I Try

Chapter 26 - Never The Same

Beth's Point of View

I stood in the middle of the room, watching the expression on Nash's face change so rapidly I wasn't sure what he was feeling. My sister closed the door behind her, leaving us alone for the first time in months. I shifted uncomfortably, wondering what he would say.

"Beth..."

"I wasn't...I wasn't really planning on telling you this way. I wasn't planning on telling you-"

"At all?" he asked, and this time I knew he was feeling pain.

"You were marrying my sister," I said with accusation filling my voice.

"I know. I am so sorry."

I looked away when the lump in my throat prevented me from speaking. I had so much I wanted to say to him, so many things that had occurred to me over the months that I spent miles away. But it all evaporated when he looked at me. And I was mute.

"Beth, I don't know how to tell you everything I have wanted to tell you since that night. I shouldn't have told you the way I just did up on that altar, but I thought that you should know--"

Nash stopped when we heard yelling coming from the hall. It was a man's voice. It sent terror straight down my spine.

Nash paused, listening. He walked over to the door, pressing his ear against it. "Stay here."

"What?"

Before I could move or say another word, he had opened the door and stepped into the hallway. I could hear clearly now.

"Put the gun down," I could hear Nash say. I could still see his figure from the doorway. I walked closer despite every alarm bell in my head telling me not to. My heart was beating so hard it was almost impossible for me to hear what was said next. But I did hear.

"You don't want to do this," he continued. "I promise you, you don't want to do this. I understand the temptation. I do. But it won't solve anything."

"Shut up!"

The sound made me dizzy. I knew that voice. It had visited me not long ago at school. Marley.

I pressed my left foot against the edge of the carpet that separated the hallway from the doorway. I felt my head whirling with sounds, with memories. I pulled my phone from my pocket as if someone else was controlling my fingers and dialed 911. I didn't speak or put it up to my ear, but I held it out so that the voices from the hallway could be heard.

"I said shut up!"

I could hear the 911 operator through the speaker on my phone, but it was too quiet to be heard by anyone else in the hallway. I glanced quickly over at the window that overlooked the ballroom. I could see the latch was unlocked. 

"Please, man, don't use that gun. Just turn around and walk away and we'll all pretend this never happened. No one will come after you." I calculated in my head how many steps it would take for me to get from the doorway to the window. It looked like eight. It would probably take two or three seconds.

I set my phone down on the floor at the doorway and walked as quietly as I could toward the window.

"I'll count to three. On three, you put the gun down and walk away. Deal? No one comes after you." I heard Nash trying to bargain with him. Over the blood pulsing through my ears I could hardly process a thought, yet I felt dread rising in me.

I reached the window, using shaking fingers to pull it open a few centimeters. When it made no audible sound, I pulled a little more, wide enough for my leg to fit through. A little more and my bottom half would be able to perch on the sill.