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Beth is a champion at not thinking about things.
She could fill entire neighborhoods with all the things she doesn't think about. Things like: how she can't remember the last time she knew for sure where next month's mortgage payment was coming from. How her mother in law seems to be waiting in the wings for a single misstep so she can push Beth out of her own home and claim her family for her own. How Dean cheating again is a when, not an if, and she should probably feel something about that besides distantly glad that he'll be occupied and out of her way. How she may have bitten off a little more than she can chew with her brilliant outsourcing strategy, and she can never admit it to the girls. How seeing the shadowy figure in her backyard made her heart pound and time crystallize but not from fear even as she cataloged all of the details of the silhouette that were off, bad, fundamentally wrong.
And that's just the things she's not thinking about from this past Sunday.
If she opens it up further, she can not think about how her first reaction to hearing a man, an FBI agent no less, is dead was intense, all-consuming relief. How her mind immediately started clicking through the next steps to getting the business up and running again with the same collected clarity it used to click through complicated recipes. How lining up stacks of her cash that she made by herself according to her plans makes her feel present in her life the way that nothing else does.
Well, nothing else lately.
There were maybe a few other things that used to do that, but Beth is absofuckinglutely not thinking about those things. Not even to think about how she's not thinking about them.
If she starts not thinking about those things (the hoarse whisper of his voice in her ear sending an electric shiver down her spine, the way his dark eyes would meet hers and see right down into her soul, the feeling of being known, completely and utterly, in a way no one else knew her not even Annie or Ruby), it opens the door to other things (the disbelief in his eyes as he touched his chest, the blood blooming on his shirt as he staggered towards her, the gasping, bubbling, choking noises he was making as she fled the loft) and she is absofuckinglutely not thinking about those things most of all.
Beth takes a deep sip of her bourbon, her throat tight and chest aching from how hard she's not thinking about those last things.
Some people will tell you that denial isn't a healthy long term coping strategy, but Beth has yet to find something that works better.
She taps her nails against her glass as she looks around the bar, restless and agitated.
It's over; we're free; he's gone - she can say these things in a bright, chipper voice and go about her day. She can even, and she's aware this part is fairly disturbing even for someone not thinking about as many things as her, sleep like a rock: deep, dreamless, undisturbed. But these moments, when she finds herself forced to slow down and wait, when there isn't anything to plan, to say, to do, these are the moments when all of the things she's not thinking about (first, foremost, and most especially those last things) loom like a tidal wave poised to come crashing down and drown her.
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly through her nose.
The music rolls over her, something inoffensive and trendy with a steady, softly thumping bass. She rolls her neck and her shoulders, lets her hips shimmy a little to the beat (looking over and seeing a vivid point of still in the crowded bar, the click of the bathroom lock louder than a grenade going off in that tiny space, his long fingers gripping her bare thighs, rough and strong and sure). Her hips freeze and her eyes snap open (when had she closed them), bile rushing up to her throat even as her skin hums, and she swears she smells just the faintest whiff of his cologne.
Beth can't stop herself from turning around and scanning the bar, her pulse jumping a little every time her eye catches a piece of him.
There's the guy in the corner with the short black hair who tilts his head at a familiar angle. Another guy by the door with his back to her and narrow shoulders nearly delicate in a black t-shirt that catch her eye. There's a guy crossing the room with a swagger that has nothing on his hypnotic grace but is just reminiscent enough for a moment it's all she can see.
She spins to face the bar, throwing back the rest of her drink.
The bourbon burns it's way down, chasing away the lump in her throat. It's a good bourbon. Not top shelf, but good. Not as good as the bottle he'd left her (was that bottle even that good or did it only seem that way because everything he'd given her was always better, bolder, more vivid than it would've been under any other circumstances) when he took back the keys to the kingdom, but she's not going there because all of the ways she could've done all of that differently are definitely on the list of things she's not thinking about. The important thing is she came through it on top (she only had to kill the king to do it, just like he'd said).
She looks at her phone; Rhea's not even late yet, Beth arrived way earlier than she needed to.
Add this...whatever it is with Rhea to the list of things Beth's not thinking about. She wasn't lying when she told Ruby and Annie she wanted to look after Marcus (what did it say about her that she could talk about killing his dad so calmly), but she held back the rest: that a part of her had to know what kind of a woman he cared for, that she wanted to learn more about him even if it was in shards and fragments she wasn't allowed to ask for, that she was desperate for any possible way to have him back.
She'd never tell anyone how sometimes she was two Beths. There was the one that could smile back at Marcus, hand him a juice box, and keep chatting calmly with Rhea about intramurals or PTA or whatever uncomplicated suburban bullshit she could do entirely on autopilot at this point. Then there was the one just beside her that could barely look at Marcus, that would scream and cry and break things because when he grinned at her something about the curve of his smile looked so much like his dad that breathing felt like knives and it took every single ounce of her willpower not to double over and collapse under the weight of what she'd done (oh god what had she done).
And she has to be very careful to not think about all of those things at once and how they form the shape of grief and loss and regret because she's not, she can't because then she'd have to ask the follow up of why and when did he cross the line from someone who terrified (fascinated) her to becoming she doesn't know how exactly she's supposed to forget (live without).
The bartender set another glass down in front of her, and Beth is momentarily surprised, not realizing she'd signaled for one. Not good, the whole point of not thinking about things was so they wouldn't sneak up and distract her.
She reaches for her bag to pay for the drink. She didn't want to open a tab because that would mean she was drinking, not just having a drink and, worse, drinking alone, which would mean she had something to drink about, and she doesn't because she won. The bartender must read her surprise because he tells her his shift is ending, and she looked like she needed another, so he wanted to set her up before he left on him.
Beth smiles her empty, nice white lady smile. The smile that says thank you, your presence is no longer needed, and I will call your manager if you push me. The smile that's always served as a deflection, a shield, but she'd never consciously wielded like a weapon until she'd met him and he'd made her think about her power: the fact of it, what she could do with it if she tried, how much she liked it (he liked it) when she did.
God, she hates this. She hates that she's struggling to identify (quantify) how she feels about a person she shouldn't feel anything about except relief that she's no longer under his thumb (when had she ever truly been after that first time he'd told her they 're good). She hates that he got under her skin, hates that he upended her life, hates that he got her to do things she would've never even considered before she met him. She hates that he made her learn things about herself that she can't unknow and, worse, doesn't want to.
Like how even though she would die for her kids, being a suburban mom was slow-moving poison. How much she craved the rush of getting away with something no one would ever expect from follow-the-rules, picture-perfect housewife, good girl Beth Boland. How nothing made her feel alive like being tougher, harder, smarter, more on top than a room full of men who thought they were tougher, harder, smarter, more on top than her.
How he was right that last night: she had asked for this, over and over again. Every time he'd let her go, she'd been the one to come back, the one to push for more action, a bigger cut, another piece of the kingdom.
She'd asked for all of it and anything she asked for; he gave her. Except for an easy out.
And she'd killed him for it.
This time she wasn't fast enough with her sip of bourbon, and the sob slipped out, quickly muffled by her hand and her teeth digging viciously into the meat of it.
That was the ugly truth at the bottom of it all. When it really came down to it, and Beth scraped all of her bullshit away, the real reason she'd pulled the trigger was that he wouldn't let her hide from who she was, and she hated him for it. And now he was gone (no) and she couldn't take it back (please) and didn't even know if she wanted to take it back most of the time (she did, oh god she did), and she hated herself for it (all of it).
Beth feels a tear gathering in the corner of her eye and abruptly stands up, pushing her half-finished drink away. She ducks her head and hurries to the bathroom, blinking rapidly to keep the tears from falling.
A crucial part of her coping-through-denial strategy has been—on the occasion it all sneaks up on her and it's really, really hard not to think about any of it—not letting herself cry. There was that first foggy morning when she staggered home and into Dean's arms (would that have been more or less of a betrayal to him—that her first instinct had been to run and hide inside the person he'd never let her pretend to be once he'd seen through her), weeping like her heart had broken (it hadn't, it couldn't) and terrifying the kids but besides that? Nothing. She buried it deep, deeper than everything else. If having a stomach lined with broken glass was the price of never breaking, she'd pay it gladly.
She was Beth Boland, godammit (a boss bitch). She had kids to feed and bills to pay and an empire to build. She didn't have the luxury of breaking.
Miracle upon miracles, even though the bar was crowded, there isn't a line for the bathroom, and she pushes straight inside. The door swings shut behind her as she registers it's a single room, no stalls, and for a split second, she swears he's standing behind her as she stares herself down in the mirror. His dark, steady presence balancing to her pale face and wide, wild eyes; just as lost and desperate as she was the night she (finally) let herself admit all of what she wanted from him.
(The relief of finally acknowledging she wanted him so badly she could barely breathe around it was so potent it made her head spin. She didn't know it was possible to want someone to such a degree of exquisite agony. She knew her experience in that area was extremely limited, but surely most people didn't walk around every day burning with barely contained need the way she did when she was near him, when she watched him prowl across a room to her, when he trailed his finger oh so slowly down the side of her face).
Then she blinks, and he's gone, and she's alone with an ocean of regret and mistakes and things she can never, ever say swimming behind her eyes.
She lurches forward and turns on the faucet, splashing cold water on her face and scrubbing until her cheeks feel raw. She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes until the things she can't stop seeing (his gun, his blood, his body) fracture and disappear into darkness. When she looks up into the mirror again, her eyes are shuttered and face blank.
Beth checks her phone, nothing from Rhea, and sends a quick I'm here, text me when you're close, and I'll grab a table before wetting a paper towel and wiping away the last of her smeared mascara. With precise, brisk movements, she snaps open her bag and fishes out her compact, her lipstick, and her mascara; lining them up click, click, click on the tiny shelf below the mirror.
She can live with this; she has to live like this; she will live like this.
She flips open the compact and methodically dabs away the flush and pallor and shadows that are not grief, are not loss, are not anything other than shock and horror that she'd gone so far, that she'd lost control, that she'd killed a man (that man).
She swivels out her lipstick and holds it up, the tiniest, most barely-there of tremors quelling under her gaze. She paints her lips in soft, sure strokes.
She stares into her eyes as she sweeps on mascara, studying them intently for any hint of shadow. They stare back, bright and clear.
All better.
When she steps out of the bathroom and makes her way back to the bar, she's firmly back in control, the other Beth shut away and silent. She sees her half-finished, abandoned drink was away, and as she grabs a new chair, she dismisses the new bartender with an "I'll wait for my friend."
Slightly concerned, she checks her phone again. Rhea is late now, not by much but except for the last few days she's always been where she said she'd be when-
"She ain't coming."
The noise of the bar falls away, and there's a rushing in her ears because that voice—but it's not, it can't—he's not, he can't—he's gone, dead, gone—she'd shot, killed, he died—his voice—
But when she turns, slowly, not able to breathe even a little bit, he's there, sliding into the chair next to her like old times, like he never left. His dark eyes are intent on hers like always but shuttered and closed in a way they haven't been when they looked at her in a long, long time and everything is too cold, too hot, too much. Her stomach bottoms out even as her heart soars and both Beths, all the Beths, come together in a rising chorus, shrieking he's here he's here he's here, and all she can do is stare because he's-
"I think you might need that drink, huh?"
Rio.