For the first time in Beatrix’s life, time stops. As if it died with Oliver.
“He’s gone.” Theo’s voice breaks as tears roll down his cheeks.
Zoë lets out an anguished sob from the other side of the bed, her face red, her eyes swollen.
Luke sits next to her, silent and unmoving, his head cradled in his hands.
Gone.
The word sits like ice in Beatrix’s chest, freezes her heart, traces through her veins until her insides are numb. It doesn’t matter how long she waits this time. He will never come back to her.
She can’t. Can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t stay here. She springs to her feet, and her chair tips over, thudding against the floor.
“Bea?”
It’s Theo’s voice. She knows it is. Her heart still skips a beat.
Her gaze meets his. Oliver’s eyes, but not. Not as open. Not as kind. No spark of anything to be found. Only a pool of anguish she wants to drown in. “Don’t you ever call me that again,” she says, her voice low and strangled.
Theo stares at her. Confusion clouds his swollen eyes, and then he must realize his mistake. She catches the briefest flicker before they go dark with grief again. “I’m sorry, Beatrix. I didn’t mean to…”
What was he going to say? He didn’t mean to hurt her? The word is laughably inadequate in the face ofthis. Theo must know it, too.
She turns on her heel, and she runs. Out of Oliver’s room, out of Oliver’s house, until she stands under a starless sky, her breath fogging in the night, her heart beating the same frantic rhythm it did that terrible day in the forest:run, run, run. But there is nowhere she can go where she won’t find him.
Her knees give way, every thought of Oliver pulling her under until she is drowning. There is only one thing that can save her now, one way to end her pain.
Forever.
“I take it back!” she screams, guttural and raw. A desperate wish made with her entire shattered heart. She collapses to the ground. “Please,” she sobs. “Just take it back.”
The metallic scent of cold air and wet pavement gives way to rotting leaves. The earth is cool and damp beneath Beatrix’s palms. Familiar. She pulls herself to her feet, brushes the dirt from her hands. She is in her clearing.
“Hello, Beatrix. It’s been such a very long time, hasn’t it?”
She spins to find the faerie sitting on the low bough of an ancient oak, just like that first night. Her deep red hair hangs loose to her waist, and her dress flows around her like a river of stars. Her eyes glow, triumphant.
Beatrix’s heart pounds against her ribs. “I didn’t think time was something you bothered with.”
“I could say the same about you,” she replies.
Beatrix smirks at her. “No. Time doesn’t bother with me.”
The faerie stands in front of her now. Beatrix gasps at her sudden closeness, stumbles back. “My condolences,” the faerie says. Her two-toned gaze rakes over Beatrix. “I am ever so sorry for your loss.”
Her loss.
How could the faerie know anything of her loss?
His eyes, shining with that familiar spark every time he returned to her. The only eyes that saw her. Really saw her, as she truly was.
The curve of his mouth, tilted into a smile whenever he looked at her. The ghost of it remaining on his lips, even as he slept. Those lips on hers.
His touch against the hollow of her back as they danced, as if the space were made for his hand. The soft depth of his voice whispering in her ear. The feel of dark curls slipping through her fingers.
Her body pulled into his. Wrapped in him. Tangled with him.
That is her loss.
