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❛ 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 . . . ❜ 004. guts over glory
━━━━━━━━━━━
Whoever said karma's a bitch sure wasn't wrong.
Beth could list a thousand things that she could chalk up as divine payback.
She hadn't been a saint in her life, that was for sure.
She'd burned her fair share of bridges, spent enough nights vomiting down overcast alleyways, and definitely put too many questionable little substances into her own bloodstream. Those events always had a consequence; whether it was the hangover the day after, the plastic surgeon who would not meet her eye, or the soot in her lung, she could see the intricate relationship between an event and the karma that followed it.
Beth was familiar with it and she knew every single sign, and figured that to a certain extent she probably deserved it too––
But Archer.
Archer didn't deserve to die.
There was no karma for a man who had never even gotten a speeding ticket.
He was good, in fact, he was the only person in this family that Beth was fairly sure hadn't earned themselves a one-way ticket to hell. Sure, he had his faults; he was emotionally estranged, had an ego the size of a decently self-sufficient country, and had the tendency to go through relationships as if they were the tiny complimentary mints you got in fancy restaurants to distract you from your final bill total.
But, overall, he was a fairly good guy.
He tipped well at said fancy dinners, had once held back her hair as she vomited into some shrubbery just off of First Avenue, and happened to be one of the only people on the planet that actually enjoyed infomercials. Archer was good.
He lived an honest life of microwave meals in his Miami condo, had no debts or even social media accounts. He was arrogant, but not the boasting type. Judgemental but not cruel. He lead a successful career as a private neurologist and had Beth's college graduation photo folded in his wallet.
It was her big brother. The bumbling teenager who had watched her fall off her bike when she'd first tried to learn with stabilisers. He'd taken her by the arm, picked the gravel from her aching knees and set her back on the seat. He hadn't committed adultery like Addison or gotten addicted to every narcotic possible like Beth. As far as Beth was concerned, he was the only person that might've actually deserved the benefit of the doubt.
He deserved better.
That's all she could think about as she stood in the hospital cafeteria, trying to count coins from the bottom of her pocket. She was standing at the front of the line, attempting to buy a coffee with whatever money she could find.
