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I’d thought she’d been beautiful. I always had. I was ten, and I’d had no idea that that day at Miller’s Pond, when my mom read to me about Achilles and his mother, Thetis, would be the last I’d ever spend with her.
“At Thetis’ wedding to Peleus, attended by many powerful gods, one came along who wasn’t invited. Eris, goddess of chaos, known for causing commotions. She tossed a golden apple into the crowd, inscribed simply, ‘To the Fairest.’”
“Did Thetis catch the apple?” I’d wondered.
She shook her head. “No. Paris did, but that’s a story for another time. Thetis and Peleus went on to have Achilles, a child destined to be greater than his father. To protect him from harm, Achilles’ mother bathed him in the river Styx to make him invincible.”
She’d taken a deep breath and relaxed her frail shoulders. She’d lost so much weight, the light breeze blowing across the pond might have blown her away.
“Come on, Achilles. Let’s bathe you in the river Styx and make you invincible.” She’d looked at me and held my hand tightly, pressing it to her wasted cheek. “You will be so much stronger than your father and me, Beck. You need to be stronger than me.” She’d taken a deep breath. “You need to be unstoppable, Beck.”
She’d stood and walked to the water’s edge. Her long nightgown had trailed in the water. She never wore normal clothes anymore. She’d recently stopped leaving her room, or her bed. She’d surprised me by insisting on going somewhere, just the two of us this morning, calling me in sick to school. My father wasn’t home; he never was lately. It was just me and her and an army of private nurses and house staff.
“You need to be invincible, not like me…Live for me, Beckett. Be happy for me, my beautiful boy.”
I followed, shivering in the cool water.
She’d looked at me and laughed. A sound like silver bells.
It had been the last day of my childhood.
A perfect memory.
Eve
The sounds pulledme from my dreams. I woke suddenly, sitting up in bed and staring around the dark room. There was a grunt, and a mutter, followed by the sound of the covers thrashing. I got out of bed hesitantly and tiptoed toward Beckett.
He was a rippling sea under the covers.
I moved closer, gripping his arm. “Beckett, wake up – you’re just dreaming.”
He twisted away from me, gripped by whatever nightmare was haunting him.
“Beck!” I called louder and shook him.
He sprang up, his eyes staring unseeing at me, and the next thing I knew, I was on my back on his bed, with him leaning over me.
“Beckett? You were just dreaming,” I murmured.
His face was drawn in a tight, tortured expression. He still seemed to be half asleep still, with one foot here and the other in a dream land.
His hands were biting into my shoulders, his damn grip so effortlessly strong. I tried to dislodge those punishing fingers, but it was no use. He wasn’t home right now.
“Beckett, wake up,” I whispered. There was something about waking someone so deeply lost in their dreams that felt like it should be done gently.
A splash of hot liquid hit my face, and I blinked.What the fuck was that?Was he spitting on me?I opened my mouth, about to tear him a new one, when a drop hit my lip. It was salty.
He was crying.
It was the second time I’d seen Beckett Anderson cry, and this time, alone in the dark, locked in a dream that clearly tore his heart apart, the moment moved me. Beckett wasn’t just some stranger to me anymore. He was a larger-than-life presence in my life. My first.
The words from our first night together filled my heart and made it ache.“It’s worse to be good at being alone. I’m a fucking expert.”Right now, his loneliness was a palpable thing.
I moved instinctively, something inside me responding to the honest emotion from the guy who had twisted up my heart. I reached up and cupped his face, wiping under his eyes with my thumbs. His broad shoulders shook almost imperceptibly. Sadness wrapped a thick hand around my throat and crushed it, and my own tears prickled at my eyelids. His emotion was just too strong, I couldn’t help but feel it. I could taste his misery.
“It’s okay,” I murmured to him, my fingers skating over the scar. The skin was slightly raised. I traced it lightly, then wrapped an arm around his shoulders and patted his back.
Without warning, he lowered himself on top of me. His body slotted against mine perfectly, his legs sliding between my legs, and his hips cradling mine. His face rested between my shoulder and head, in the crook of my neck. He took a long breath, while I continued to rub his back in what I hoped were comforting circles.
