Finding Beauty (Rewrite)

Chapter 30

~Beauty~

She was staring him down in the same intense manner she had when they had first met - only this time she wasn't filled with rage. Her gaze brushed over the formerly bloodied wound below his hairline, the cut that went from his left ear to his chin, the gaping hole in his side. Teigan was staring right back at her with a very different look on his face. 

"Are you going to speak to me?" 

She crossed her arms, letting a slow breath out through her nose. "It's not that I'm giving you the silent treatment. I just don't know what to say." 

"Sure, you do," he said, sitting up straighter and then wincing. She knew the car ride back had been painfully silent. She had barely spoken a single word since they were safely away from Ryan Daniel's brother and it had forced Teigan's normally quiet self to make desperate attempts to pry something out of her. At one point he had stopped the car, thinking she had gone into shock or something. Perhaps she had but that wasn't why she was out of things to say. 

"Are you mad at me?" 

Bethany quit staring and turned away from him. "No." 

"I find that hard to believe." 

"You didn't tell me!" The outburst was more unexpected to her than for Teigan. He nodded his head, beckoning her to explain and holding onto the little glimpse into what was troubling her. "Why didn't you tell me you weren't healing anymore? Or that you were losing strength? You actually could have died and I would have felt so much better had I known that!" 

"Why? It wouldn't have changed anything. We still had to face Daniels one way or another." He gestured to her. "And I think you've forgotten, you could have died too." 

"But you knew that. I didn't keep my mortality a secret from you!" 

"I wasn't trying to be sneaky, Beth. I didn't want to worry you. That's all." 

"So what if it worried me? I'm not made out of paper." She thought of all the nonsense her mother put her through, all the nonsense that came up in her life as a repercussion of her mother's choices, all the malice thrown her way. She thought of saving Teigan out on the lake and outrunning the gunman that was Tyler Daniels. If Teigan still underestimated how much she could take, then he was an idiot. It felt disrespectful to her. 

"I know that. You're right." He subconsciously reached for his hood but recalled he was still wearing his tux. "I'm sorry for not telling you - I should have. I was stupid." 

Bethany couldn't help but imagine all the scenarios where if one little thing had been different, the man beside her would have been dead. Had Tyler Daniels hurried up and killed her, he may have ended up dead too. His face was branded on the insides of her eyelids. All the fear she felt came rushing back and she choked back a sob.

Teigan carefully scooted closer to her, placing an arm around her shoulders. 

"It's over now. Daniels is going to be locked up. He can't hurt either of us ever again." 

She buried her face in his chest and burst into tears. She had caught a glimpse of his own glassy eyes before she hid herself from the rest of the world. "I'm glad you're okay," she mumbled. His familiar scent comforted her and if she forgot that she was crying, she could almost pretend they had been watching a scary movie and the villain was trapped behind a screen, in an entirely fictional world. 

He rested his head atop hers. "You're okay too. Nothing can change that now. You're safe." 

She sniffled and looked up at him - not believing the words that came out of her mouth. "I don't want to be alone tonight. Can you stay out here with me?"