Page 76 of Lighting the Lamp
The sound of kids laughing on the ice shouldn’t feel like heartbreak, but today, it slices through the cold air like a jagged shard of glass—sharp, sweet, and entirely unbearable. It used to be the sound that lifted something in my chest. That cracked open a smile without trying, but now it just knots deep in the pit of my stomach. It festers like grief that doesn’t know where to go, so it settles everywhere at once.
The Timberwolves’ community rink is colder than usual this morning, or maybe I’m just too worn down to pretend that I belong here. My emotions are too raw, my heart’s too loud, and my stupid fucking brain won’t shut up. It echoes with everything I haven’t said and wish I didn’t feel at the same time.
God, I’m fucking pathetic.
I asked Beau to give me space and time to think. Time for my brain to know that he wants me, not because he’s sick and scared, but because he can’t stand to spend another minute without me. To know deep in my soul that loving me isn’t something he reaches for when everything else falls apart, but it’s something he chooses when he’s whole. I want to be chosen, not clung to, and loved for who I am, not what I can carry. Now here I am, hiding in the stands like a coward, aching for a man Itold not to come near me while he skates around on the ice like there’s nothing wrong.
The U-14 team is mid-warm-up, drills and transitions flying fast and sharp across the rink, but Beau moves through it all like gravity’s pulling harder on him than anyone else. He’s in his usual black joggers, a Timberwolves hoodie stretched across his broad back, hat flipped backwards, and curls slipping out from beneath the brim. A whistle dangles from his fingers like it’s the only thing anchoring him. From here, he looks good, better than he has in months. But his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. There is just something about the way he’s holding himself—tight, restrained, careful—that feels off.
I grip the coffee cup tighter in my hands, tracing my fingertips over Beau’s messy scrawl of my name for the millionth time since I found it on my desk. It’s long gone cold, and I’m not sure why I’m still holding it, but I can’t bring myself to put it down. Maybe I thought it would make me feel less of a mess, or I just can’t let it go because he gave it to me. He still brought it and thought about what I liked. I still took it even though I told him not to wait around. That man never stops showing up for me, and I’m terrified he’s breaking himself even more just to prove he’s still worth showing up for.
“Are you gonna say something?” I mutter, eyes glued to the rink, “or just keep watching me as if I’m about to spontaneously combust?”
Michele doesn’t answer right away. She takes a sip of her latte, still tracking Beau’s movements on the ice. “I’m giving you space and mentally drafting your intervention letter.”
“Touching.” I huff out a hollow sound that is more ache than laughter.
“Just trying to figure out how to word the part where you’ve been watching him for ten minutes without blinking.”
“I have not.”
“Alise.” She groans, her eyes narrowing in my direction as if she could force me to respond.
I don’t argue again because she’s right. There’s something wrong. I can feel it beneath my skin like a prickle of static. It feels like the universe is holding its breath, and I’m the only one who can hear it. Beau whistles the kids into a new drill and crouches to check a skate. He pushes back up slower than he should, one hand braced on the boards. He’s smiling, easy and calm, but I see the wince. The half-second hitch in his shoulders and the way his left leg lags just slightly behind the right.
“He’s favoring his left side again,” I say before I can stop myself, the words catching in my throat like a warning I’m too scared to give voice to.
Michele doesn’t look at me right away, just takes a long pull from her coffee like she’s weighing how honest she’s willing to be.
“Cooper noticed. That’s why he asked me to keep an eye on him.”
“Seriously?” My head snaps toward her, finally able to pull my eyes away from the ice.
“He doesn’t buy that Beau got cleared,” she says, tone flat but firm. “Cooper thinks Beau talked his way off IR. He looks like he’s barely been sleeping or eating. Not to mention, he still hasn’t told us what his test results were.”
My stomach twists, hard and unforgiving, as every scenario runs through my mind on a loop. What if the results were worse than he expected? What if something else is going on? What if it’s something he’s too afraid to name?
“But Cooper had to have talked to Coach Mercer about taking him off the IR list. Is it really as easy as Beau showing up at practice and looking okay?” I respond, trying to piece together some kind of logical explanation for all of this.
“No, it’s not. He had all the paperwork, and his doctor even signed off on it, but?—”
“He’s lied to Cooper before,” I whisper, the weight of it sinking low in my stomach.
“Yeah. And this wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried to muscle through something serious just to prove he’s okay.”
I can’t breathe with the way my ribs are squeezing tighter by the second. My chest tightens, nausea curling in my stomach at the thought that Beau is still hurting, maybe even worse than before. What if that’s because of me? What if by telling him all the things I needed to say, I made him fold in on himself again? I asked him for space, to prove he wanted me for the right reasons, because it was what I needed.
“I told him I needed time. That I needed to know he wanted me for me. Not because he was scared, sick, and slowly spiraling. I asked him to prove he was choosingme,not just reaching for a lifeline.”
“I know,” Michele says gently.
“But maybe what he heard was that I’d only want him if he was okay.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “And now he’s pretending to be okay for me.”
Out on the ice, Beau barks encouragement to the defense line and flashes a crooked smile when one of the kids tosses a joke back. It looks and sounds like him, but it also feels like a mask at the same time.
“You think he’s hiding his test results?”
“I think he’s scared to admit they weren’t good. And he fears what we’ll do with that information.” She turns and meets my gaze. “Whatyou’lldo.”
