Steady as the Snow Falls (22 page)

CONVULSIONS TOOK OVER her frame when she set eyes on Harrison the next day. He was the dark sun, fiery and consuming, and he lit her up. Burned her. She had to force her feet to stop, or Beth feared she never would. She’d walked right up to him, right into his arms, and she’d stay there, live there, breathe there. Beth would never go, not even when he told her to. Not even when he couldn’t tell her to.

“How was your last day at The Lucky Coin? Did everything go okay?”

Beth inhaled.

Beth exhaled.

His copper eyebrows lowered over black, black eyes. He stood in the entryway, like he had been waiting for her. Like he was anxious to see her. Like he got up every morning hoping he would see her, that that was enough of a reason to meet another day, the same as it was for her. “What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

She curled the fingers of her free hand and shook her head, the erratic beat of her heart saying all the words she wouldn’t.

“Beth. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Beth wanted to tell him so many things, but all she said was, “Thank you.” Her voice was quiet and unsteady, and her fingers tightened around the handle of the laptop case.

“For?” He inclined his fire-kissed head of hair.

“You talked to Ozzy. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that, but you did.”

He gave a brief nod, looking away from her. “I did have to.”

Her lips tugged down.

Harrison lifted his gaze to hers, the space from him to her disintegrated by the flames in his expression. So pale, so much strength overtaken by fragility. Harrison’s body was imposingly tall, stiff with soreness. She knew he hurt, in his bones, in his muscles, in his soul. Her arms ached to hold him, to erase the pain, to take it away.

“I did have to, because if I learned that he touched you again, I would have hurt him.” His hands opened and closed, opened and closed. “I
wanted
to hurt him. Every time I think of him hurting you, I want to hurt him a million times worse.”

Beth set down the laptop case and moved for him, stopping only when the time it took to take a breath was all that was between them. Harrison’s lips were carved from rock, his jaw from the same. But his eyes were alive, and they felt. Sometimes sadness, sometimes grief and hopelessness, and other times, like now, they were ignited with emotion.

Swallowing around the beat of her heart, and the strumming of her pulse, and her tightly wound body that wanted to know the feel of his, Beth lifted her hand. Harrison turned her into music. And she wanted to dance within the song of his life. Feel him, kiss him, love him, burn with him, live in him. Be with him.

“Stop,” he rasped when her fingers were an instant from touching the hard plane of his cheekbone. He closed his eyes, the emotion draining from them into his skin, straining his features. Harrison opened his eyes and showed her nothing. “This—this has to stop. Whatever this is, it can’t end well. I need you to go, and not come back. This was a bad idea, and I’m ending it.”

Beth’s heart sputtered, faltered, thought about stopping altogether. She shook her head, denying his words, denying his right to tell her such a thing. “It’s too late for that.”

The skin around his eyes tightened. “This is an illusion, Beth.”

“Why do you keep pushing me away?”

“I’m trying to protect you.”

“Don’t.”

A muscle bunched in his jaw. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I do. I want you to stop. I know what can and can’t be done. I know the risks. I know what it involves. Stop trying to protect me and just…just let us be.” Beth touched the shell of his ear and he flinched, careful not to move. “I care for you. Don’t make me feel bad about it, and you don’t feel bad about it either.”

“And in the end, should it come to that?” Harrison’s voice sounded like broken glass, cutting her skin with his words. “When you have to watch my body and mind fail? When the disease grows, and I finally lose. When I’m covered in sores and my body is emaciated, and every breath hurts. When you can count the bones in my body through my skin. Do you think I want you to see that?”

Her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t want to think about how the disease could ravage his mind and body before it was done with him. But she had. Over and over Beth forced herself to imagine all the possible scenarios. And none of it was enough to keep her away, or change her mind. Whatever decisions were made, whatever happened, Beth would know exactly what she was doing, as she was doing it.

“But if I choose to stay, if I want to be with you, let me. Please. Please, don’t make me leave you.”

“How can you say that?” Harrison’s voice cracked.

“You inspire me. Everything about you inspires me. I wouldn’t be able to write the way I have been without you.” Beth looked into his eyes and saw emotions not put to names in them. “Your story thrums inside of me, in time with my heartbeat. I am better for knowing you, and I will not be the one to write the final word.”

Harrison looked down. His voice was just a whisper as he asked, “Why would you choose this, choose me?”

“You make me want to dance.” When he looked up with a furrowed brow, she added, “I haven’t danced in years, not until recently.”

Harrison blinked as if he didn’t know how to process her words.

“And you make me want to write. There are so many things you bring out in me that were missing, that I didn’t even know were missing until I got them back. I was lost. Learning about you helped me remember who I am.

“I’ll never stop writing your story, Harrison. I’ll write and write; until my fingers cramp up, and my heart overflows, and my mind goes numb, and I’ll still write. I’ll write you into every day of my life.” It was a promise. An oath, and a confession.

He took a breath, and it divided halfway through. Beth wanted to take both halves and press them into one. Mend the fissures that constructed the man.

“I watched you dance, that day in the trophy room,” he admitted. Harrison hesitated. “I’d like to watch you dance again.”

Beth smiled. “And you shall.” She offered a hand. Shook it when he stared at it. “Take my hand and let me dance for you.”

The empty room with its bare walls and lack of life pulsed with Harrison’s. He turned the lights and the walls and all the nothingness around them into a stage, and he was the performer. And who was Beth? Beth was the one Harrison let take his hand. It was warm and steady, and her fingers curved, never wanting to break contact. Just the feel of his hand on hers made her head dizzy, her mouth dry. Her core ache. Harrison’s fingers electrocuted her, stung her skin with the sweetest shock.

They stepped into the soundproof room with its lonely chair. It didn’t seem lonely anymore. It was a throne, and Harrison reigned there. Beth waited for him to sit, twisting her hair into a bun on the top of her head and holding it in place with the rubber band she removed from her wrist. She found the version of ‘The Sound of Silence’ by Disturbed on her phone and pushed play.

She focused on his dark eyes from across the room, his energy palpable around his form and in the air. His eyes narrowed a fraction as the music started, as she remained unmoving. The music reverberated through the room, echoed with beauty and sorrow. His index finger framed his jaw as he set his chin on his fist, his attention never leaving her.

And then Beth moved, sliding one leg back, arching her back and head as her arms swept overhead. She twisted in a low spin, contracting and releasing her body, flying. Soaring. Gliding. She dipped and turned, her neck loose, her face up. Faster and faster, until she was no longer a person and instead a piece of the music. Skin damp with perspiration, pulse speeding like it had a race to win, Beth danced. Her muscles cried, her heart sang, and Beth laughed, breathless and free.

She danced for herself; she danced for Harrison. The song changed to ‘Save My Soul’ by Rivvrs. Like a wave of motion, she swayed with the pull of the music. Beth turned and looked down at Harrison, needing him to dance with her. Needing that physical connection he continually denied. Her chest was in spasms with the force of her breathing, and as she gazed into dark eyes, she didn’t recognize the man.

Eyes of desire, lips of passion; a face set with want and need.

He shot to his feet, and his hand shook as he covered his mouth with it. The hand she wanted on her bare skin. She imagined his fingers, long and strong, undulating over her like a waterfall, and her breaths came faster. Harrison would say he could never be hers, and she could never be his, but it was already so. She felt him upon her heart, a brand that would not fade. She saw her mark in his eyes, a glint that made them shine for her. The light that only recently came to his eyes.

Beth offered her hands, need sparking through her eyes to him and back like a live wire.
Touch me
, her skin whispered.
Love me
, her heart added.
Live for me
, her soul asked.

He tilted his head, his eyes moving from her hands to her face. She didn’t imagine the crack in his voice as he asked, “What are you doing, Beth?”

“Dancing,” she said breathlessly.

“You don’t dance like anyone I’ve seen.”

She smiled, and it was tipped in secrets. “Good.”

Standing face to face, hands up, she pressed her palms to his and applied the smallest pressure. Beth kept their fingers unlocked. She stared into her own eyes through his, saw the building fire, the heat that couldn’t be ignored for much longer. Lines grew around his eyes as Harrison stepped back. Beth nodded once, moving her right arm out in an arc, Harrison moving his arm with her. She turned, and he went with her, and they gradually swayed the length of the room. It was slow, awkward.

Harrison’s smile was faint. Apologetic. “I’m not good at this,” he told her.

“You’re as good as you need to be,” she told him back. Beth paused before telling him words that had nothing to do with their dancing. “You’re as good as
I
need you to be. Focus on me, Harrison. I’m all that matters.”

He missed a step, his eyes shooting to hers. The harshness was gone from his features, leaving them sweet and soft. He stared into her eyes like he was listening to her, like her words made sense to him. Hope—she saw a glimpse of it in his frame.

She carefully moved her hands to the back of his neck and loosely locked her fingers. His throat moved as he swallowed, and he hesitantly set his hands on her waist. She briefly closed her eyes against the thrill that tingled through her skin, exhaling slowly. Beth chased his gaze until she caught it, and held it, the smile on her lips reaching up to her eyes. His hair tickled her fingers, and she inched closer, her face next to where his heart worked at an astonishingly powerful rate.

Beth heard it, felt it, revered it.

“You smell good, like sunflowers and sunshine,” he whispered as the song ended.

A small laugh left her as they stopped moving. She didn’t want to be the first to pull away, and she wasn’t. It was Harrison. She studied his back as he showed it to her, seeing the hints of muscle and bone. Beth wanted to run her fingers up and down the bumps and crevices of it.

“What’s happening between us?” When she didn’t immediately answer, Harrison turned.

“We’re getting to know each other’s heart. I’m glad I was introduced to yours.” Beth gingerly set her hand on his chest, felt the beat of his life against her palm. “I like your heart, Harrison.” She looked up, her eyes clashing with his.

“I like your heart too,” he told her falteringly.

Beth lightly touched the valley beneath his lower lip and above his chin. Harrison let her, closing his eyes and taking a deep, unstable breath. There was faint stubble that made the pad of her finger tingle. She studied his face as her hand fell away. His expression revealed things his mouth never would. He wanted to dream, like her. Beth’s eyes watered. She wanted him to know it was okay to dream.

“I’ll write you a world where no one ever dies, and there are no diseases, and everyone is good. I’ll make one for you, and you can live there. Every day, every night. You can pick up the papers and live in the words,” she said softly.

His eyes flew open, pain splitting his features. Harrison took a step back, unbalanced on his feet.

Beth made up for the distance he put between them, her legs weak and heavy. Her heart pounded, so hard, so fast, so loudly. How could he not hear it? How was it not resonating through the room? “Or I’ll read them to you, each night, before you fall asleep. You can go to sleep dreaming of your world. Each time you close your eyes, it will be there for you. Waiting. I’ll do that for you. I want to do that for you.”

“You can do anything,” he told her, his voice breathless and uneven. “You can write your worlds, and your stories, your books. You can do that, Beth. Never forget that you can do anything.”

“What if…what if more than all of that, I want to be with you? What then?” As soon as the question was asked, Beth went still, as still as Harrison. She hadn’t meant to ask it, but it had been there, in her thoughts, hovering, needing to be heard.
Let me do that for you. For me. Let me write our world and let us live inside it.

All the light drained from his face. “That is impossible. You have to know that.”