Page 135 of One Last Encore

Since Rodney had said it, the words had rooted in Beck’s skull like rot.

She’s dead.

They looped endlessly, chewing through every other thought, eroding reason and silence. Every breath since felt like punishment, sharp and undeserved.

He’d seen the missed calls. He’d let them go to voicemail. Every time. He told himself there would be time to call back. Time to mend the damage. Time to forgive her. But time didn’t wait. Time bled out in silence.

Now there were twelve more years left on her sentence that no one would serve. And a lifetime’s worth of words they never spoke, choking the air around him.

He had been buying flowers for opening night when Rodney called. Peonies, soft and full, their petals the same shade as Ingrid’s cheeks after rehearsal. He’d stood in the market, phone buzzing in his back pocket, hands full of something beautiful. Something alive.

He remembered the way his stomach dropped when he saw Rodney’s name. Rodney never called unless something was wrong.

Still, Beck had answered. He had time, hours before Ingrid’s performance. Enough time to deal with whatever storm Rodney was dragging behind him. He’d met him at The Shanty, a place so dim the lights looked tired. One of those bars where even the jukebox had given up.

Rodney was already there, hunched over the counter, two glasses of whiskey sitting between them. The bottle was cheap, half full. He didn’t look up when Beck slid onto the stool beside him.

"Ma’s dead." No preamble. No softening. Just the blow, delivered like a backhand to the soul. Beck’s mouth went dry. His lungs seized up. He felt it in his teeth, in his spine, in the hollow behind his ribs where she had lived all his life.

"Liver failure," Rodney added, finally looking up, his eyes dull and rimmed red. "She was sick for weeks."

The words cut deeper than they should have. He could feel them sliding in sideways.

"She tried to call you," Rodney repeated. "You dodged her calls."

Each word cut like a blade. Rodney lifted his drink, the ice clinking against the glass.

"It’s your fault," he said. Not a suggestion. A sentence. A verdict. "You should have checked in with her."

Beck felt it like a weight dropping onto his chest, pressing the air from his lungs. It wasn’t just the words. It was the look in Rodney’s eyes, the silent judgment, the simmering anger.

Beck's hands trembled. His vision blurred at the edges. His brain scrambled for something, anything, to say, but all he heard was the static roar in his skull.

Rodney had always been this way, lashing out when the world knocked him down. He threw punches instead of apologies, anger instead of grief. And Beck had learned to take it. Because neither of them had been taught how to handle pain properly.

Growing up, love was a beer bottle sailing past your head, a slammed door, a screaming match at 2 a.m. It was fists through drywall, broken glass on the kitchen floor, the sting of words meant to wound. So yeah, Rodney had his fists.

But this hurt in a different way. Because Beck couldn’t argue. Rodney was right. He should’ve called. Should’ve checked in. Should’ve picked up when she reached out instead of silencing the calls and promising himself he’d get to it later. She told himshe wasn’t feeling well and he brushed it off. Now, all he had left were missed calls, unread messages, and the unbearable weight of too late.

The whiskey on the bar taunted him, gleaming under the dim lights. He knew exactly what it would do. How it would work. It would quiet the noise. Numb the ache. Drown out Rodney’s voice and the sickening guilt curdling in his stomach.

So he reached for the glass. And drank.

The burn scorched down his throat, and for a fleeting second, he thought it might sear the guilt right out of him. But it didn’t. So he drank again.

Glass after glass. Pour after pour. Until the glass didn’t matter anymore, and he gripped the bottle with his hand, dragging deep, reckless gulps like a man trying to drown himself from the inside out.

Rodney left at some point. Beck couldn’t remember when. Couldn’t remember much of anything, really. Just the blur of the bartender’s voice. The heavy clink of bottles. The way the room spun faster and faster, like the world was tilting off its axis, dragging him with it.

Then–

A sharp shake. A voice. Blinking through the haze, Beck found himself slumped in a booth, his cheek pressed to the sticky leather seat. His head throbbed, a merciless pounding that made his stomach churn. His mouth was dry, his limbs weighted with exhaustion.

The bartender stood over him, arms crossed.

"Bar’s closed," he said. "You gotta go."

The words rang in Beck’s skull, hollow and distant, like an echo from some other life.

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