Surely, they could put their heads together and save her father and Beau’s mother.
Before she could leave the bathroom, Beau was back.One look at his face said something was seriously wrong.
9
“Kade got a text.”Beau was trying to process the image on the screen.He tilted it so Ivy could see.
The image on the screen was of a woman who looked very dead, lying alongside a cell phone with the message on the screen:You did this!
“Ohmygod, Beau.”She wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug.At least, an attempt at one.He wasn’t ready for someone to comfort him.As it was, the muscles in his body were strung so tight, he thought they might snap if he bent forward an inch.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.He forced himself to ignore the look of hurt in those violet pools.
“Something’s off.”He took a step back to put some space between them.He could think better when he wasn’t breathing in her flowery scent.It made him want to lean closer, get lost in her.
A second step backward put his back against the wall.Fine.That was better than the alternative, which meant being too close to her because she felt a lot like his salvation, and the last thing he needed in life was to depend on someone else.
Her eyes grew misty when she said, “Denial is the first stage of—”
“It’s not that,” he said with more venom than intended.He wasn’t fighting against her, just the image of his mother…dead.
How could that be?
Guilt and shame wrapped long tentacles around his torso and squeezed until he could no longer take in air.Breathing hurt.Tears pricked the backs of his eyes—hot, angry tears.
Back against the wall, he sank to the floor until his bottom hit hard.
Ivy snapped her fingers in front of his eyes, but he couldn’t focus.He was too inside his own thoughts to look at her.Not even Ivy could bring him back to a world where he might find a way to deserve her.
“Come back to me, Beau,” she said, but her voice was off somewhere in the distance like she was talking to him from inside a long, unreachable tunnel.
He refused to believe his mother could be dead.
As much as the image of her on the screen made him want to vomit, he couldn’t stop himself from staring at it, from hoping it wasn’t real, from praying to a god he didn’t trust or believe in to save her.
A piece of him had wished she would go away and leave him alone so he could live his adult life in peace.That part of him was filled with shame.
He hadn’t wanted her to be dead.He wanted her to be responsible for her own life and take care of herself.He’d given up on her caring for him a long time ago.Couldn’t she have tried harder?Couldn’t she have pulled herself up by her bootstraps?If not for herself, then for him?
Deep down, he realized that wasn’t how mental illness worked.Even so, it didn’t stop him from wishing for it.
Wishing is for kids with pennies standing over fountains.
The reality that he might never see his mother again slammed into him, hard.The thought that her lifeless body might be buried in some shallow grave alongside a highway or tossed in a ditch caused David Banner-type anger to well up inside him.
His hand shook, and his body quaked.
No tears fell.
“This can’t be real.”He repeated those words over and over again.
At some point, he realized Ivy sat beside him and leaned her head on his good shoulder.
“It’s so hard to face the thought of losing a parent,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.Still, it had a soothing effect like he’d never experienced.
She, of all people, knew what it was like to lose a parent.She, of all people, knew what he was going through.She, of all people, had the same skin in the game.
Did she suddenly feel alone in this?Did she think he would abandon her now that his mother was gone?
