Page 124 of Begin Again Again

Byron put a hand over his eyes.

“And don’t listen either.”

He removed the hand and put his fingers in his ears, screwing his eyes shut.

“Thanks.”

She stumbled off the rock and found a secluded bush to squat behind. Not the classiest move, but why should guys be able to piss up and down the beach and not her? She returned to find Byron sitting ramrod straight and staring at the sea. She sat beside him. “Hi.”

He smiled but didn’t reach out or touch her in any way. “Beth?”

Her heart skittered at his use of her name. “Yes?”

“Sometimes… I feel a bit dead inside.”

He was doing it. He was confiding in her. Beth felt an almost overwhelming pressure not to fuck this up. “Because of your leg?”

“Yeah. Ever since, it’s like I’m a third of what I was before. Sometimes I think…”

Beth made herself breathe, in and out, as she waited for what he would say next. Byron picked up a stick, tracing it down the sandy rock. “Sometimes I think I’d rather stay pissed off about it all forever, because if I don’t, it’s like it didn’t happen.”

Beth listened to the whoosh of the ocean, choosing her words as carefully as she could. “I was like that with drinking. I kept going for months after I knew it wasn’t for me. Does that make sense?”

He nodded, his gaze fixed on the waves.

“At that stage, choosing to be sober felt like admitting I’d been fucking up. I spent so much time wasting time, that I wasted more trying to prove it wasn’t a waste of time. Which if I’m being honest, was quite a waste of time.”

Byron’s teeth flashed in the darkness.

“All that’s to say, that I know where you’re coming from, but at a certain point you have to let go.”

He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Beth wondered if he knew he’d done it. She lay a hand on his leg. “You can be pissed off about what happened forever, but the only person you’re fucking over now is you.”

He touched her chin, turning her face to his. “Sure.”

He kissed her, his mouth was warm and sure, but Beth pulled away. “Don’t try to distract me. I mean it. You might need to talk to someone about this.”

“I’m talking to you.”

“Like, a professional.”

“I did. I got mandatory counselling from the club when they dropped me.”

She frowned. “Okay but you’re clearly still—”

“Beth, I know I’m being an idiot.”

“I didn’t say that!”

“I know I’m being an idiot,” he repeated firmly. “But I didn’t care. Until you.”

He bent over, urging her into his lap and she went willingly, staring into his beautiful, conflicted face.

“Whenever we’re together, it’s like I’m from somewhere else,” he said. “Before football.”

But you’re not from somewhere else.

Beth wanted to say it, but he kissed her hard, stopping her words. Another firework, blue and silver, sent them jolting apart. They watched it fade into the sky, Byron’s mystery music flattening into a single, ethereal note. Byron kissed her cheek. “I like you, Bethany, and there isn’t anywhere I’d rather be right now…”

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