling to come up with some reason not to open the bag, but then I sighed and looked inside. It was a phone, not super fancy. One of those pay-as-you-go things. Beside it were several cards, each with 100 minutes of time. “Silas, I can’t take this. It’s too much.”

  “Hell it is,” he said forcefully, walking forward a step. Instinctively, I shrugged backward and that made him stop. My eyes found his face, and I was surprised that he looked horrified. “I’m so sorry, Anna. I didn’t mean to say it like that. I’m not that kind of guy. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He ran his fingers through his hair and he turned away. “I need to help you. It’s like this ache inside of me. Fucking ridiculous.” I heard his shuddering breath as he exhaled and tried to get a grip.

  I knew that sound. I knew the storm inside to cause that sound. Walking forward, I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s weird, right? To...feel like you know someone so well, so quickly? To think you have some sort of obligation to them? You don’t though, you know. You don’t need to do any of this for me. You’ve shown me so much kindness. You don’t owe me anything; you never did, Silas.”

  He moved to face me again, slowly and calmly and maybe in an effort not to startle me. “That’s just it, Anna. I feel like I owe you my whole damn heart. And that feeling? Christ, it’s intoxicating.”

  “You know what’s going on with me, Silas. I can’t give you anything right now.”

  “Don’t give me anything then,” he breathed out quickly. “Just let me give you whatever I can, whatever you need. Let me help take care of you and the baby. I’ll just be a friend, no expectations.”

  I stood looking at him for an eternity. The sunlight died around us and the orange glow of the sidewalk torches came to life. I stared at him until I heard the first crickets on the green begin talking.