Page 52 of Lighting the Lamp
“That kiss… it can’t happen again.” Her voice is quiet and measured, too flat to be anything but rehearsed.
“What?” I gasp, clutching at my chest to ensure it hasn’t cracked open, the pieces of my heart spilling onto the bed in front of me.
“It was a mistake,” she says quickly, like she has to say it before I have the chance to interrupt. “We were emotional and hurt. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
I don’t respond, not because I don’t want to but because I can’t. Deep down, there’s a part of me that knows she isn’t done. That if I interrupt her now, I’ll never hear the rest. She drags in another breath, like she’s diving underwater with every word.
“You’re like my brother, Beau. You always have been.”
“Alise—” I shake my head, heart pounding, already hating where this is going.
“Our moms are best friends,” she presses on, louder now, like she’s building momentum just to keep herself upright. “Our families are tangled together in a way that would make everything so messy if this didn’t work out. And it won’t because it can’t.”
“Stop—” I try to cut in again, reaching for her voice like it’s the only tether I’ve got, but she talks over me, steamrolling through whatever fragile protest I might offer.
“You’re Beau Hendrix,” she chokes out. “The golden boy. The one everyone roots for. And I’m just… me. It’s not worth the risk. We’re not worth the risk.”
“You don’t get to decide that on your own,” I snap, the words torn from me like a wound. “You don’t get to say it meant nothing.”
She finally faces me, but only for a second. Her eyes shine, full of tears she won’t let fall, and it guts me. She opens her mouth like she might say more, like she might tell me the truth hiding beneath all this fear, but then her lips press together in a tight line, and she bolts. The bathroom door slams and locks before I can stand or have a chance to make her stay.
The sound rattles through me harder than it should. A minute ago, she was just across from me on the bed, wrapped in whatever this is blooming between us, and now she has put a literal wall between us. She isn’t just running away from me, but from whatever truth was on the tip of her tongue before she closed that door. I can feel it in my gut, the thing she won’t say out loud. And maybe that’s worse than the words themselves. At least words I could fight for, but this silence? Is like she’s already decided I don’t get a vote.
And all I can do is sit there, drowning in the silence she left behind. I’m not sure how long I sit in the bed, staring at the door,waiting for her to come out and talk to me. But the seconds turn to minutes, and maybe longer, before the pain in my ribs settles into a dull throb. It was long enough for the silence to get loud and for me to decide that letting her walk away without saying everything I should’ve said would haunt me more than any risk of saying too much.
With a groan, I spot the T-shirt crumpled on the floor where I’d tossed it sometime in the night. I bend just enough to grab it, fingers trembling, and tug it over my head. The fabric catches on the adhesive on my chest, a reminder of everything I’m trying to ignore. I tug the hem down low, smoothing it flat, making sure the monitor stays hidden. The last thing I need is questions on top of the silence pressing in on me.
So instead of remaining in my bed, I carefully pull myself up and limp my way toward the bathroom door. The door remains shut, but I try the handle anyway, only to find someone has locked it. The lights are off beneath the door, like Alise is trying to vanish completely. I knock softly once, barely a tap, but get no answer. I rest my forehead against the doorframe, letting out a breath that trembles too much to pretend I’m fine.
“Lisey.”
Her silence claws at me more than her words did. At least when she called it a mistake, I knew what I was up against. But this feels like she’s trying to smother something before it can catch fire. I don’t know if it’s her fear of the change in her feelings or something else, but I can’t get to it if she won’t even let me try.
I wait a moment for her to answer, but get nothing but silence. I press my palm to the wood like I could reach through it if I just wanted it badly enough.
“I’m not here to argue, I’m not gonna push. I just… I need you to know.”
Another beat of silence, but I swear I can hear her breathing on the other side.
“I meant every second of that kiss. I meant it when I touched you like you were the only thing keeping me standing. I meant it when I looked at you and thought,God, it’s always been her,” I whisper, my voice catching at the end.
“I get why you’re scared. Hell, I’m scared, too. This thing between us? It’s big. And messy. And yeah, it could blow everything up if we let it, but you have to know I would never walk away from you. Not unless you told me to.”
I step back, throat thick, heart loud in my ears.
“I’m not gonna chase you, Alise,” I say, voice cracking just enough to betray me. “I won’t beg, but I’ll be here waiting because you’re the only person who’s ever really seen me. If there’s even a part of you that feels what I feel? You’ll find your way back. And I’m not going anywhere, Lisey, unless you tell me to.”
I take one last breath, steadying myself on the frame, and then turn to walk away. Each step away from that door is like moving through sludge. My heart aches for what we could have if she only gives us a chance, but another part of me is hoping like hell she heard me and believes what I said because I mean every fucking word.
The silence in the hallway stretches long after I head toward the kitchen. I’m dragging my feet because I don’t want to miss her opening the door. If she calls me back and says something, anything, but the door stays closed. Every step toward the front of my condo sends a jolt through my side, but I make it to the kitchen, where the silence is different. It’s thicker and hella awkward.
Cooper’s perched on one of the counter stools, sipping coffee like he’s the voiceover narrator in a prestige drama. Cole leans against the pantry door, arms crossed and smirking like thesmug little shit he is. And Darius—poor kid—stands frozen near the fridge, clutching a brown paper bag of muffins like it might protect him from whatever adult-level emotional trauma he just walked in on.
I say nothing as I pass them, heading directly toward the coffee pot and pouring myself a cup of coffee, slow and casual, pretending I’m not internally combusting and that everything inside me doesn’t feel like a live wire. The silence Alise left behind is still clinging to me like smoke, and if I don’t keep moving, I’ll choke on it. So, I hide behind the ritual of making coffee, one step at a time. My face probably turns an even deeper shade of red as I notice I left my room without bothering to make sure the CAM is peaking out from my shirt. Instinct kicks in, and I tug the hem of my T-shirt lower, smoothing it flat over my ribs. The adhesive edges underneath tug uncomfortably, but at least the monitor stays covered. If any of them notice it, the jokes about Alise will vanish fast, and I’m not ready for that conversation. I can feel the heat of every stare like spotlights aimed right at my bare regrets.
“I just want to state for the record,” Darius finally says, breaking the silence with the indignation only a traumatized teenager can deliver, “I was not emotionally prepared for that level of trauma this morning.”
“You should’ve knocked,” I respond without looking up, my voice dry like a shield I can hide behind, even if my chest still feels cracked open from the bathroom door slamming shut a few minutes ago.
