Page 138 of Lighting the Lamp
She was the only thing holding the pieces together, and now she’s gone. The heavy, endless silence is swallowing me whole, and I know I’ve just lost the only thing that ever really mattered.
Chapter Forty
Beau
It’s been three weeks since the hospital, and the bed still smells like her. Not in a good way.
Not in the way it used to be. It was the scent that made me want to drag her closer and keep her there until the rest of the world stopped mattering, nuzzling my nose into her hair and breathing until the world got quiet. It’s faint now, clinging to the pillowcase and the corner of my hoodie draped over the chair, but it’s still there, and I hate it because it’s fading. It’s proof she was here and isn’t anymore, a ghost of something I can’t get back.
She hasn’t come back, and I haven’t asked. Not because I don’t want to know—God, I think about her every hour—but because I’m too chicken to hear the truth out loud. To have someone say she’s better off without me. That she’s smiling again, and her anger has cooled into indifference. That I was just another guy who couldn’t get it right. I can survive her hating me, but I don’t think I can survive her not caring at all. So, I sit in the quiet, letting the walls close in and pretending the silence is a choice instead of a punishment.
When they discharged me, the doctor didn’t sugarcoat it: lupus myocarditis. It’s rare, serious, and permanent. No moreskating. No more games. It’s over. I thought I’d fight it, demand another test and a second opinion. I thought I’d put my fist through the wall, yell, and make someone take it back. Instead, I sat there while he explained how my heart muscle was inflamed, how pushing myself could shred it beyond repair and maybe cause my heart to stop altogether. How there was no safe way back to the ice in a professional capacity. That I should think about coaching to keep doing what I love.
I didn’t say a word, just nodded like I was listening and the words meant something. But all I heard was the sound of her voice telling me she couldn’t fight me into trusting her and then her footsteps fading down the hall.
They sent me home with a bag of meds and a follow-up schedule. The bottles are still sitting untouched on the counter. Sometimes I knock them over just to hear the plastic rattle on the tile; at least that sounds like something. The TV’s been on mute for days, replaying all the moments that used to mean something. I don’t watch. I don’t eat much either. Every time I open the fridge, the hum is so loud it feels like it’s mocking me for pretending I still live here, still function, still give a damn.
The apartment smells stale, like sweat and old coffee. I haven’t opened the blinds since I got back because I don’t need to see the world moving on without me. I tried sleeping on the couch, but it didn’t make a difference. I still wake up with the same weight on my chest and ache in my bones. Sometimes I don’t sleep at all. I just sit here, counting the beats in my chest, daring them to stop.
The silence is so thick it feels alive, watching me, pressing down on my ribs until I’m sure they’ll snap. Under it all, the only thing louder than the stillness is the replay in my head of her turning, the curtain sliding shut, and the monitor screaming in time with my heart.
That’s where they find me. The door swings open without a knock, slamming against the wall hard enough to rattle the frame. The sound rips through the stillness like a gunshot, and for a second, I swear my heart actually skips.
Cooper walks in first, jaw set, eyes sweeping the room like he’s already braced to find me face-down on the floor. His gaze catches on me, lingers just long enough to confirm I’m breathing, and then hardens again.
Ramona’s right behind him, her sweetthis is going to hurt, but it’s for your own goodsmile sitting on her face like armor. Michele slips in next, a grocery bag hugged to her chest like she’s about to perform some kind of rescue mission. Cole’s smirk hits before he’s even all the way in, too cocky for the heaviness he just walked into. And bringing up the rear is Darius, because of course, it is. He has root beer in one hand and a cinnamon roll in the other, like this is just a casual hangout instead of a full-blown ambush.
The only ones missing are Kyle, Momma, and Alise. But it’s her absence that tears straight through me.
Kyle stayed until the day I got out of the hospital, hovering like I was made of glass. But the second I could walk on my own, I told him to go back to school. No point in him sticking around to watch me waste away. He didn’t want to go—I could see it in his face, the way he kept finding excuses to hang around—but I pushed until he left. Better for him and even easier for me.
I told Momma the same thing. To go home and live her life because there was no sense in staying here and watching mine shrink to the size of this condo. She hugged me tight, like she didn’t believe me for a second, but she went anyway. It probably helped that both of my brothers live a few floors away, not that I’ve spent much time with them either.
For one wild, reckless second, I think maybe Alise will walk in behind them. My eyes flick past each face, searching for herslike I might’ve missed her in the crowd. But there’s no dark, steady gaze locked on mine. No soft voice cutting through the noise, just space where she isn’t, which causes the ache that blooms in my chest to be sharp, tearing me open all over again.
“What the hell is this?” My voice comes out rough, scratchy from disuse. I don’t even bother pretending to sit up straighter on the couch.
“An intervention,” Ramona says, too bright, too cheerful.
“Thedo betterkind,” Michele adds, plunking the grocery bag down on the coffee table. The scent of bread and coffee drifts up, sharp against the stale air of my apartment.
“Or thestop acting like a hermit before we drag you out by your hairkind,” Darius says around a mouthful of cinnamon roll. “I’m just here to witness the emotional carnage and maybe get a sandwich out of it.”
Cooper plants himself right in front of me, arms loose, but his posture says he’ll have no problem hauling me out of here if he has to. “We know what happened with Alise.”
“Good. Saves me from saying it,” I deadpan, holding his stare for a long beat, the silence stretching between us.
“That’s the problem,” Ramona cuts in. “You haven’t said anything. Not to her. Not to us. Not to anyone.”
“Not even to your own mirror, probably.” Cole leans against the wall, arms crossed, smirk sharp as a blade.
“That line sounded rehearsed.” I glance at him.
“Yup,” he says, grinning. “Still landed.”
“Guys,” Michele warns, her voice soft but steady, “this isn’t about one-liners.”
“It’s about the fact that you look like the sadbeforepicture in an antidepressant commercial,” Darius throws in unapologetically.
