Chapter 22: Beau

Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
I placed my hands over my ears and took a deep breath, nausea rolling in my gut as the clock above the cafeteria continued to make that horribly obnoxious noise. I’d come here to escape the incessant droning of my friends, but not even the evening silence of the empty cafeteria seemed to help. Everywhere I went, every place I stopped, something else caught my attention, burrowing into my ear canal and under my skin until I felt like I could crawl out of my own body and shed a hundred skins.
These fucking meds weren’t working. At least, not anymore. Then again, they rarely ever lasted long even if they did work for a moment. The compulsion was too strong. That’s why I was here, at Blackwood Academy, and not out on my own trying to make a life for myself. My OCD was bad, really bad, and tonight it was worse than it had been in weeks. Maybe even months.
I dropped my head onto the empty lunch table and took a deep breath, and then another, trying to focus on something, anything, that wasn’t the ticking of the clock above my head. I didn’t have the energy to get up and go somewhere else, because I knew the relief would be less than temporary. On days like today, there was no escaping the torture of my diagnosis.
After a few more minutes of unsuccessful breathing attempts, I shoved away from the table and began to pace the empty floor, trying to focus on the sound of my footsteps instead of the rhythmic tick of the clock in my head. When that, too, was deemed unsuccessful, I stormed out of the cafeteria and stalked down the academy hallway. The buzzing in my head intensified as I walked, and I picked up my pace, ignoring the startled looks from intakes who had to dart out of my way as I stormed past. My mind was such a mess that I wasn’t even seeing them there. I knew if I stopped for too long, the ticking in my brain would grow louder, and I couldn’t risk that happening.
I hadn’t realized I’d managed to make it outside into the brisk, cold evening air until I ran smack-dab into somebody coming up the front steps of the academy. I muttered a curse word under my breath but didn’t stop, not even when the person shouted my name.
“Beau,” she said, but my steps didn’t slow. I was mumbling under my breath. What I was saying, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t even think straight. “Beau!” the voice behind me called again, and I was caught off guard as they grabbed a hold of my arm and jerked me to a sudden stop, yanking me back to a momentary reality.
“Eve,” I said, and it took me a moment to focus on her face. She seemed confused, probably wondering why I’d just shoved past her and hadn’t stopped.
“You look like shit,” she said, tilting her head to the side. I closed my eyes, stopping to focus on her voice as the ticking in my head slowly but surely began to fade.
“Eve,” I said again, and I was surprised when she squeezed my arm.
“Are you okay?” she asked gently. “Are you running from something?”
“Yes.” I took a breath of the night air and shook my head like a dog, forcing the torture from my brain. “My mind. I’m running from me.”
She didn’t answer when I said this, but she didn’t release her grip on me. And suddenly, strangely, I felt better.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “I didn’t see you there.”
“You didn’t see anybody, it seemed like,” she said gently. She turned her body to face me, grabbing my other arm with her free hand until she was holding me in front of her, eyes studying my face. “Breathe,” she said, and I did as she instructed, focusing on the beat of my own heart against my chest. After a moment of silence in which she stood by my side, she dropped her hands from my arms, allowing me a moment to get it together.
“Thank you,” I said after a moment, the fuzz clearing from my head. “I was just—having a fit, of sorts. Sometimes my OCD kicks in and I can’t focus. Everything just becomes super overwhelming. But running into you helped, actually.”
She smiled. What a beautiful fucking smile.
“Glad I could help,” she said softly. “I almost let you go, but you seemed to be in a bad way.” She wrapped her arms around herself and looked over my shoulder, past me and into the distance. “Where are you headed?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I admitted, and Eve smiled again.
“May I walk with you?”
“To nowhere?”
“To nowhere.”
Realizing that it was cooling down quickly and Eve wasn’t wearing a jacket, I shrugged mine off and draped it over her shoulders, then took a chance and offered her my hand as we began to walk away from the academy and across the yard, through the winding trail leading down to the dock on the water. Eve’s hand was so small in mine, and she kept a pleasant grip on me as we walked, her body pressing against mine for warmth.
“Thank you for your company,” I said as we picked our way carefully over jagged rocks and roots in the ground. “Sometimes I just need a small break from Keane and Teague.”
“I get it,” she said. When she spoke, condensation puffed into the air in front of her. She shivered, and I drew her in closer. “I know you’re all decent men,” she continued. “But you come off differently than the others. You’re not as—in your face, I guess.”
I laughed, squeezing her hand as the lap of the ocean waves against the rocky shore reached our ears. “I can be just as bad sometimes,” I admitted to her. “We all have our moments, you know. And I know it can be a little rough. I’m sorry.” When Eve didn’t respond to this, I tried a different tactic. “Were you able to see Kasey?” I asked. “How is she?”
“Mr. Carter let me visit her,” she said with a nod, slowing pace as the dock and water came into view. A light fog rolled out over the water eerily, but it was so beautiful that I briefly wondered why I didn’t come down here more often. “She seems to be doing okay. She said the same thing you guys did; that there’s nothing I could have done to prevent it.”
I nodded as she shivered again against me, stopping to pull my jacket tighter around her shoulders to help with the chill.
“That’s just how it is here,” I told her, noticing the warm flush up her neck and into her cheeks. “We’re all a little fucked up. You seem to be the only shade of normal there is.”
Eve shook her head and looked away from me, as if remembering something unpleasant. She wrinkled her nose and chuckled humorlessly. “I pretend to be normal,” she said. “Because being me is more difficult to face.”
“What do you have to face, sweetheart?” I asked, but I already knew it was a pointless endeavor. She wasn’t ready to tell any of us why she was here. Hopefully, in her own time, she finally would.
Eve sighed but didn’t speak as she proceeded towards the dock. She took a seat, pulling her knees up to her chest, and I sat down beside her as we watched the waves crash against the rocks.
“Do you think you’ll ever leave this place, Beau?” she asked, catching me off guard, and it took a moment for me to respond to her.
“I don’t know,” I admitted finally, glancing down to focus on my hands. “My OCD is really bad sometimes. We haven’t found a medication that helps control it completely.”
“What’s it like?” she asked. “When your OCD acts up? What does it feel like?”
I sighed, hesitating, but only briefly. Only Keane, Teague, and John Carter knew the extent of my illness. With knowledge came power, and being a Rogue meant we couldn’t let anybody take the power from us. But Eve was different. She was innocent. And for the first time in a long time, I felt okay speaking about it.
“It can rise in many forms,” I admitted. “Sometimes it’s something like sounds. Like no matter where I go, I can’t escape from the ticking or the dinging or whatever is in the air. Nothing soothes me, and even complete silence sets me off.” I took a breath and focused on the roll of the waves. Being here, with her, made things better. I could focus on this conversation and not fixate on the sounds around me. “Other times it’s worse,” I continued, and Eve glanced over, her eyes roaming over my face. I couldn’t meet her gaze. “Other times I fixate on things like injuries and death. For hours, even days, all I can think about it death. How people die, the morbidity behind it. Sometimes I wonder about all the ways I could die, or how I could kill myself. Sometimes it goes even a step further than that, and I fixate until I self harm, because only the pain I inflict on myself can distract from the thoughts that run rampant.”
Eve was quiet as she took this in, focusing once more on the lap of the water before us. She shook her head and took a breath, scooting in closer to me. I put my arm around her shoulders, pleased that I hadn’t scared her away with that revelation. Not yet, anyway.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally, dropping her head against my shoulder. “I didn’t know it was so bad. I’m sorry you have to deal with that.”
I shrugged, resting my lips on the top of her head. “I know you think we’re bad guys,” I said. “But Keane and Teague are the reason I’m still around. We’re fucked up, you know, but we’re fucked up together. We—take care of each other, I guess you could say.”
“I get it,” she murmured. “I really do.” She was quiet for a moment before speaking again. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said, and then pushed herself to her feet, much to my dismasy. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for someone like me to come between the three of you.”
“That’s not how we feel.” I stood, as well, reaching for her hand, but Eve pulled away, shrugging off my jacket before handing it to me. She shook her head and looked down at the ground. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But none of you need one more fucked up person to add to this little group.”
Before I could respond to this or argue further, Eve walked away, and I knew that chasing her would only make things worse. I watched her go, my heart dropping, whatever sense of bonding I thought we’d just had sizzling into oblivion as Eve vanished into the trees and disappeared from my sight.