Beth
Beth was reminded of an important lesson the first week without Rio. It was a lesson her Mom taught her a long time ago, "You get what you get and you don't get upset."
What Beth got was her children back. How could she be upset? When she told her kids she loved them, hugged them, she meant it. Honestly and purely. But amid the routine blur of carpools and PTA and school plays her life lost shape somehow.
As terrified as she was of losing her children, deeper down, in a shadowy place she was doing her best to ignore, there was another fear. Dark whispers that she'd never be happy. The kind of happiness that radiates inside out. The kind of happiness Rio showed her, gave her.
She was surrounded by his ghost. In the kitchen was his smirk at her offer to make him a sandwich that she didn't have bread for. At the picnic table was his shoulder-shaking laugh. And then the bedroom. She kept tasting his lips, feeling his tongue, hearing his breath. His kisses, his touches had been beautiful torture, escape. So were the in-between moments. Laying in his arms, sheets twisted around their legs, the weight of his body immediately familiar.
One time, doing laundry, she swore she heard him say her name. Elizabeth. It sounded so real, the jolt of it almost knocked her backward. Relief, joy, fear, disappointment all mixed in a single heartbeat.
What haunted her most was the way Rio looked at her when she told him she was done, it was over. It wasn't what she expected. He looked devastated. So much uncertainty hit her in that moment. Was she wrong? Did this emptiness mean something? Ending things with him was supposed to make everything right. Instead, she was filled with a new kind of ache, sharp and strong. She was bleeding, her dreams spilling out of her, dreams she didn't even know she had.
All her life she saw love as a cloudy, wispy thing. Something you worked at but never quite hooked your hands into. But what she was feeling now was real. Rio was real. She thought of him and a hundred memories flooded her. Pushing her, teaching her, being at her side in an instant, brushing her hair with his finger, getting dubby back. The way he fights his smiles. The way he cared for his son. His fresh earthy smell.
Beth steeled against the emotions knocking on her chest, trying to break into her heart. She would not let it. Instead, she smiled when she was supposed to. When Annie and Ruby told her everything would be okay, she tried to find comfort in their words but they usually left her feeling cold and empty.
Everything's okay now, right? Dean had asked as she sat in the living room, sipping bourbon. The kids asleep, the house quiet.
There it was. The question that she'd been avoiding. The answer that would bare her soul. She doesn't have the energy to answer him. Some things were better left unspoken.
Rio:
Rio stayed in Beth's bed for a minute, after he heard the shower turn on, before leaving. He'd taken her words hard. Harder than he should have.
Is that right. He wanted to sound matter of fact but he heard the sharpness of disappointment edge through the syllables, unable to hide his reaction.
His lifestyle had broken his heart more than once. He's as tough as he is now because he'd been wounded, let down. He'd been honest when he told Beth it was lonely at the top. Having family and friends changes meaning when you live a certain life.
Despite that, he let himself feel something for Beth. He let himself imagine, ever so briefly, opening his world to her. For a moment, he thought he could have it all with her.
How had this happened? As short a time as they'd known each other, it felt like a lifetime of experiences between them. And she was walking away, just like that. After all the lessons he'd taught her, she seemed to have taken to heart the most hurtful one: set limits.
Is that what Beth was doing with him? So that she could get her kids back? She looked so happy at the bar telling him they were coming back home he almost didn't recognize her.
He left her house a little shaken, surprised to see light out. Minutes and hours had warped being with her, time simultaneously stopping and racing. The instant she looked at him with those bright eyes something shifted in side him. A warmth spread through his body like he never experienced. He could stay in that moment forever. But he hadn't. They hadn't. They were equal givers and takers in that fantasy come to life.
It's not her fault she's scared. Rio had lived in a world of danger for so long that he was not afraid of the obvious. Violence had become his normal. Even being a father and the weight of raising a child had acclimated to his environment.
So it's not guns or cops that shook him. No. It's Beth. And the way she made him feel. For the first time, in years, he really noticed how lonely he was. How special another person could be. She had been from day one. Her speech about PF Changs, leaving her pearls, standing up to him, frustrating him, making him care. He'd grown accustomed to darkness. Beth was brightness.
He had an excellent poker face so no one noticed his confusion, how he sometimes felt like he was walking on quicksand since that day. Not his son, not his distributors, not the bank teller, not a soul.
Beth's decision actually would make his life easier. More money for him, no more messes to clean up. But Rio wasn't about the easy way out. That was never the point.
They were damaged, him and her, but they were connected in some strange, vital way. This dance of theirs, as confusing and frustrating as it could be, wasn't over. He knew that.