Page 114 of One Last Encore

"What the hell is going on?" came a sharp voice from behind him.Ingrid.

Beck turned. She was charging toward them, her face unreadable, but her eyes were pure fire. The sight of her hit him like cold water. For a few reckless seconds, he’d completely forgotten himself, acting on instinct. Acting to defend her.

He stepped back, rolled his shoulders, and wiped the blood from his lip, smirking like he hadn’t just thrown a punch in the middle of a bar.

"Just getting to know your charming dance partner," he said, tone easy. "We really connected. No pun intended."

Weston, still clutching his nose, glared through watery eyes. "You’re lucky I don’t sue you!"

Beck snorted, voice low and sharp. "You hit me too, asshole. Now run along before I finish whatyoustarted."

Weston hesitated. Then, with one last bitter look, he turned and disappeared into the crowd like a bad memory.

Beck exhaled slowly but the tight coil in his chest refused to unwind. It should have been satisfying. Weston, bleeding and humiliated, left rattled in front of everyone.

But when he turned and saw Ingrid standing there, arms crossed so tightly it looked like she was physically holding herself together, it didn’t feel like a win. It felt like he had just fucked everything up.

"Is this a theme with you?" Her voice was sharp, her frustration cutting through the haze of whiskey and adrenaline still pumping through Beck’s system. "Every time we go out, you end up fighting someone after you drink?"

Guilt hit harder than Weston ever could. Because she wasn’t wrong.

He knew how it looked: another bar, another drink, another fight. Same old spiral. But this time felt different. It wasn’t just anger driving him. It was something deeper. It was love.

With her, something always snapped. He couldn’t help it. First the taxi driver, then Rodney, now Weston. Every time, the instinct was the same—protect first, think later. And the alcohol? It never helped. It only shortened the fuse.

Maybe he was just terrified of losing something good. And anything that threatened it lit the match.

Or maybe it was in his blood. His mom’s addiction. Rodney’s chaos. His dad disappearing without a backward glance. Maybethis was what he was wired for. He’d always sworn he wasn’t like them. But wasn’t he? The thought made his stomach turn.

Without another word, Ingrid walked off. Beck watched her weave through the crowd, saw her grab her jacket and made a beeline for the exit. He tossed some cash onto the bar and followed.

Outside, snow had started to fall, fat flakes swirling under the glow of the streetlights. It should have been beautiful. It would have been, if not for the thick silence stretching between them like a chasm.

Ingrid yanked her jacket tighter around herself, the sharp bite of the cold nowhere near as harsh as the look she shot him. "You promised you would work on it." Her voice was tight, barely holding back the storm brewing beneath it. "The drinking. The fighting."

Beck swallowed hard, his breath clouding in the cold air. "I know."

"Do you?" She let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "Because this keeps happening. Over and over. And I–" She exhaled, pressing a hand to her forehead before shaking her head.

Beck clenched his fists, his knuckles throbbing, his lip still stinging from Weston’s punch. "He was saying the nastiest shit about you," he admitted, his voice low, rough. "I swear, I didn’t plan on hitting him. But the way he talked about you, like you were nothing–" He broke off, jaw tight. "I couldn’t let him get away with that."

"You can’t control what comes out of his mouth. You only get to decide how you handle it." Ingrid’s voice was sharp. "Do you even realize what you’ve jeopardized? He could report you. He could get you kicked out of Juilliard. He could get me dropped from Swan Lake, maybe even the entire program."

His stomach dropped. He hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t thought about any of it, he’d been too caught up in his anger, in his recklessness, to see.

"I’m sorry," he whispered, his voice raw as he stared at the ground, watching drops of blood fall onto the snow, blooming red against the white. "I am so sorry."

Ingrid stopped in front of him, her eyes glossy under the soft glow of the streetlamps.

"You spend so much time trying to prove something, trying to save everyone else," she murmured, her voice low and aching. Slowly, gently, she reached up, her cold fingertips brushing his cheek. "But you need to save yourself first."

And just like that, Beck broke. Not from the fight. Fromthis. From the way her forehead pressed lightly against his, their breaths mingling in the cold air. From the way her voice trembled, not with fury, but with something worse. She wasn’t just angry. She was hurting. Because of him.

Beck closed his eyes, guilt pressing down on him so hard it made his ribs ache. "I’m sorry," he whispered again, as if saying it enough times might somehow rewind, undo the damage, fix the mess he had made. But it wouldn’t.

Because the truth was written in the snow, as vivid as the blood he had splattered. His damage left fingerprints on everything he touched, staining even the brightest parts. Especially her. She was hurting, and it was his fault.

They were splintering under the weight of what he couldn’t fix in himself, and the ache of it struck harder than any fist. How could he stop his damage from damaging her along the way? How could he love her gently, wholly, when he had never been taught what love was supposed to look like?

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