Chapter 20
Beth.
Beth.
Beth.
She was holding Theo's hands tight as he sat looking at her with dazed contentment, she could still feel his fingers held by her own. The room was white and cold, a harsh yellow light illuminating right above them from one solitary bulb. In the distance was the sound of a car getting nearer, the faint laughter of the passengers audible. The hands gripped her own harshly all of a sudden, painfully and Beth looked up into Theo's face, he was angry and his eyes were wide.
"GODAMMIT PERCY!"
Then there was the screech, the grate, the collision and her hands were ripped from Theo's, the room being swept away and a swirling darkness surrounded her. Beth was being painfully flung and she knew she was crying. Then nothing. Cold, stark nothing apart from the sound of her own sobs. Then there was that same old voice called her back, demanded she open her eyes.
Beth.
Beth.
Beth.
Ben stood at the foot of her bed, his eyes disappointed and dark. They looked at one another, the hard gaze from a brother to a sister too much to bear yet she was unable to look away.
"Ben?"
How he needed to just say one word, his voice would make everything better, but he looked on. There was hurt and anger in his eyes, but more than that he was ashamed of her, a brother humiliated somehow by his sister.
"I understand." She begged, "I do understand now."
But he merely looked on at her, the look never lifting and the pain only growing larger in her mind and heart.
Beth's eyes opened and she blinked several times, the image of her brother now banished by her wakefulness. The early morning light illuminated the room at a medium grey, things were visible yet still only outlines. Her body felt lighter than ever, sated and content but her mind now harked back to the one thing still left to do after yesterday as well as the pain that would still be present in the man who now lay next to her. Brutal was laid on his back sound asleep. Beth's head still rested on his arm and she wriggled down to relieve some of the pressure on it. For a minute she glanced at him, her eyes adjusting a little better to the dark. The small amount she was able to see told her that whatever he was dreaming was likely lacking in peace as was her own, even in slumber he was haunted by recent ghosts.
The way he had taken possession of her, his touch demanding and his kisses feverish, she couldn't have denied him. Nor did she want to deep down, though her conscience or rather the morality laid on by others in the past troubled her. Last night he had gone through something that would stay with him forever and though she felt a mixture of emotions including a little shame she shook it off and saw her comforting him as a blessing. Indeed where would either of them have been in recent days without each other? Lying beneath him she'd not even been able to think, he moved so powerfully though he not taken her for granted at any point. It was a strange partnership when passionate power mixed with such loving gentleness. Had it been anyone else, her mind would have plagued her with thoughts of shame and guilt whilst she was with them, but only one thought had passed her mind from the moment he had begun to kiss her. That was that she hadn't wanted him to stop, however rash and soon it was.
But now in the early morning, those old words rang true and clear, fresh in her mind as though they were uttered only yesterday. Her brother's words, the look on his face and when he had turned from her and never spoken to her since. Her brother had never looked at her that way yet Beth knew in an instant she had broken something precious, like a mirror that had been cracked. Ben was the only true family she had left and at the time she had said barely a word in response to his, she had not pleaded or argued. In truth she did not think he had the right to say such things after he had introduced her to Theo and encouraged her accompanying them so many times. Theo was his best friend, did he not know what he was like? Yet after a week of his departure and silence, a new anger filled Beth towards her brother, the resentment that he had let Percy Wetmore's confession come between them. How could Ben have decided her punishment after only speaking to that boy, for he was at that time? She had been his sister, yet he cast her out on the words of a lustful, petulant teenager.
Now at twenty four, her mind understood, whatever Ben had done, she had hurt him. In one visit to a hospital he discovered his best friend seriously injured, his sister too only to discover there had been four passengers, not three. Sadly one did not make it, one was bound for Briar Ridge and she for exile. Only Percy came out virtually unscathed, a concussion and a broken collar bone his only ills. If only her brother had seen beyond his anger to see what she had lost to, it was her first love sent to Briar Ridge and their baby that she had lost and to add to the pain, the cause of it all dividing her from her own flesh and blood. It had been a lot to bear but time had given her a little humility and though she refused to solely rebuke herself, she acknowledged her brother's view. Perhaps after all these years it was time to offer the olive branch.
Brutal roused near her, closing the distance between them by moving his warm body and pressed close to her.
"Beth." He said softly and she turned on her side to face him. "You alright?"
"Just thinkin', I only woke up a few minutes before you." She explained, but he could tell she was a little preoccupied. Wrapping his arms about her he pulled her into a embrace, her head resting on his chest and he kissed the top of her head.
"None of that yet." He said quietly, his own mind likely starting to become polluted by other thoughts too. "The sun ain't up yet. I wanna stay as we are."
Beth inhaled deeply, enjoying the warmth of his body and the comfort of his arms; it had been a lonely few minutes of thought. But though her eyes were closed, she was not ready to sleep again just yet and she could tell from his breathing he wasn't either.
"Tell me somethin' a few don't know about you?"
"Like what?" He asked, opening his eyes. Beth moved a little, her elbow placed upon his chest, her chin resting on it. She could look him right in the face from there in the dim light.
"What were you and your sister like as kids?" Beth asked gently. "You noisy?"
"My sister was, always dragging me here and there. You wouldn't think she was two years younger… she always liked to be the boss." Brutal's tone was warm, especially on the last part and it was a familiar tone she was pleased to hear return for a little while. "I remember one time teaching her to fish, or rather tryin' to…. she was so impatient. After an hour of catchin' nothin' she would throw down the rod and walk home."
Beth laughed, her free hand taking hold of one of his. His gaze was at her, but the tone was full of nostalgia.
"I couldn't get her to pick up a rod again after she turned eight…. Too impatient." He laughed again. "She soon squared with it though when her husband took her, back in their early days…. She's a one that girl."
His words were so earnest and endearing that Beth reached up and kissed him, just long enough to show him how much these words made her love him all the more. His fingers smoothed her less tidy mane and he looked at her deeply a moment.
"Tell me something about you?" He asked, tucking some hair behind her ear. Beth considered a moment.
"My mother would read me bits from The Wizard of Oz, it was my favourite and yet sometimes I would want her to read for so long, she would try and skip little bits to hurry the chapter along. But I had listened to her read it so many times, I knew even if three words were missing. In the end she said we could only read it on afternoons on a weekend as it would take so long." Beth explained, feeling bittersweetness at the recollection. "She would get us to help her clean, she was a taller woman than me and she'd say I'd take the low bits, Ben the medium bits and she the high bits. Then one day she handed Ben the feather duster and explained he had grown past her so he would be the high bits and she the medium bits. I was always the low bits."
"Ever since I first met you, you've been reaching up to the high bits." Brutal said ruefully. "The laundry room and here."
"Well…." Beth said, her tone changing a little. "There's just me now so…"
"I don't think that's true." He said, pulling her back into a hug as he felt the sadness start to leak into her voice. "Let's keep doin' this."
"What?"
"Nice stories… it keeps the bad away for a bit."
For the next hour they did, lying together and learning more about the other's past, the happier times for at present they were living some of the darkest. At the end of it, Beth pulled Brutal to her again and the pair forgot themselves and the world for a little while longer in such a passionate way. When the morning light came they both lay side by side, her head resting in the crook of his arm and fast asleep. He awoke again a little before her, her top half free from the covers and the room cool. Brutal slowly pulled up the blanket, stopping a second to notice properly for the first time the scar on her abdomen. Gently he replaced the covers around her and closed his eyes, knowing full well he had passed a night he would both hate to recall yet treasure for he had never journeyed so in a twelve hour period. The day rolled in and so did reality, yet grief could blossom many beautiful things.