Amazing Grace [H.S]

one

*italics are flashbacks*

*****

"Beckett?" a small voice emits itself through a tiny crack in her door.

Her heart lurches at the familiar voice of her younger brother, but she wanted to be alone. She needed to be alone. She couldn't talk to anyone. She didn't even know if she had enough energy to speak one syllable, let alone have a full conversation.

She looks up from her spot on the bed, the light from the hallway illuminating her otherwise pitch black room. Noah's eyes are the only thing she sees—his tired, but innocent looking eyes. She knew he had no idea what was going on, he was way too young to understand, but still, she can see a hint of worry in them and that's all it takes for her cold demeanour to wash away.

"Yeah, Noah?" Beckett asks, her voice hoarse and rough from the many tears she had cried since early that morning.

The door creaks open slightly and she can tell that he's reluctant to enter the room. It isn't till she slowly sits up and leans against her headboard does the soft pitter-patter of his feet fill the silence.

"I brought you your favourite," Noah reasons, handing over a cup of hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows on top. "Daddy told me it might make you feel better. Chocolate always makes me feel better."

Beckett musters up a small smile, thanking him before taking a small sip of the cocoa. It warmed up her insides, but that was about all it warmed up—everything else felt cold and numb.

"Beckett?" Noah's small voice echoes again, but this time he's sitting on the edge of her bed, fiddling with his hands in his lap. There's a small pause before he looks up at her through his lashes and asks, "Are you going to be okay?"

She pauses, unsure of how to answer that. She's okay in the way every person needs to be okay. She's still breathing, she still knows how to smile, she's still alive.

But then, sometimes she's not okay. Sometimes she can't even go a day without wanting to stay locked up in her room, tucked under the covers and away from the whole world. Sometimes she can't sleep, thoughts of both him and Grace filling her mind, thinking of the abundance of ways life could have gone differently. Sometimes she cries- she cries and cries until she feels like she'll never stop. Until her heart physically aches and her eyes are so tired that she doesn't have the energy to do anything but just sit there in silence.

She reaches over to a concerned looking Noah, ruffling his hair to try and comfort him.

"I'll be okay," Beckett replies, but her voice quivers and she knows the tone of her voice sounds unsure. She didn't know if she was going to be okay—she wanted to believe that someday she would be, but she knew the ache of her heart was saying otherwise.

*****

It was raining, sometime in May where probably every other city in the world was experiencing a hot, sunny day, but this was Afton after all and Beckett knew sunny days were about as rare as seeing a nun in a bikini around here. She never complained about it, though; in fact, she actually quite liked the rain, although her pale skin would probably have objected to that statement. It was something that she was accustomed to, like the way she would wake up at quarter past seven every single morning even without an alarm set or the way that she would always instinctively prepare a cup of coffee for her father- two sugars only- and set it on the table for him before she would leave the house.

It was almost routine; waking up every morning to hear the drizzle against her bedroom window, but it wasn't something that she particularly enjoyed walking in, especially on days where her umbrella lay forgotten somewhere in her messy room rather than in her hands, shielding her from the hard droplets.