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"Maybe a little. Plus why do you care so much? You had good guy Keith

and probably others to keep you company. It's what you wanted. And I'm sure you didn't miss me all that much".

I cannot help the bitterness that creeps into my voice when I mention his name. I know I was pushing her, but I didn't realize how close to the limit I'd come. Or how close she already was, to the breaking point.

"All the time", she gasps, two thick hot tears rolling down her cheeks as she finally makes eye contact, "all the time. I missed you all the time."

Damn it to hell and back. How does one fight this? How does one endure the pain of silent tears trapped inside him or the broken sobs wracking the frame of the girl I once loved more than life.

One cannot. I drag my body to hers, flinging an arm around her as she continues to look everywhere but me.

"Beth, I'm kidding, duchess. Are you going to look at me, Blue eyes? Look at me", I do the only thing I did know from experience, and scoop her tiny frame in my lap, forcing her chin upwards,

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry Beth. It was a joke. Do you really think girls would fall for a douche like me? I was just fooling with you", I murmur, kissing her hair softly, mumbling nonsense, and trying to control my rapidly accelerating heartbeat. I could only handle so much nearness. And her tears always had the power to turn me to mush.

"Did you really have seven girlfriends?" she whispers against my chest.

I laugh, defeated. This girl is awfully focused.

“No, I didn’t. I don’t juggle them you know. Happy now?”

"How many?", she persists.

I push her face back to frame it between my hands and answer honestly "not as many as required to wipe you off my memory. Not as many as to stop me from missing you every day of every week. Not as many as to numb my feelings for you or abate the hatred I nurtured for you. The number hardly matters Beth. What matters is none of them were enough."

“Do you still hate me?”

"I'm trying to. You make it difficult", I reply softly, wiping the remaining tears away and kissing her forehead, before setting here on the cushion next to me. What did it matter really? Hatred and love were two sides of the same coin. One couldn't exist without the other.

"I suppose, I should go sleep", I add in good measure and get up quickly, albeit reluctantly. A person could take only so much in the face of close proximity with a girl you love against your best judgment, without getting choked on your stupid emotions.

“By the way, where am I sleeping?”

"The room adjacent to mine is fairly huge. You can sleep there if you want."

Nice.

“And if I don’t want? If I want to sleep in Grandma Nettie’s room upstairs, on her large feathery bed, what then?”

"You wouldn't want to do that. She's still hanging around there somewhere, you know. You'd collide with her restless spirit", she grins shamelessly, the lying wench. I want to kiss that grin away.

“What a shameless liar, she’s probably turning in her grave right this minute”, I smirk and make her laugh outright.

I make my way to my room, mulling over the fact that if things were different we'd be married by now, sleeping in the same bed. If things were the same we'd be talking and kissing the night out, making love over and over before sleeping in each other's arms. But things had reached a stalemate and I couldn't do any of those things. How much ever badly I may want to.

So I go back to my designated room, shut the doors thinking of Beth, shrug off my clothes, mulling over Beth, snuggle under the bed covers, yearning for Beth, and close my eyes to dream about Beth.

Only to get interrupted by the ugliest nightmare of my life.

12.
Nightmares

12:50 am

That's what the alarm clock reads when I am jolted awake by a high piercing scream that shatters my sleep and leaves my heart in tatters. My breathing is raspy, my throat burns with heat, and a fine layer of perspiration coats my forehead as I struggle to shake away the remnants of the ghoulish dream, when I hear it again, the fearful cry accompanied by a male's voice and the sound of weeping. And I know it isn't a dream anymore.

Beth….

I run like a freak towards her room, and ram my body on the door with enough force to splinter the doorframe.

Only to come to a sudden standstill.

I watch the scene unfurl in a state of paralysis, watch her fear-
stricken eyes
as she scrambles for cover with the blade end of a kitchen knife clutched tightly in her hands, unaware and oblivious to the trickling drops of blood dripping from her palm. Watch her rock on the floor, back and forth, back and forth, her eyes fixed on Taylor.

"Beth", I whisper slowly, carefully lest she clutches the knife more tightly and hurt herself some more.

"Stay away", she cries, pointing the knife at me, "stay away", she repeats in a voice filled with terror, the voice of my nightmare.

" Stay away, stay away, stay away", she sings in a dreadful litany, escaping into a nightmare of her own. And in that awful moment, I understand. Understand finally, what my instincts had been telling me, what my heart kept warning me about.

Everything felt messed up, nothing was the same. Everything falls apart, had fallen apart a long time ago, and somewhere amidst that terror I see reflected in her eyes, I had lost my Beth.

I understood, God help me, I understood what was wrong, and I feel every last shred of hope collapse and die inside me.

"Beth, Beth", I whisper pleadingly, brokenly, and my mind immediately clicks into rescue mode. I take a hesitant step towards her, only to have her clutch the knife even more tightly, blood ebbing from her palm and fingers down onto the carpet in a slow stream.

"Beth", I try again, not moving an inch, "It's me Nicholas, your Nick. Beth, duchess look at me. Only me, yes… yes, do you recognize me, do you know me, Beth?", I implore, begging for her to see me, not knowing what else to do if I fail. I have to convince her that she'd be safe with me, enough to let go of that bloody knife.

"What the hell is happening?" gasps Kate, standing somewhere behind me, probably drawing her own conclusions. I do not acknowledge her, looking only at Beth.

"Beth", I crouch down on my knees, palms raised in supplication as I will her to look at me. "Look at me… Beth baby, look at me…. it's okay, it's fine….. you’re safe, safe with me….you trust me, don't you? You trust me to keep you safe, I'm here and Kate's here, and we'll keep you safe. Let go of the knife baby, slowly, slowly, let go of the knife duchess", I whisper hoarsely, not knowing what else to do, how to get through to her. She's completely out of it. And her eyes are still focused on Taylor.

“Taylor, get out of the house”.

“But I ……”

"Get out", I enunciate every word slowly, sharply, and loudly enough for Beth to hear, "get out of the house and don't come back".

“Seriously Nick, what do you…..”

"Get the fuck out", I bark hoarsely, cutting him off, "right this minute, or God help me, I'll dispose you off my way, and you wouldn't like that very much."

"I think it's better if you just leave Taylor", Kate pleads behind me and he walks out mumbling insults on his way. Had Beth not needed me this moment, I'd have dealt with him differently for showing up uninvited in the middle of the night. As things stand now, I know I'd be dealing with him soon enough.

"Beth, let go of the knife sweetheart, let it go".

She nods once, then twice, then collapses in a heap of her own blood.

12.5
Conversation between Kate and me

“I’m so sorry Nick, I’m so sorry”.

We're traveling in a medic van provided by the 911 officers to the nearest hospital. Beth had fainted nearly fifteen minutes ago and hadn't yet gained consciousness, despite our repeated efforts. The paramedics had asked a lot of questions, and I answered them the best way I could, before calling my parents to apprise them of the situation. Dad had caught maybe thirty seconds of the conversation when he slammed the phone down in a hurry, after assuring me they were on their way.

“What the hell was he doing in her room?”

Kate has been crying and repeating her apologies every twenty seconds. Only I have no idea what she's apologizing for, or how Taylor had managed to slip inside.

"Ryder had come to see me. While I was talking to him in the garage, I saw Taylor emerge from the car and ask me if he go could wish Beth goodnight. I had no clue you guys were already asleep, and honestly, when he asked for my permission, I thought you guys were sleeping together in the same room like you used to, and he'd get the message that she was off limits", she explains before succumbing to tears once again.

I shake my head in remorse and grab her in a hug while she openly sobs

against my shirt.

“Nothing is like it used to be. It’s not your fault”.

"But if I hadn't sent Taylor, this wouldn't have happened", she speaks between hiccups.

“It was going to happen one day, Taylor or not. And you had no idea, hell,
I
had
no idea she’ll react this way. I could’ve wandered to her room and provoked the same reaction, and then blamed myself.”

I know that much with certainty. How much ever I may want to place the blame on Taylor, I know he wasn't the reason, just the stimulus. If he was guilty, it was for showing up uninvited to her room.

"What'll happen now", Kate whispers with a sense of trepidation and ill foreboding, asking me the very question I'd been asking myself for some time now.

I give her the one true answer I can come up with.

“I don’t know”.

12¾. The utter helplessness

I had telephoned dad once again, to brief him about the hospital and Beth's condition, before resorting back to pacing in the waiting room of the hospital where the 911 officials had transported us. One look at Beth, and the doctor in charge had strung out a list of orders, before ushering us outside.

I kick the vending machines in the room, walk back and sit on the floor outside her room while they examined her, get up and kick the wall behind the bench on which Kate sits crying silently. And immediately ambush the nurse emerging from her room.

"Step aside".

"Mr. Tanner, I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to pass through.

Ms. Whitefield's behavior is dangero,,,,”

“Step aside”

She shakes her head again.

"I have strict orders, Mr. Tanne,,,,,,”,

I clear my throat and give this one last try.

“I have never, ever, been disrespectful to a woman,

and I don't want to start now. I need you to step aside this instant because there's nothing, barring death, that can stop me from crossing the threshold, nothing. And I don't want to do anything I'll regret later. SO please, just step aside."

She scrutinizes my face for a half minute before obeying reluctantly.

I give the door a hard push and send it flying before slipping inside.

I wasn't prepared for the sight before me. Whatever thoughts and suspicions had been circling in my mind for the past two hours went out

the window the second I lay eyes on her.

Never, not even in the most hideous or appalling nightmares had I imagined her like this. Never in a million years could I be prepared for this. Before coming here, I had so many different scenarios playing through my mind. So many suppositions and so many awful suspicions, while the rest of me hoped against hope that they wouldn't be true. Couldn't be. And now I can do nothing but face what was right in front of me.

I look at her and feel huge waves of tremor seize my body, feel the sudden gasp of breath clog my throat, feel the stream of lifeless tears on my face as I stare and stare at the girl who once meant everything to me, hope and love and life.. I feel the last shreds of that hope dying inside of me. And then my barren soul crumbles to pieces.

"Don't touch me", she screams in fear, shaking her head in mindless abandon.

“Ms. Whitfield, we aren’t here to harm you”.

"Let me go", she shouts, clenching and unclenching her fists within the manacles that bound her to the bedpost. A three-way IV is inserted on her left arm, one of which is attached to the dextrose solution hanging from the stand. A discarded bloodied IVcath is lying on the floor, rolling on the medical dinoplast which had failed to tape it in position.

"Don't, don't", she pleads, whimpering and cowering like a frightened animal as the white coat fiddles with a syringe.

And then she looks at me, and everything else ceases to exist.

"Nicholas", she whispers with a sudden flare of hope in her eyes, and I know it then. I'd do anything for this girl, anything at all.