Page 137 of Lighting the Lamp
I press my forehead to hers, holding her hand like it’s the last rope keeping me from going under. For a few beats, we breathe together, the monitor syncing with us, her scent and warmth the only real things in the room. But the thought keeps clawing at me: she’s only here until she’s not.
“You mad at me?”
“I’m not mad.” She exhales, and it’s almost a sigh, the kind that comes from deep fatigue. “I’m exhausted from loving people who don’t trust me to stay.”
Her words rip me open, and I can feel the blood drain from my face.
“No.” It comes out sharper than I mean, but I can’t reel it back. My chest feels too tight, my pulse climbing in my ears. “I can’t—” My breath stutters, a harsh, broken sound. “I can’t give you what you want. You said you wanted me when I was whole. When I didn’t need someone holding me up. That’s never going to happen. I’ll always be sick. This is me now.”
Her brows knit, confusion flashing there before something deeper flickers through.
“Don’t you get it?” My voice cracks, low but shaking, my ribs going molten with panic.
“If you stay, you’ll see me for what I am, and you’ll go. And I—” I break off, my throat locking around the rest. “I can’t survive that.
“So, go now,” I whisper, almost pleading, pulling my hand from hers. I force my hand to pull free from hers, the movement slow like I’m peeling away the last warm thing I’ll ever touch. My skin aches with the loss, already missing the heat of her fingers wrapped around mine. “While it’s still easy.”
But she doesn’t flinch or blink. Her eyes hold mine, unshaken, cutting through every wall I’ve been stacking between us. “So, what, you just decided for me?”
“I decided not to give you the chance to run before we even began,” I rasp. The words scrape out of me, rough with the fear I can’t hide. “If I kept this buried, then for a little while, you wouldn’t see how broken I really am.”
“You think hiding something like this isn’t handing me a reason?” she scoffs. Her laugh is short, humorless, and cuts deep.
“I thought—” My voice breaks on the word, my chest seizing. “I thought if you knew too soon, you’d look at me differently. You’d start planning your exit, and I couldn’t…”
Her eyes shine, but there’s no softness in them now, only hurt. “You’ve been the one telling me I’ve always seen you. But the second things get ugly, you decide I’m too fragile to handle the truth?”
“It wasn’t about you being fragile?—”
“Yes, it was.” Her voice shakes, fury and hurt tangled tight. “You didn’t want me to know because you were scared I might stay. Because if I did, you’d have to face the truth that someonecould still choose you, still love you, even with this hanging over you. And you can’t stand the thought of that, can you?”
The hit lands like a slap, leaving me raw and exposed. I flinch. “I was trying to protect you.”
“No, Beau. You were protecting yourself.” Her voice is low but deadly certain. “You don’t get to decide I can’t handle it just because you don’t believe you’re worth staying for.”
“I’m not worth staying for, not like this. I didn’t want—” My knuckles ache from gripping the blanket, my nails digging in. The words splinter in my throat and tear their way out. “I didn’t want you to feel trapped. I didn’t want you to wake up one day and resent me for everything I can’t be.”
“You already decided that for me,” she says as she stands, the shift in her weight making the bed feel colder. “You don’t get to tell me I’m going to leave. You don’t get to hide pieces of your life because you’ve convinced yourself I won’t love the whole thing.”
“Alise—”
“I can’t do this right now.” Her voice breaks, cracking on every other word, tearing me to shreds. “I can’t fight you into trusting me.”
She turns for the curtain, and panic detonates in my chest, sharp and all-consuming.
“Alise—wait.” It comes out too loud, too desperate, but the second word fractures. “Please. Please don’t walk out.”
She stops, but doesn’t look back.
“I’m begging you,” I choke out, my voice nothing but splinters now. “Don’t leave me like this. You think I didn’t want to tell you? That I didn’t rehearse the words over and over, trying to find a way that wouldn’t make you walk away? I was going to tell you. I just needed you to believe… to believe in us first.”
The silence between us is crushing, filling every inch of me with dread, and then she takes a step toward the door.
“Alise—” The sound rips out of me, half plea, half sob. I reach for her, but my hand closes on nothing.
The door clicks shut, louder than any slammed one, the sound final in a way that makes my stomach drop. I fold forward, burying my face in my hands as the first sob tears loose. Then another. And another. My chest heaves so violently the monitor spikes with me, its frantic beeping filling the space she just left behind. The sound is unbearable, but I can’t shut it out.
By the time the worst of it wrings me out, I’m shaking so hard I can barely sit upright. My throat is raw, my face is wet, and my body is aching from the force of it. My palms sting where my nails bite into them, the pain just enough to remind me I’m still here.
