More Than A Memory
Title: More Than A Memory
Genre: RP Het Fic
Pairing: Chad Michael Murray/Bethany Joy Lenz
Rating: PG-13 for the most part, if not all. Maybe some light R parts?
Warnings: Um, character death? Also, un-beta’d 'cause that’s the way I roll.
Disclaimer: Dude, I totally own Chad. Read that how you will.
Summary: People say she’s only his head and he’ll forget. He just nods and agrees and when he goes home, she’s there, wrapping her arms around him, holding him while he cries, telling him it’ll be alright. AU
Notes: Title and inspiration for this story comes from a Garth Brooks song.
He can remember when he first met her at the coffee shop. Rushing in to get that fix of caffeine before he started his shift at the hospital. Being a resident was hell on the sleep factor and what was once a relaxing thing to pass the time became his life. Functioning without coffee after a sixteen hour shift was a feat he didn’t even want to think about. There’d he’d been minding his own business trying to get to work on time for once and bam. He’d looked up from his PDA to give his order and she’d just smacked him up side the head with that smile. Full and happy without a regard for stressed out interns going on nothing but caffeine and adrenaline. He’d been dazed, struck dumb, and the part of his mind that sounded a lot lock Doctor Corbin and never shut up, told him he might be having a seizure or a stroke. But he couldn’t do anything about it even as said part of unquiet mind tried valiantly to catalogue all his symptoms. It wasn’t until some one bumped him from behind, impatient for their own fix, that he managed to stutter out an order, the mad little monster in his system that demanded caffeine now the only reason he got it right.
It wasn’t until Dr. Johansson began giving him a worried exam that he snapped out of it.
The coffee shop, Kelly’s, was located near the hospital and was commonly frequented by the nurses and doctors and residents that resided in it. It was uncommon to see another paper cup in the hospital without Kelly’s logo on it. It was his first pit stop every morning, but he knows he’d never seen her before. He poked at Tyler and Bryan, but even those two smooth talkers couldn’t give him anything so she was pretty damn new. Ty made it his mission in life to hit on every pretty thing that was female and walked on two legs. Hell, he’d even hit on some one that had certainly been pretty and turned out definitely not to be female one memorable vacation over seas. That shit had been funny. And Bryan was just that cool laid back guy that talked to everyone all open and friendly. Chad was caught somewhere in between the two of them, minus the eloquence of both. But he was determined the next morning not to make an idiot of himself.
She was there, smile brighter than he remembered and his brain was short circuiting again and his tongue in knots. He even screwed up his usual order he found out once he got back to the hospital, and had to suck up a soy latte instead of his usual double shot espresso.
Two weeks into trying to communicate enough to ask her her name and failing miserably, Bryan took pity on him. Her name was Bethany and she was single, not a lesbian, just moved into the area, and liked to sing. He was woefully afraid he lapped up the information like a pound puppy getting his first taste of Purina dog chow.
It took him another month to stumblingly ask her out. He swore he nearly had a heart attack when she flashed that brilliant smile and said “yes”. At this rate, he calculated he’d be dead by the time he got her to dinner.
He honestly tried to take her somewhere nice. He’d made reservations at a swanky little place he could afford, cleaned his car of the fast food wrappers and dirty laundry, actually had his one dress suit dry cleaned in the history of him owning it. Picked her up on time, complimented how she looked, cause yeah, hard not to in that dress, opened her door for her. He’d tried real hard to make her see that he wasn’t a complete bumbling idiot. But when they got to the restaurant, the receptionist kindly told him he’d made his reservation for the next year and no, they didn’t have any seats available last minute. He was a dejected idiot. Bethany just laughed and hopped behind the wheel of his woeful car and sped them off to this cozy little pizza place.
It was the best date of his life.
They started dating regularly and half the time it was just hanging out. She was the first female in his life that didn’t make him feel like an idiot because he wasn’t always articulate about how he was feeling or just expressing something that meant a lot to him. She was the first to probe into his life about why he was becoming a doctor, his life as a kid. He was surprised to find himself talking about the mother that had abandoned him and his siblings, how great his dad was. How his little sister had liked to scrawl little hearts all over his back pack and lunch box in pinks and reds. The injuries that still scarred him.
She told him about being a single kid, the parents that she wasn’t all that close to but loved each other deeply, globe trotting across the world as soon as their daughter was out of the house. Her adventures in babysitting when she was a teenager and the shot she’d given at singing being a serious career. She had him in stitches with her impressions of some of the music producers and the Brittany wannabes.
They clicked, as friends as much as anything. It was weeks before they actually kissed and when it happened he knew that this was something more than just a crush.
They took their time with letting the relationship develop. He saw her every morning at the coffee shop because residents? They didn’t have lives. After his shift he sometimes managed to drag himself to her house, but usually ended up crashing on her couch before the credits started rolling on whatever movie or show they’d happened to be watching. It wasn’t unusual to wake up to eggs and bacon or French toast, pancakes or just a bowl of cereal with a little Post-It saying “good morning” and always signed with a smiley face.
There were occasional times when they went out or she went to his place. Mostly he wouldn’t let her do the last because he rarely had the energy to make it hospitable. But one night he turned off his phone and curled up on his couch, for once unable to sleep.
He didn’t hear anyone enter until her fingers were brushing his hair off his face, settling next to him.
“Bryan told me what happened,” she murmured gently.
He felt the tears, hot and embarrassing rise and spill and was glad none of the lights were on so she couldn’t see. “Yeah?”
“You wanna talk about it?” Her voice so gentle and coaxing, fingers running through his hair.
“No.” He whispered it harshly, face pressed into the cushions. He wasn’t going to be a baby about this. It was a fact of life and you had to deal. But she was rubbing his back in soothing circles, crooning under her breath and his resolve lasted all of ten seconds. “She was only six years old. Just a fucking baby running after her puppy in the street. She was trying to catch him so he wouldn’t get hit by a car. No one saw it happen. She just laid in that street for half an hour with that fucking dog licking her bloody face and no body saw. If the paramedics had gotten to her right away….” The rest faded off into a sob that he bit into a pillow.
“Oh, Chad.” Her voice was as broken as his as she curled herself around him, rocking him as he cried.
In the morning they made love for the first time, long and slow and sweet right there in his dirty living room amid half empty pizza boxes and old Chinese cartons and he felt tears threaten for an entirely different reason.
She was his rock in the storm. The highs and lows of working at the hospital, fixing people and watching them break into pieces he couldn’t put back together again. She held him through the losses and confusion of why he couldn’t save them, laughed and let herself be twirled in his arms when some one walked out the front doors. She was what he looked forward to during the day, in the morning just before work if they weren’t at one or the other’s place together.
She took to writing little notes on his cups that he got teased for all day long by more than just Tyler, but it never wiped the smile from his face. Bry and Ty also liked to joke that he only dated Beth because she gave him discounts on his coffee now and could he hook them up? He just laughed because he saved enough from those discounts to take her to nice dinners while they still brought their dates to Sheffer’s Bar. In your face boys.
He never told anyone that he kept every paper cup she wrote on and the little Post-Its she left him.
He can’t remember the first time they talked about moving in together. The way they were doing it was ridiculous. Most of his good clothes had migrated to her place and she always forgot her hair straightener and make-up bag at his. He needed to be close to the hospital, she refused to live in a nuclear waste dump. Affording something that accommodated them both was hard, especially when he bought her a dog after a series of break ins happened at her complex. She told him he worried too much, but the mangy mutt he’d dragged in, ungrateful thing that it was, was soon transformed into a shiny goliath that tried to lick to death anyone that walked through the door. And always seemed to manage to beg off half his breakfast every morning and whatever take-out they had at night.
She pounces on him one night after a particularly rough day. She cooked him supper, brought home a pie because she couldn’t bake anything for the life of her, or make anything more complicated than a baked potato in an oven. She’d nearly caught his place on fire from that, actually. She’d murdered his smoke detector when it had tried to warn him about that particular incident. But this night he’s flopped out on the couch with Barney’s (her idea, not his) head resting in his lap, stomach overfull and sleepy. She tells him she’s found this great little place at next to nothing that doesn’t mind pets and is a ten minute drive to the hospital.
He finds out the next day the reason they allow pets it’s because the place is crawling with them already. The four, six, and eight-legged variety and there’s more he-doesn’t-want-know on the walls than paint and wallpaper. He swears what’s left the carpet moves and he keeps a careful eye on the dark corners to make sure nothing jumps out and bites them. Barney clings to his side with his tail between his legs, looking up at Chad with a terrified expression. Chad can just shrug his shoulders and point at Beth as she excitedly drags him through the excuse of an apartment. And she had the nerve to call his place a dump? At least the electrical worked at his place; something that the landlord assured them was just a small short with this scar on humanity. When he voiced this all to Beth and asked what was wrong with his place, she just turned this wide puppy dog eyes on him, all pleading and mournful. He caved. Barney gave him a smug look. Damn dog.
She coordinates their weekend off and drags him to the place before the sun rises. Barney gives him mocking looks that tell him clearly he’s a pushover. He blames the fact that it’s a good six hours before he usually rises on a day off and she withholds the coffee until they reach the dump.
They spend two days removing the previous inhabitants and their mini cities and freeways. He hopes bugs and mice can’t call the police on them for unlawful eviction. He’s happy though because he’s got materiel to hold over Barney for a lifetime. The gargantuan ran away from a daddy long leg that crawled across his foot. He’s not saying anything about screaming like a girl when the cockroach dropped from the ceiling and down the front of his shirt. Beth had just put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes at the both of them for being such babies. He’d tackled her to the floor and tickled her until she screeched so loud Barney howled and a neighbor two houses down had investigated.
They spent their off days working to make it inhabitable, but half the time they’d take advantage of the isolated spot and just make out. When they went to shop for paint and fixtures she’d become distracted with the models for the kitchens and bathrooms, day dream over them and paint him pictures with words of the place they’d someday have.
He took her home for Thanksgiving. She charmed the socks off his dad and pranked with his siblings until he was afraid to step out of his room for fear of either stepping in something absolutely disgusting or having prosthetic but realistic body parts appearing in his food. He got to the point where he checked the house thoroughly before having a shower, making sure they were all gone, and systematically checking his food before he took a bite.
His dad asked him about marriage and that same day they went out and found the perfect ring. Neither of them mentioned the tears rolling down his father’s face. He hid the velvet box in the bag he kept his iPod in, a thing Beth avoided because she deplored his taste in music. He never told her he’d gone through her CD collection and copied it all, found the recordings of her voice and listened to them whenever he couldn’t be near her. Tyler was disgusted at the sappiness of that sentiment and Bryan just got misty eyed.
When they returned home, he moved the ring around the house, not quite sure why he wasn’t ready to ask the question.
Christmas she had to spend with her family and he with his. She took turns wishing everyone Happy Holidays on the phone and made Chad film them opening their presents. She’d made sure she’d gotten them each a personal little item, from the model planes for his father, to a hard to find first album of an underground band that his brother was currently in love with. It would have been a perfect time to ask her if she hadn’t been a thousand miles away.
The next time they got days off together, they painted. Well attempted to anyway. They spent most of the time making love slowly on the canvas covered floor. He knew he hadn’t seen anything more beautiful than her with her red hair spread out under her, body streaked with off-white paint, pale skin flushed as he looked at her. She half closed her eyes and traced the tattoo on his arm with her fingertips stroked her mouth up his throat. He knew, there in that half finished tiny apartment that there would never be anyone else but her. “I love you” wasn’t a foreign thing between them, but he’d never said it with the surety, the completeness as he did then. And when she said it back to him, all sleepy smile and warm eyes, he shook.
He made up his mind on when to ask her and the edginess vanished. Tyler tried one last time to keep him in bachelorhood by dragging him too Sheffer’s and getting him hopelessly drunk. Many of the pretty nurses and whatever attractive female was there were shoved at him. But when they asked what he was celebrating he gave a goofy grin and announced his impending engagement. Needless to say, the interest didn’t last long and Tyler gave him up for good.
Bryan was better about the whole thing. He liked Beth and spent plenty of time hanging out with the both of them. He mediated arguments about paint colors and furniture distribution or sometimes just hid with Barney when things started flying. He was just fun to tow along and hang out with.
Chad bullied and blackmailed Tyler into helping them begin to move. They still kept their own places because Beth had this whole thing about them not living together until the place was perfect. It worked in his favor for the plan he had for asking her to marry him. So they sorted furniture and moved it about, sleeping on air mattresses when the beds got moved out. His to the dumpster and hers to the place. He didn’t put up much of a fight about anything because, well, he didn’t really have anything he could he even try to argue was worthwhile. And she liked his flat screen and stereo system so that had been a moot point from the beginning. He did suspiciously find his music collection in a box labeled “TRASH” that Beth swore was an accident. He had his doubts because the next morning they were there again.
The day they were scheduled to move in, Chad was actually going to be home first. Beth was at her place, packing up the last bit of her stuff, hauling some things to the used store that were worth salvaging. He’d be picking Barney up from his old apartment on his way towards their new place and handing over the keys to the landlord. It was raining, hard and dreary, the whole day gray, but he was on cloud nine. He had the ring with him today, in his coat and every time he looked at the clock, he fondled the box. A part of him couldn’t believe this day was here, that he was actually going to ask a woman to be his wife. He’d never dreamed he’d find anyone like her, so kind and accepting and wanting nothing more from him than love and the ability to lavish him with her own. He always thought that Bryan would be the type of guy to find that, want it and here he was.
He could barely keep his feet on the ground all day.
He knew when Bryan walked up to him with that expression that something life shattering had happened. It was the patented doctor look of “I’m going to tell you something awful, but please don’t flip out”. How many times had he worn it? But he never could have dreamed up in his worst nightmares being told that Beth had been in an accident and was in surgery, fighting for her life.
He spent hours pacing outside the operating room, screaming at the nurses that couldn’t tell him anything, acting like one of those crazy relatives he’d had to deal with himself. Back when it had been him doing the operating and some one else doing the freaking out, he hadn’t understood. But now, now he wanted to scream, shout that God was fucking unfair, grab everyone that walked through those doors and make them tell him that she was going to be alright. She had to be. She’d promised she’d never leave.
Tyler stayed with him throughout it all, unusually quiet, making coffee runs to Kelly’s. Chad could have been guzzling gasoline and not known it he paid it that much mind. Bryan was his source of information, gleaning the scant tidbits that existed. He called Chad’s father, Beth’s parents, friends, whoever. They filled up the waiting room with Chad and Tyler, trying to offer sympathy, hope, but he shook them all off. He didn’t want to hear how she’d be alright, that it was all going to be okay. He knew she would. He’d just be a little more sure of that when he got to see her, kiss her, hear her say his name. Then everything would be okay. It had to be.
Beth had a crushed rib cage, massive internal injuries, broken neck, fractured tibias. Most of those life threatening, but all fixed. And still she slept, connected to machines that breathed for her, watched the beat of her heart, measured the pressure of the blood pumping through her veins, fed her. She looked peaceful, sleeping. He could see them in her bed on a rare morning when one or the other didn’t have to rush off at the ass crack of dawn. Just lying there and watching her sleeping, kissing her slowly awake. But she didn’t stir when he pressed his lips to her cheek, whispered for her to wake up. Please just open her eyes.
Dr. Johansson read off the long complicated explanation and Chad boiled it down for everyone. Beth had suffered massive head trauma from the head on collision and though she was still alive, she’d never wake up. The machines kept her going, but her brain was dead. And so was he.
Her parents resisted taking her off the life support systems. They fought him every step of the way, daring to dream for a miracle that he knew would never come. He’d seen cases like Beth’s. There was no hope and there never would be. She was dead, even though the heart monitor still beeped. She’d be shipped to a special care facility, given therapy to try and stave off the inevitable. Her limbs would atrophy and the sores would come, bringing infection and eventual death. In between she’d waste away, that body and face once full with life and color turning yellow and thinning until she no longer resembled the woman she had once been. He couldn’t watch that happen to her.
They called in expert after expert and he watched them die a little more each time they were given the same news. Beth was dead; they just had to pull the plugs.
Chad was holding her hand when Dr. Johansson flipped the switches on the machines. When her breathing stopped so did his. But when his resumed, she stayed silent.
The staff of the hospital that could take the time off turned up at the funeral. Kelly’s closed down for the day so her co-workers and boss could be there. Regulars of the shop dropped by the church to leave flowers and little cards of condolence. People left donations to help cover the funeral costs at the shelter she’d volunteered at and Sheffer cleaned and opened his bar, giving out the drinks free when everyone returned from the cemetery. His whole family drove in, stood beside him as they lowered her into the ground.
He stood in front of her open casket in the church, slipped the ring he’d bought and never had the chance to give onto her cold finger. The gold and diamond winked brightly at him in the dim lighting, a mockery of all that might have been and never would be. That was buried too.
His dad took the dog back with him. Chad could barely function on his own, let alone take care of something else. He lived in the apartment they fixed up together and it killed him to be surrounded by her, but he couldn’t leave. Everything he had of her was tucked away in here. Her make-up kit stowed under the bathroom sink, pictures of her and them across the walls, already pinned to the refrigerator they hadn’t gotten to stock. The sheets that still smelled like her on the bed, that ridiculous green hat by the door, her clothes in the closet.
He spent a week without leaving the apartment.
He stopped going to Kelly’s after the funeral. The staff at the hospital tried to hide their cups and he ducked his head every time he walked by the shop. He couldn’t look up, look in and not see her there. It just rang too much of how she was gone.
He worked double shifts and went home holding something different every night as he went to sleep. When he couldn’t stand being alone anymore, he fetched Barney back and for once didn’t bitch about him being on the bed.
He was drunk the first time he dialed her old number. He only got the first six digits in before he realized what he was doing. A bottle of tequila couldn’t drown out his tears.
It was after another night of double shifting when he drove to the house she used to live in. A pile up on the interstate with as many broken and mangled bodies as cars. His vision nothing but a sea of red and glaringly white bone prodding up from beneath torn and jagged flesh. He needed to see her, have her chase away the memories.
The lights were on and there was a figure moving within as he sat in his car. He felt the joy, a quick pummel in his chest. Her dying had just been some nightmare and there she was, just up that short path waiting for him to get his dumb ass out and come in. His hand on the door handle, keys pulled out of the ignition when the woman opened the door. Older and blond, with a kid hanging on her leg, calling for a cat. He peeled off and when he got home, heaved out more of himself than just the food he’d barely eaten that day.
Bryan sounds tired but comforting when he calls. His clock reads three in the morning and he’s still awake. He can’t sleep anymore, not without her there.
“Man, you gotta stop doing this to yourself.”
Its words he’s said before, ones he’ll most likely say again. Because Chad can’t let go. He can’t live without her, doesn’t understand how he ever managed it before she came along. Before her he’d been sleepwalking and when the first time she smiled at him…. It was like a light shining. “I don’t know how.” His whisper broken and jagged.
On the other end Bryan sighs. “Tell me about that time in the park.”
Its something that they do when Chad calls like this. He tells a story of Beth, to share her with some one, have her remembered and held onto by more than just him. It’s his only way to keep her alive.
He does things at night or the day, whenever it is he happens not to work. Before, he’d always just flop out on a couch and lay there till his next shift, but now…. Now when he can barely keep his eyes open and it hurts to even think about moving, he can’t sit still. He can’t sleep, can’t wait for her to creep in on him and shatter him into a thousand pieces again. Because every time he closes his eyes, he sees her there, laid out on that cold white hospital bed, those vibrant eyes closed forever. Her bruised face and broken body, haunting him, chasing him. So he hides in wakefulness, in the mundane he’d always resisted, anything to keep him awake, hiding from the broken image of her.
One day he just can’t take it anymore. Seeing memories of what she had been. He dragged the box of Post-Its and paper cups he’d kept outside and doused them in lighter fluid. Only hesitated a moment before lighting the match and dropping it, watching as all those sweet words and teasing lines turned to ash. Like what they had been.
The thought drives him back into the house and he rips the photos down, wherever they are. Finds them all, the picture frames and the albums, takes them to where the last embers are dying away. But his hand shakes when he holds her face over the open flames and he can’t. He sits down there in the middle of the sidewalk and hides his face in his hands so the passerby’s can’t see his tears.
He gathers the ashes of her words and stows them with the photos in the drawer by the bed.
There’s not enough in him to be worried when he starts hearing her voice. Just a whisper when he’s nearly asleep, jerking him to awareness and reaching for the warm body that will never be there. At first that’s all it is. He welcomes it when he’s lying awake on their bed; Barney curled up next to him.
But as the weeks go by it becomes more and he can’t bare the thought of going to a therapist to make it stop. He needs her and this is all he has.
“Chad, you have to stop doing this.” Her voice so warm, concerned.
Another night when he’s lying on the bed awake. He doesn’t open his eyes because he can see her, leaning over him, brushing her fingers through his hair. “I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“I need you.”
“Chad….”
“Sing to me.” A plead and a hesitating silence and then her voice, pure and true and lulling, dragging him into sleep.
“Chad, you need to stop this.”
Its Tyler, its Bryan, his father, everyone he knows. They all say the same thing to him. “Stop working”. “Let her go”. “She’s the one that died, not you”. “Move on”. “You look like Hell, son, eat something”. But he can’t listen to them. None of them understand, can feel what he’s feeling. He knows they’re considering getting him help. He’s had too many accidental run ins with the different psychologists working at the hospital for it not to be them trying to get him to talk, to let go. He doesn’t tell them about how he sees her at home, talks to her, hears her singing, touching him.
He only goes to Sheffer’s when its empty. When its just him and Craig and he can drink until he can’t feel. The older man doesn’t bother him, just keeps pouring whatever the hell makes the pain lessen. He spills out confessions he’s never wanted anyone to hear and the other man just sits and listens and drags him home when he can’t take anymore. Sometimes he wakes in his own vomit, can hear her chastising him, but he can’t stop. He just can’t let go.
He knows he’s at the end of his rope when he visits her grave for the first time. Its another fucking rainy day and he’d dared God to strike him down as he drove to the cemetery. Prayed for it even. Just let him be with her again.
Some one has kept it cleaned of dead leaves and flowers. He feels a stab of guilt that its taken him this long to come back. But this isn’t her, wasn’t her, didn’t hold more than her body moldering beneath the dirt. She’d been more than that, so much more. But he needs more than he’s getting. She’s slipping away and he’s here to beg her to stay, to not leave him again. What he has is all he’s got left and without that he doesn’t see how he can live.
But she’s not here in this quiet empty place. She’d loved sunshine and people, the bustling of the center of town and quiet walks through the park with children playing in the distance. This cold hollowness is nothing of her.
The grass is wet and cold, seeping through his jeans when his knees hit the ground and he finally lets go of the pain he’s been holding inside, because that ball of agony is her. Screams and screams, begging the God he’s cursed to bring her back. Please, he just needs her.
People say she’s only his head and he’ll forget. He just nods and agrees and when he goes home, she’s there, wrapping her arms around him, holding him while he cries, telling him it’ll be alright.
WWWWWWWWWWWW
There, the deed is done. Feel free to let loose with the rotten vegetables now.
Genre: RP Het Fic
Pairing: Chad Michael Murray/Bethany Joy Lenz
Rating: PG-13 for the most part, if not all. Maybe some light R parts?
Warnings: Um, character death? Also, un-beta’d 'cause that’s the way I roll.
Disclaimer: Dude, I totally own Chad. Read that how you will.
Summary: People say she’s only his head and he’ll forget. He just nods and agrees and when he goes home, she’s there, wrapping her arms around him, holding him while he cries, telling him it’ll be alright. AU
Notes: Title and inspiration for this story comes from a Garth Brooks song.
He can remember when he first met her at the coffee shop. Rushing in to get that fix of caffeine before he started his shift at the hospital. Being a resident was hell on the sleep factor and what was once a relaxing thing to pass the time became his life. Functioning without coffee after a sixteen hour shift was a feat he didn’t even want to think about. There’d he’d been minding his own business trying to get to work on time for once and bam. He’d looked up from his PDA to give his order and she’d just smacked him up side the head with that smile. Full and happy without a regard for stressed out interns going on nothing but caffeine and adrenaline. He’d been dazed, struck dumb, and the part of his mind that sounded a lot lock Doctor Corbin and never shut up, told him he might be having a seizure or a stroke. But he couldn’t do anything about it even as said part of unquiet mind tried valiantly to catalogue all his symptoms. It wasn’t until some one bumped him from behind, impatient for their own fix, that he managed to stutter out an order, the mad little monster in his system that demanded caffeine now the only reason he got it right.
It wasn’t until Dr. Johansson began giving him a worried exam that he snapped out of it.
The coffee shop, Kelly’s, was located near the hospital and was commonly frequented by the nurses and doctors and residents that resided in it. It was uncommon to see another paper cup in the hospital without Kelly’s logo on it. It was his first pit stop every morning, but he knows he’d never seen her before. He poked at Tyler and Bryan, but even those two smooth talkers couldn’t give him anything so she was pretty damn new. Ty made it his mission in life to hit on every pretty thing that was female and walked on two legs. Hell, he’d even hit on some one that had certainly been pretty and turned out definitely not to be female one memorable vacation over seas. That shit had been funny. And Bryan was just that cool laid back guy that talked to everyone all open and friendly. Chad was caught somewhere in between the two of them, minus the eloquence of both. But he was determined the next morning not to make an idiot of himself.
She was there, smile brighter than he remembered and his brain was short circuiting again and his tongue in knots. He even screwed up his usual order he found out once he got back to the hospital, and had to suck up a soy latte instead of his usual double shot espresso.
Two weeks into trying to communicate enough to ask her her name and failing miserably, Bryan took pity on him. Her name was Bethany and she was single, not a lesbian, just moved into the area, and liked to sing. He was woefully afraid he lapped up the information like a pound puppy getting his first taste of Purina dog chow.
It took him another month to stumblingly ask her out. He swore he nearly had a heart attack when she flashed that brilliant smile and said “yes”. At this rate, he calculated he’d be dead by the time he got her to dinner.
He honestly tried to take her somewhere nice. He’d made reservations at a swanky little place he could afford, cleaned his car of the fast food wrappers and dirty laundry, actually had his one dress suit dry cleaned in the history of him owning it. Picked her up on time, complimented how she looked, cause yeah, hard not to in that dress, opened her door for her. He’d tried real hard to make her see that he wasn’t a complete bumbling idiot. But when they got to the restaurant, the receptionist kindly told him he’d made his reservation for the next year and no, they didn’t have any seats available last minute. He was a dejected idiot. Bethany just laughed and hopped behind the wheel of his woeful car and sped them off to this cozy little pizza place.
It was the best date of his life.
They started dating regularly and half the time it was just hanging out. She was the first female in his life that didn’t make him feel like an idiot because he wasn’t always articulate about how he was feeling or just expressing something that meant a lot to him. She was the first to probe into his life about why he was becoming a doctor, his life as a kid. He was surprised to find himself talking about the mother that had abandoned him and his siblings, how great his dad was. How his little sister had liked to scrawl little hearts all over his back pack and lunch box in pinks and reds. The injuries that still scarred him.
She told him about being a single kid, the parents that she wasn’t all that close to but loved each other deeply, globe trotting across the world as soon as their daughter was out of the house. Her adventures in babysitting when she was a teenager and the shot she’d given at singing being a serious career. She had him in stitches with her impressions of some of the music producers and the Brittany wannabes.
They clicked, as friends as much as anything. It was weeks before they actually kissed and when it happened he knew that this was something more than just a crush.
They took their time with letting the relationship develop. He saw her every morning at the coffee shop because residents? They didn’t have lives. After his shift he sometimes managed to drag himself to her house, but usually ended up crashing on her couch before the credits started rolling on whatever movie or show they’d happened to be watching. It wasn’t unusual to wake up to eggs and bacon or French toast, pancakes or just a bowl of cereal with a little Post-It saying “good morning” and always signed with a smiley face.
There were occasional times when they went out or she went to his place. Mostly he wouldn’t let her do the last because he rarely had the energy to make it hospitable. But one night he turned off his phone and curled up on his couch, for once unable to sleep.
He didn’t hear anyone enter until her fingers were brushing his hair off his face, settling next to him.
“Bryan told me what happened,” she murmured gently.
He felt the tears, hot and embarrassing rise and spill and was glad none of the lights were on so she couldn’t see. “Yeah?”
“You wanna talk about it?” Her voice so gentle and coaxing, fingers running through his hair.
“No.” He whispered it harshly, face pressed into the cushions. He wasn’t going to be a baby about this. It was a fact of life and you had to deal. But she was rubbing his back in soothing circles, crooning under her breath and his resolve lasted all of ten seconds. “She was only six years old. Just a fucking baby running after her puppy in the street. She was trying to catch him so he wouldn’t get hit by a car. No one saw it happen. She just laid in that street for half an hour with that fucking dog licking her bloody face and no body saw. If the paramedics had gotten to her right away….” The rest faded off into a sob that he bit into a pillow.
“Oh, Chad.” Her voice was as broken as his as she curled herself around him, rocking him as he cried.
In the morning they made love for the first time, long and slow and sweet right there in his dirty living room amid half empty pizza boxes and old Chinese cartons and he felt tears threaten for an entirely different reason.
She was his rock in the storm. The highs and lows of working at the hospital, fixing people and watching them break into pieces he couldn’t put back together again. She held him through the losses and confusion of why he couldn’t save them, laughed and let herself be twirled in his arms when some one walked out the front doors. She was what he looked forward to during the day, in the morning just before work if they weren’t at one or the other’s place together.
She took to writing little notes on his cups that he got teased for all day long by more than just Tyler, but it never wiped the smile from his face. Bry and Ty also liked to joke that he only dated Beth because she gave him discounts on his coffee now and could he hook them up? He just laughed because he saved enough from those discounts to take her to nice dinners while they still brought their dates to Sheffer’s Bar. In your face boys.
He never told anyone that he kept every paper cup she wrote on and the little Post-Its she left him.
He can’t remember the first time they talked about moving in together. The way they were doing it was ridiculous. Most of his good clothes had migrated to her place and she always forgot her hair straightener and make-up bag at his. He needed to be close to the hospital, she refused to live in a nuclear waste dump. Affording something that accommodated them both was hard, especially when he bought her a dog after a series of break ins happened at her complex. She told him he worried too much, but the mangy mutt he’d dragged in, ungrateful thing that it was, was soon transformed into a shiny goliath that tried to lick to death anyone that walked through the door. And always seemed to manage to beg off half his breakfast every morning and whatever take-out they had at night.
She pounces on him one night after a particularly rough day. She cooked him supper, brought home a pie because she couldn’t bake anything for the life of her, or make anything more complicated than a baked potato in an oven. She’d nearly caught his place on fire from that, actually. She’d murdered his smoke detector when it had tried to warn him about that particular incident. But this night he’s flopped out on the couch with Barney’s (her idea, not his) head resting in his lap, stomach overfull and sleepy. She tells him she’s found this great little place at next to nothing that doesn’t mind pets and is a ten minute drive to the hospital.
He finds out the next day the reason they allow pets it’s because the place is crawling with them already. The four, six, and eight-legged variety and there’s more he-doesn’t-want-know on the walls than paint and wallpaper. He swears what’s left the carpet moves and he keeps a careful eye on the dark corners to make sure nothing jumps out and bites them. Barney clings to his side with his tail between his legs, looking up at Chad with a terrified expression. Chad can just shrug his shoulders and point at Beth as she excitedly drags him through the excuse of an apartment. And she had the nerve to call his place a dump? At least the electrical worked at his place; something that the landlord assured them was just a small short with this scar on humanity. When he voiced this all to Beth and asked what was wrong with his place, she just turned this wide puppy dog eyes on him, all pleading and mournful. He caved. Barney gave him a smug look. Damn dog.
She coordinates their weekend off and drags him to the place before the sun rises. Barney gives him mocking looks that tell him clearly he’s a pushover. He blames the fact that it’s a good six hours before he usually rises on a day off and she withholds the coffee until they reach the dump.
They spend two days removing the previous inhabitants and their mini cities and freeways. He hopes bugs and mice can’t call the police on them for unlawful eviction. He’s happy though because he’s got materiel to hold over Barney for a lifetime. The gargantuan ran away from a daddy long leg that crawled across his foot. He’s not saying anything about screaming like a girl when the cockroach dropped from the ceiling and down the front of his shirt. Beth had just put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes at the both of them for being such babies. He’d tackled her to the floor and tickled her until she screeched so loud Barney howled and a neighbor two houses down had investigated.
They spent their off days working to make it inhabitable, but half the time they’d take advantage of the isolated spot and just make out. When they went to shop for paint and fixtures she’d become distracted with the models for the kitchens and bathrooms, day dream over them and paint him pictures with words of the place they’d someday have.
He took her home for Thanksgiving. She charmed the socks off his dad and pranked with his siblings until he was afraid to step out of his room for fear of either stepping in something absolutely disgusting or having prosthetic but realistic body parts appearing in his food. He got to the point where he checked the house thoroughly before having a shower, making sure they were all gone, and systematically checking his food before he took a bite.
His dad asked him about marriage and that same day they went out and found the perfect ring. Neither of them mentioned the tears rolling down his father’s face. He hid the velvet box in the bag he kept his iPod in, a thing Beth avoided because she deplored his taste in music. He never told her he’d gone through her CD collection and copied it all, found the recordings of her voice and listened to them whenever he couldn’t be near her. Tyler was disgusted at the sappiness of that sentiment and Bryan just got misty eyed.
When they returned home, he moved the ring around the house, not quite sure why he wasn’t ready to ask the question.
Christmas she had to spend with her family and he with his. She took turns wishing everyone Happy Holidays on the phone and made Chad film them opening their presents. She’d made sure she’d gotten them each a personal little item, from the model planes for his father, to a hard to find first album of an underground band that his brother was currently in love with. It would have been a perfect time to ask her if she hadn’t been a thousand miles away.
The next time they got days off together, they painted. Well attempted to anyway. They spent most of the time making love slowly on the canvas covered floor. He knew he hadn’t seen anything more beautiful than her with her red hair spread out under her, body streaked with off-white paint, pale skin flushed as he looked at her. She half closed her eyes and traced the tattoo on his arm with her fingertips stroked her mouth up his throat. He knew, there in that half finished tiny apartment that there would never be anyone else but her. “I love you” wasn’t a foreign thing between them, but he’d never said it with the surety, the completeness as he did then. And when she said it back to him, all sleepy smile and warm eyes, he shook.
He made up his mind on when to ask her and the edginess vanished. Tyler tried one last time to keep him in bachelorhood by dragging him too Sheffer’s and getting him hopelessly drunk. Many of the pretty nurses and whatever attractive female was there were shoved at him. But when they asked what he was celebrating he gave a goofy grin and announced his impending engagement. Needless to say, the interest didn’t last long and Tyler gave him up for good.
Bryan was better about the whole thing. He liked Beth and spent plenty of time hanging out with the both of them. He mediated arguments about paint colors and furniture distribution or sometimes just hid with Barney when things started flying. He was just fun to tow along and hang out with.
Chad bullied and blackmailed Tyler into helping them begin to move. They still kept their own places because Beth had this whole thing about them not living together until the place was perfect. It worked in his favor for the plan he had for asking her to marry him. So they sorted furniture and moved it about, sleeping on air mattresses when the beds got moved out. His to the dumpster and hers to the place. He didn’t put up much of a fight about anything because, well, he didn’t really have anything he could he even try to argue was worthwhile. And she liked his flat screen and stereo system so that had been a moot point from the beginning. He did suspiciously find his music collection in a box labeled “TRASH” that Beth swore was an accident. He had his doubts because the next morning they were there again.
The day they were scheduled to move in, Chad was actually going to be home first. Beth was at her place, packing up the last bit of her stuff, hauling some things to the used store that were worth salvaging. He’d be picking Barney up from his old apartment on his way towards their new place and handing over the keys to the landlord. It was raining, hard and dreary, the whole day gray, but he was on cloud nine. He had the ring with him today, in his coat and every time he looked at the clock, he fondled the box. A part of him couldn’t believe this day was here, that he was actually going to ask a woman to be his wife. He’d never dreamed he’d find anyone like her, so kind and accepting and wanting nothing more from him than love and the ability to lavish him with her own. He always thought that Bryan would be the type of guy to find that, want it and here he was.
He could barely keep his feet on the ground all day.
He knew when Bryan walked up to him with that expression that something life shattering had happened. It was the patented doctor look of “I’m going to tell you something awful, but please don’t flip out”. How many times had he worn it? But he never could have dreamed up in his worst nightmares being told that Beth had been in an accident and was in surgery, fighting for her life.
He spent hours pacing outside the operating room, screaming at the nurses that couldn’t tell him anything, acting like one of those crazy relatives he’d had to deal with himself. Back when it had been him doing the operating and some one else doing the freaking out, he hadn’t understood. But now, now he wanted to scream, shout that God was fucking unfair, grab everyone that walked through those doors and make them tell him that she was going to be alright. She had to be. She’d promised she’d never leave.
Tyler stayed with him throughout it all, unusually quiet, making coffee runs to Kelly’s. Chad could have been guzzling gasoline and not known it he paid it that much mind. Bryan was his source of information, gleaning the scant tidbits that existed. He called Chad’s father, Beth’s parents, friends, whoever. They filled up the waiting room with Chad and Tyler, trying to offer sympathy, hope, but he shook them all off. He didn’t want to hear how she’d be alright, that it was all going to be okay. He knew she would. He’d just be a little more sure of that when he got to see her, kiss her, hear her say his name. Then everything would be okay. It had to be.
Beth had a crushed rib cage, massive internal injuries, broken neck, fractured tibias. Most of those life threatening, but all fixed. And still she slept, connected to machines that breathed for her, watched the beat of her heart, measured the pressure of the blood pumping through her veins, fed her. She looked peaceful, sleeping. He could see them in her bed on a rare morning when one or the other didn’t have to rush off at the ass crack of dawn. Just lying there and watching her sleeping, kissing her slowly awake. But she didn’t stir when he pressed his lips to her cheek, whispered for her to wake up. Please just open her eyes.
Dr. Johansson read off the long complicated explanation and Chad boiled it down for everyone. Beth had suffered massive head trauma from the head on collision and though she was still alive, she’d never wake up. The machines kept her going, but her brain was dead. And so was he.
Her parents resisted taking her off the life support systems. They fought him every step of the way, daring to dream for a miracle that he knew would never come. He’d seen cases like Beth’s. There was no hope and there never would be. She was dead, even though the heart monitor still beeped. She’d be shipped to a special care facility, given therapy to try and stave off the inevitable. Her limbs would atrophy and the sores would come, bringing infection and eventual death. In between she’d waste away, that body and face once full with life and color turning yellow and thinning until she no longer resembled the woman she had once been. He couldn’t watch that happen to her.
They called in expert after expert and he watched them die a little more each time they were given the same news. Beth was dead; they just had to pull the plugs.
Chad was holding her hand when Dr. Johansson flipped the switches on the machines. When her breathing stopped so did his. But when his resumed, she stayed silent.
The staff of the hospital that could take the time off turned up at the funeral. Kelly’s closed down for the day so her co-workers and boss could be there. Regulars of the shop dropped by the church to leave flowers and little cards of condolence. People left donations to help cover the funeral costs at the shelter she’d volunteered at and Sheffer cleaned and opened his bar, giving out the drinks free when everyone returned from the cemetery. His whole family drove in, stood beside him as they lowered her into the ground.
He stood in front of her open casket in the church, slipped the ring he’d bought and never had the chance to give onto her cold finger. The gold and diamond winked brightly at him in the dim lighting, a mockery of all that might have been and never would be. That was buried too.
His dad took the dog back with him. Chad could barely function on his own, let alone take care of something else. He lived in the apartment they fixed up together and it killed him to be surrounded by her, but he couldn’t leave. Everything he had of her was tucked away in here. Her make-up kit stowed under the bathroom sink, pictures of her and them across the walls, already pinned to the refrigerator they hadn’t gotten to stock. The sheets that still smelled like her on the bed, that ridiculous green hat by the door, her clothes in the closet.
He spent a week without leaving the apartment.
He stopped going to Kelly’s after the funeral. The staff at the hospital tried to hide their cups and he ducked his head every time he walked by the shop. He couldn’t look up, look in and not see her there. It just rang too much of how she was gone.
He worked double shifts and went home holding something different every night as he went to sleep. When he couldn’t stand being alone anymore, he fetched Barney back and for once didn’t bitch about him being on the bed.
He was drunk the first time he dialed her old number. He only got the first six digits in before he realized what he was doing. A bottle of tequila couldn’t drown out his tears.
It was after another night of double shifting when he drove to the house she used to live in. A pile up on the interstate with as many broken and mangled bodies as cars. His vision nothing but a sea of red and glaringly white bone prodding up from beneath torn and jagged flesh. He needed to see her, have her chase away the memories.
The lights were on and there was a figure moving within as he sat in his car. He felt the joy, a quick pummel in his chest. Her dying had just been some nightmare and there she was, just up that short path waiting for him to get his dumb ass out and come in. His hand on the door handle, keys pulled out of the ignition when the woman opened the door. Older and blond, with a kid hanging on her leg, calling for a cat. He peeled off and when he got home, heaved out more of himself than just the food he’d barely eaten that day.
Bryan sounds tired but comforting when he calls. His clock reads three in the morning and he’s still awake. He can’t sleep anymore, not without her there.
“Man, you gotta stop doing this to yourself.”
Its words he’s said before, ones he’ll most likely say again. Because Chad can’t let go. He can’t live without her, doesn’t understand how he ever managed it before she came along. Before her he’d been sleepwalking and when the first time she smiled at him…. It was like a light shining. “I don’t know how.” His whisper broken and jagged.
On the other end Bryan sighs. “Tell me about that time in the park.”
Its something that they do when Chad calls like this. He tells a story of Beth, to share her with some one, have her remembered and held onto by more than just him. It’s his only way to keep her alive.
He does things at night or the day, whenever it is he happens not to work. Before, he’d always just flop out on a couch and lay there till his next shift, but now…. Now when he can barely keep his eyes open and it hurts to even think about moving, he can’t sit still. He can’t sleep, can’t wait for her to creep in on him and shatter him into a thousand pieces again. Because every time he closes his eyes, he sees her there, laid out on that cold white hospital bed, those vibrant eyes closed forever. Her bruised face and broken body, haunting him, chasing him. So he hides in wakefulness, in the mundane he’d always resisted, anything to keep him awake, hiding from the broken image of her.
One day he just can’t take it anymore. Seeing memories of what she had been. He dragged the box of Post-Its and paper cups he’d kept outside and doused them in lighter fluid. Only hesitated a moment before lighting the match and dropping it, watching as all those sweet words and teasing lines turned to ash. Like what they had been.
The thought drives him back into the house and he rips the photos down, wherever they are. Finds them all, the picture frames and the albums, takes them to where the last embers are dying away. But his hand shakes when he holds her face over the open flames and he can’t. He sits down there in the middle of the sidewalk and hides his face in his hands so the passerby’s can’t see his tears.
He gathers the ashes of her words and stows them with the photos in the drawer by the bed.
There’s not enough in him to be worried when he starts hearing her voice. Just a whisper when he’s nearly asleep, jerking him to awareness and reaching for the warm body that will never be there. At first that’s all it is. He welcomes it when he’s lying awake on their bed; Barney curled up next to him.
But as the weeks go by it becomes more and he can’t bare the thought of going to a therapist to make it stop. He needs her and this is all he has.
“Chad, you have to stop doing this.” Her voice so warm, concerned.
Another night when he’s lying on the bed awake. He doesn’t open his eyes because he can see her, leaning over him, brushing her fingers through his hair. “I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“I need you.”
“Chad….”
“Sing to me.” A plead and a hesitating silence and then her voice, pure and true and lulling, dragging him into sleep.
“Chad, you need to stop this.”
Its Tyler, its Bryan, his father, everyone he knows. They all say the same thing to him. “Stop working”. “Let her go”. “She’s the one that died, not you”. “Move on”. “You look like Hell, son, eat something”. But he can’t listen to them. None of them understand, can feel what he’s feeling. He knows they’re considering getting him help. He’s had too many accidental run ins with the different psychologists working at the hospital for it not to be them trying to get him to talk, to let go. He doesn’t tell them about how he sees her at home, talks to her, hears her singing, touching him.
He only goes to Sheffer’s when its empty. When its just him and Craig and he can drink until he can’t feel. The older man doesn’t bother him, just keeps pouring whatever the hell makes the pain lessen. He spills out confessions he’s never wanted anyone to hear and the other man just sits and listens and drags him home when he can’t take anymore. Sometimes he wakes in his own vomit, can hear her chastising him, but he can’t stop. He just can’t let go.
He knows he’s at the end of his rope when he visits her grave for the first time. Its another fucking rainy day and he’d dared God to strike him down as he drove to the cemetery. Prayed for it even. Just let him be with her again.
Some one has kept it cleaned of dead leaves and flowers. He feels a stab of guilt that its taken him this long to come back. But this isn’t her, wasn’t her, didn’t hold more than her body moldering beneath the dirt. She’d been more than that, so much more. But he needs more than he’s getting. She’s slipping away and he’s here to beg her to stay, to not leave him again. What he has is all he’s got left and without that he doesn’t see how he can live.
But she’s not here in this quiet empty place. She’d loved sunshine and people, the bustling of the center of town and quiet walks through the park with children playing in the distance. This cold hollowness is nothing of her.
The grass is wet and cold, seeping through his jeans when his knees hit the ground and he finally lets go of the pain he’s been holding inside, because that ball of agony is her. Screams and screams, begging the God he’s cursed to bring her back. Please, he just needs her.
People say she’s only his head and he’ll forget. He just nods and agrees and when he goes home, she’s there, wrapping her arms around him, holding him while he cries, telling him it’ll be alright.
WWWWWWWWWWWW
There, the deed is done. Feel free to let loose with the rotten vegetables now.