Page 139 of Lighting the Lamp
I drag a hand down my face, like I can wipe them all out of my line of sight. “You all done?”
“Nope,” Cooper says, voice steady but carrying an edge that cuts straight through me. “We came here to remind you that you didn’t just shut Alise out. You shut us out, too, and that’s not okay.”
“It wasn’t about you,” I respond, my chest aching low and deep, but my voice stays flat.
“That’s exactly the point,” Ramona says, taking a step closer, her tone sharp enough to nick skin. “It should’ve been. You could’ve leaned on us before you imploded.”
The words hang heavy in the air, pressing down like humidity. My gaze drops to my hands, to the faint yellowed marks where hospital tape used to cling to my skin. My fingers twitch, useless, like they’re reaching for something that isn’t there.
“I’m sorry,” I say finally, and the words scrape their way up my throat.
The room goes still. It’s not just quiet; it’s complete silence that makes you aware of every sound in your body. The faint hum of the fridge and the whisper of someone’s breath catching are the only sounds. Even Darius freezes mid-bite, the cinnamon roll suspended halfway to his mouth like he’s afraid that if he moves, I’ll take the words back.
“I should’ve told you,” I add, forcing myself to meet each of their eyes, one by one. “I worried you’d look at me differently. That you’d start counting down the days until I couldn’t play anymore. I thought if I kept it to myself, maybe nothing would change.” My voice catches, and I hate it. “But it still changed, and I made it worse.”
Michele’s face softens, her voice dipping gently. “We’re not running, Beau.”
A quick, broken laugh slips out, but it dies as fast as it comes. My chest tightens again, harder this time, panic curling up my spine.
“Telling you is one thing, but telling her is…” I shake my head, heat crawling under my skin. “Alise said she wanted me whole, and I never will be. I can never give her what she needs.”
“You’re an idiot. That’s not what she meant, and you know it.” Cole snorts, his smirk easing into something warmer.
“If you can say that to us, you can say it to her.” Cooper’s voice is steady, like he’s staking a claim he won’t move from.
“If you can’t say it, write it.” Ramona nods, her expression softer now. “Stop overthinking it and just tell her the truth.”
Darius leans forward, his tone stripped of humor. “And make it legible, man. You’re not sending her a ransom note.”
I roll my eyes, but my brain betrays me as flashes of what that letter could look like spark before I can shut them down.The words form and crumble in the same breath, because I can already picture her reading them, setting the paper down, and walking away for good. Still, the knot in my chest loosens, barely, but enough for air to move.
The tension doesn’t break all at once, unravelling one small thread at a time. Michele disappears into the kitchen and starts pulling out containers from her grocery bag, clucking her tongue about the state of my fridge. Ramona joins her, the two of them moving in a rhythm that feels practiced, like they’ve already decided I don’t get a say in whether I’m fed.
Darius fires up the console without asking, tossing me a controller with a grin. “Come on, man. Let’s see if you’re as bad at video games as you are at communicating.”
Cole and Cooper sink into the couch with our usual sibling competitiveness that turns evenMario Kartinto a contact sport. For a while, it’s just button-mashing and the sharp, sarcastic bite of trash talk. It’s not normal, not really, but it’s the closest I’ve been to it in weeks. By the time we call it quits, the coffee table is littered with empty plates, crumpled napkins, and one last cinnamon roll that Darius keeps threatening to eat just to spiteCole. Cole swats at him half-heartedly, muttering about saving it for later, but Darius is faster. He snatches it up with a wicked grin and shoves nearly half of it into his mouth in one bite.
“Are you kidding me?” Cole groans, glaring at him like he’s just committed a crime. “That was mine.”
Darius chews obnoxiously slow, eyes glittering with mischief. He swallows and licks the sugar off his thumb like he’s savoring victory.
“So… the letter?” Michele wipes her hands on a towel, giving me a look that feels like it sees too much.
“You’re not gonna let that go, are you?” I groan, letting my head fall back against the couch.
“Nope,” Michele says, her smile all sugar and steel. “You need to write it.”
“Yeah, consider it rehab for your feelings. You’ve been skipping leg day and emotional day. It shows.” Darius leans back in the recliner, grinning around the last bite of his stolen cinnamon roll.
Cooper leans forward, elbows on his knees, his gaze steady. “Do it tonight, Beau. While it’s still in your head. Don’t give yourself time to talk yourself out of it.”
They don’t push after that. Michele and Ramona fuss over cleaning my kitchen, while the boys and I fire up another round ofMario Kartand burn a couple of hours in the noise and chaos of trash talk. For a while, I almost forgot the letter hanging over me like a storm cloud. When they finally start packing up, Darius grabs his empty root beer bottles and points a finger at me like he’s giving last orders.
“Hey, when you write the letter, don’t go full Hallmark Channel. Keep it real. She’s not falling for the pretty words; she’s falling for you. Sappy idiot and all.”
The door shuts behind them, and the apartment goes still. Only now, the silence feels different. I stay on the couch for awhile, staring at the spot where Cooper was standing, replaying every word they threw at me tonight. Darius’s last jab hangs in the air like smoke.
It would be easier to ignore it, to let the weight settle back in and bury me. Instead, I stand. My legs feel heavy as I cross to the kitchen and drag a chair out with a scrape that echoes in the quiet. I dig out a pen and a clean sheet of paper from the drawer. The overhead light hums, spilling pale yellow across the table.
