is there a doctor here?

It felt like there was a suction cup below her breast bone, pulling in her chest, so that she would be turned inside out. With every word he spoke the tightness inside her got more extreme, her heartbeat became so strong that she could feel it in her toes. She wanted to say something, anything, to tell him to shut up, to say she loved him back, anything, but her throat felt horse, and she wished the bottle she was holding was water instead of cheap wine. 

The two of them had been standing on a cliff’s edge for as long as she could remember, neither of them brave enough to jump into it. Every rock below was a reason not to. One was Ben, one was the fear of commitment they both shared, one was the risk of losing the one person who they could ever count on. Hal had just jumped off the cliff and now the question was wether or not she would jump too. She loved him, God of course she loved him, she loved him like she had loved Ben before he crumbled her heart into a broken thing. Maybe she loved him even more than she had ever loved Ben, it was all so messed up in her head. She was looking down from the cliff and she was getting dizzy. She had two options, run as fast as she could, or jump too. 

“I think about you too.” She croaked out the words before she knew it, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. She wanted to jump too.”I’ve thought about you every day of my life. It should have been you, it was always supposed to be you. It was you on your 21st birthday, it was you when I would scrape my knees when we were kids and you were the one to hold my hand. It was you when I was with Ben.” She felt the pressure behind her chest release, something that had always been wrong, her whole life, was now in the right place. She had loved Ben, but she had always loved Hal, she always wanted it to be him, even if she couldn’t admit it. 

“I’m scared, I’m really fucking scared.” Her voice was cracking, and she hoped he couldn’t hear it. Beatrice Duncan’s voice didn’t crack. But there was one thing that she was afraid of and that was love. “I’m going to fuck this all up, and you’re going to hate me.” As she spoke, she let her hand drift to his cheek. “You’re the only thing in my life that I can count on Hal, the only goddamn thing that I care about. I can’t lose you, not like a lost him.”

“God,” he dropped one of her hands to swipe a tear from his eye. He didn’t care how it looked, his life had just clicked into place and he was not about to pass up the opportunity to feel. “Fuck it up?” He shook his head slowly. “Beatrice. There is absolutely no way you could fuck this up. We’ve been fucking things up for years. This is real. This is us. And I wouldn’t have you any other way. I know who you are. I know who I am. I’ve known the worst parts of you, and I love you even more for it.” 

“I am not scared anymore. I know that we were meant to be together.” Ben flashed through his mind for a moment and he wondered how his idiotic brother would take the news. Not well, if he had to guess. “I should have done this years ago.” He brushed his fingers down her face and wrapped his hand around her neck. The breeze hit him then, like a crescendo. How could this not be their moment? Suddenly, he didn’t regret waiting. It’s always sweeter after a long wait. Goosepimples erupted across his arms, and a shiver went down his spine. They were close enough to feel each other’s breath, his head was lowered, just enough to tease. 

“I’ve gotten so used to you Beatrice,” he shook his head, causing his lips to brush back and forth across her nose. “I’ve gotten so attached to you. And I know that if you give me the chance I can prove to you every single day that I’m not him.” He was crying again, this time he wasn’t sure if it was the manly kind of tears. “But I can’t let you go. You and I, we’re it kid.”

Despite herself she blushed at his words and thanked her lucky stars that it was dark enough to hide her crimson skin. She would never admit it but she blushed because part of her, a large part, did want to know and thought about him that way. Often, had for quite some time now, even when she was just a teenager or when she was with Ben, there was always a part of her that thought of Hal in ways she wasn’t allowed to. “I think we’re too drunk for this.” She said, with a forced laugh. She really wasn’t that drunk at all, perhaps a little tipsy, but that was the extent of it. She mostly just wanted to stop thinking about what Hal would be like in bed. 

“I don’t want to talk about him anymore.” She said taking a chug of her wine. She hated thinking about him, what he did and said to her, both good and bad. She had loved him, he had known what that meant for her, and he still stomped on her heart all the same. He had ruined her and he didn’t even know it, or didn’t care. Once again she got the familiar feeling that she picked the wrong brother, if only Hal had been there first. “I know that you would have…” She nodded, soberly before turning to him and giving him a bitter sweet smile.

“Oh yeah? Who on this beach am I going to fall in love with? It’s just the two of us.” As soon as she said those words she wished she could take them back. Maybe she was drunker than she thought she was, showing her cards like that. She knew better than that, she knew better than to make herself vulnerable, a target. 

“You talk about me?” She was touched and her face broke into a happy and somewhat excited smile. She felt almost giddy to know that Hal talked about her to the kids at the hospital, the people she knew he cared about the most. “Well what do you think they’re seeing?” Her voice was softer than usual and part of her didn’t want to know his answer, she was so giddy and nervous. 

His face flashed with something akin to panic. There was something so dangerous about the game they played. He loved it, but he also hated it. He was so fucking tired of pretending all of the time. If she said jump, he would jump. If she gave even the smallest indication she was ready he would drop on one knee and propose to her with the ring he had picked out as soon as he got back from the war. The waves seemed to be getting louder as he stared into her eyes, all else gone from his mind. 

It wasn’t even her body he wanted. He would go his entire life without even thinking about sex if that was what she wanted. He would gladly step into the void for her. “What else am I going to talk about?” There was no smile on his face now, just a fierce gaze that followed her like a spotlight. He thought he saw it, the hunger, reflected in her. 

“What else do you think I think about? God, Bea. You want to know the hardest part of my life? Looking my wanker brother every morning and not fucking strangling him. You... you have no idea what it’s like to have someone as the center of your universe. You could murder me and I wouldn’t mind because if I had to die at anyone’s hands I’d want it to be yours.” He grabbed the wine bottle from her and dropped it in the sand. “I’m sick of pretending like it’s okay when it’s not. I need you to know. I need you to know that I have never loved anything in my life like I love you.”

“And the worst part is you are inside me. You are in every corner of my soul. I’ve tried to stop thinking about you, I really have. I’ve never wanted this for you. I’ve never wanted you for me because I’m not as good as I pretend to be. I’m not Ben, but I--you deserve someone who will be able to attend to your every need. But God when I see you I think about all of the things that I want to do with you.”

Bea rolled her eyes at Hal, taking another swig of her drink as he talked about how fit she had been. She was beginning to finally get pretty tipsy and somewhere in the back of her mind she registered that she had finished at least half of the bottle already. “Oh so you’re into the kinky stuff then?” She giggled, trying her hardest to resist the urge to reach out and wrap her hand around his neck. “You must really have a death wish.”

“Please, don’t tell me how much he loved me.” She shook her head, biting the inside of her cheek angrily. “I’m so tired of the whole ‘you always hurt the ones you love’ bullshit. If thats really true then maybe no one should fall in love. If Ben had loved me, he wouldn’t have fucked me up the way he did.” She wanted to ring his neck. She wanted to scream at him until he burst into flames but not as much as she wanted to take it all back. All the kisses, all the I Love Yous, and stollen glances. All the fights. She would give anything to start again. 

She was slightly surprised by Hal’s severe words about his brother and how his eyes looked somewhat darker, and it wasn’t just the dim lighting. “Who am I going to find who thinks that Hal?” She whispered into the night sky, all of a sudden feeling a chill go up her spine which she told herself was only because she was standing in freezing cold water in the middle of the night and for no other reason. “Someone who thinks I’m wondering.”

“What would give them that idea?” She said, laughing as if she found the idea of them ever getting married to be some sort of practical joke. She tried to sound convincing. “This is true, you would be wearing the dress and I would have a lovely suit.” Yep, she was definitely drunk. “Even though I would look damn good in that dress.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Beatrice?” He had been handcuffed before, which he enjoyed, but there was nothing like classic sex on the beach. He’d had that once, when he was 15 and his parents rented a huge house in Monaco. They had called it “roughing it” because there were no servants quarters--no one to wait on their every will. Hal had loved it, he was quick to find a bird and some booze and loose himself in all the things he had to keep bottled up in England. 

“Ben has his own way of doing thing. I’m not saying it’s right--I’m saying that’s what he knows. That’s what he was taught. You don’t learn a lot when you are a kid being raised by four different nannies. There’s something about being tossed around that makes you perpetually childish. We didn’t have someone to say “that’s wrong, don’t act like that.” My aunt did it for a little while but there’s only so much parenting you can do when you don’t have backup. I’m not trying to say that he was right, or even explain away his actions. He loved you in a way that he felt was real. I don’t think it was, because if I loved you, I wouldn’t treat you like that. I’d treat you with respect.” 

“You can find love in all of the nooks and crannies of life. Find it here--on this beach.” He wanted to pretend for just a moment that they were laughing lovers, coming in and out with the tide. If only just in his head, he could see them swaying with the waves, pretending their love would last beyond this night.”

She ran after him into the water, letting out a sound mixed with a scream and a giggling. “Fuck thats cold!” She breathed, jumping up and down in the waves as if that would make her warmer. She chugged some more of the crap wine they bought, determined to finish off the bottle by the end of the night. “Why did you think this was a good idea? Are you trying to kill me?” Her teeth were chattering slightly and the waves were beginning to get higher, making the hem of her dress soaked in salt water. 

“Rolanda.” Bea answered, scrunching up her nose. “She was a bitch.” She only hung around them that summer because she had a thing for Hal, barely even looked at Bea and when she did, it was with a upturned nose. “Why? Looking to get back in touch with her?” She meant it as a joke, but somehow it didn’t end up sounding like one. Instead she sounded put out and perhaps and little bit bitter. She silently cursed herself, wishing the water was warm enough to sink her head under. 

The mention of Benedick made a lump rise in her throat. The past year and a half she had tried to pretend like he didn’t exist, that he had never touched her or her life but her total inability to open up to anyone was a constant reminder of how he had ripped her heart out and ate it. “I wish… I wish I could take it all back. Everything that happened with Dick and I.” She looked up at the stars, anywhere but at Hal right now. “He told me he loved me and–Fuck you must have thought I was such an idiot, falling for him when I knew what he was like. I always thought I had more self control than that.” She pulled her eyes away from the stars to finally look at Hal, right in his eyes. “I would do anything for things to be different.” I wish you had been first, she wanted to say.

“Well I love them.” She said smiling happily. It was nice to feel needed. “I’ll be there when we get back.” It was nice to have an excuse to visit Hal at the hospital, she didn’t have a lot of excuses unless she was bleeding from an major organ. “

“Nah, she was well fit but she wasn’t really my type. Her personality was a mixture between stale bread and Kim Kardashian. Not my type.” He smirked. “I prefer birds who could snap my neck in two just as easily as cracking an egg.” There were a few girls he’d dated in the past who had a bit lacking in the personality department, especially back in secondary school. That was due mostly to a lack of personality among heiresses. They tended to be shallow and vain. 

“Dick has his faults,” he studied her face closely. “He has a lot of them. One thing Dick has never been bad at is choosing a girlfriend. He’s a real sod, he is. But...” he felt the need to defend his brother, even at this moment. There was something so vulnerable and broken about Dick that was hard for him to ignore. He was his older brother, and he was supposed to be wiser--or something. Not that he was wiser, just better looking.

“Dick loved you in his own way. He’s not good at love, he generally tends to fuck it all up. That doesn’t mean he didn’t love you. Not as you should be loved. You should be loved with all of the passion and desire you deserve. I think he’s a fucking asshole not to see how wonderful you are. And he might be too late for your heart, but I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s right on time.”

She let him talk and she listened. She could listen to Hal for hours and hours, that was always how it had been. When she was younger he was always the one who she wanted to read to her before she went to bed, when they got older he was always the one she went to when she couldn’t sleep. Beatrice prided herself at not being the sentimental type, but not when it came to Hal. Hal made her all types of sentimental. 

She reached out and took his hand in hers when he was done. Of course she remembered his birthday, she had been 17 and she hadn’t seen Hal since he had left for Iraq. It was a perfect night, she remembered she had wished she could have kissed him then. “I remember not wanting to go to sleep until I saw you.” She had stayed up, checking her phone every couple of minutes and drinking cup after cup of spanish coffee. “It was a perfect night.”

She had the feeling again that he could kiss her right now and she would let him, which is what made her drop his hand and grab at the wine bottle and taking a large swig. “You better catch up.” She said, taking another swig. She wanted them to be drunk enough to make mistakes that they secretly wanted. 

She kicked off her shoes and peeled off the light sweater she had over her summer dress and looked anywhere but at Hal. This whole trip there had been something between them that could charge up a whole room, something new but also completely familiar. It made her nervous and giddy, like the feeling someone got right before a kiss. 

He wanted her. He needed her like he needed air to breathe. His whole body yearned to reach out to her, but instead he tore down the beach to the water. It was cold, but the kind of cold that stops your blood from pumping into the wrong places. Hal needed to forget--and letting Bea seem him too excited was not going to help with that. How much longer could he keep himself contained? That would depend on the amount of alcohol he consumed. He took a swig from the vodka and smiled, the sweet taste of inhibition.

“Do you remember that night that I kissed----what was her name, Alana? Rolanda? Alyssa? That Russian girl, her dad was a diplomat or something.” Not that it mattered, honestly, Russians weren’t fit matches for someone from his family. They held no sort of power or political sway. “--anyways I kissed her on the beach and the whole family started screaming? I thought my mum almost fainted, she was so embarrassed. She said afterwards she’d rather I kissed my own brother.” 

The story was meant as a distraction, to keep the subject off topic and away from them. That was something he could never start talking about. It would ruin the fragile walls he’d built around himself when she chose Dick. Not that she really chose between them, she just... Dicked. She got Dicked. The thought of his brother and Beatrice together was enough to make him want to vomit. He turned away so she couldn’t see the darkness flash across his eyes.

She couldn’t help but sway slightly at the sound of her name from his lips. She wanted to tell him to say it again, please, it made her feel alive for once. But she didn’t, instead she brought the cigarette to her lips and inhaled deeply, before letting go and watching the smoke float up into the air. She remembered the first cigarette she ever had, Hal had given it to her the night of her 18ths birthday. She still had the empty pack saved in a box filled with her favorite memories. 

She only nodded her agreement. She didn’t want to talk about Ben, or think about him, or see him. A part of her hated her parents for forcing her to come on this trip all as a way to get her to see Ben again. If only they knew the whole story, they might not be so willing to forgive him and understand why Beatrice couldn’t. 

“Yes how do you know?” She arched her eyebrow and leaned in a little bit so she could smell his cologne mixed with the cigarette. She wondered if he could tell the way the idea of having her wicked way with him outside of the shitty pub made her pulse quicken. She realized that if he leaned in and followed up on his statement, she would let him. A million times over. “I thought you would never ask.” 

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” She teased, a wicked smile spreading across her face as she silently agreed with him by leading him into the nearest store and purchasing the cheapest bottle of red wine they had. “This should do the trick.”

“I’ve always known.” He said dramatically. It took everything in him not to kiss her right inside the liquor store, but somehow he held his ground. He always wanted to kiss her, thus he had a lot of restraint built up over the years. He remembered the way it felt when she turned 18 and he realized that he could act on his feelings. Unfortunately, he also remembered how Dick had gotten there first.

“This is absolute piss. Look, it even has a fucking screw top.” He bought a fifth for good measure, there was no way they could get drunk off of some 6% two buck chuck. That wouldn’t do--no--they had to get drunk. He led them to the beach just down the way, taking a moment to admire the waves from afar. There were a million good memories of the beach--his favorite being his 21st birthday.

“You remember my 21st birthday?” He kicked off his shoes and picked them up, letting the sand slide over his feet. “We came to Spain--it was only a few months after my accident in Iraq. I was so scared to fly that I nearly threw up. When I got to the hotel the first thing I did was come to your room and order room service,” he grinned at the memory. “We decided to go down to the beach in the freezing cold. It was like 7 am or something. I had a late flight.” 

The two families had been going on these vacations together her whole life, she used to love them when she was a kid she could hardly wait for them. She would talk about it for weeks and weeks and her parents could hardly get to go to do anything besides think about the trip, she would be over flowing with excitement. As she got older she would look forward to the trip for different reasons, seeing the Smith brothers in their swimsuits, sneaking their parents alcohol and drinking it on the roof of the hotel. Then she got her heart broken and Spain wasn’t big enough for both and Dick anymore. 

If all of Spain wasn’t big enough, the pub they were all at certainly wasn’t. No drink was helping the knot in her chest to loosen or Benedick’s stare to feel any less heavy so she silently slipped away into the starry night. She was standing there, seeing if she could count every star in the sky before she went back inside when she heard the door creaking. 

She let out a sigh of relief when it was just Hal. Her Hal. He was the only thing worth a damn on this trip, the only thing that made her thing that made her think that maybe, just maybe, it was all worth it. “You’re my wight knight, Hal Smith.” She said taking the cigarette from him, brushing her fingers against his only a little bit on purpose. 

“So where you looking for me,” She leaned in pressing the tip of her cigarette to his already lilt one to light her own. “or did you come looking for me?”

“I always look for you, Beatrice Duncan.” His soldier reflexes had never worn off--if there was a crowd he would scan it for her familiar face. His stomach would do somersaults and he would pray to God that she wouldn’t be able to tell how much he wanted to strip her down. It was more than that, of course, he wanted to hold her hand and kiss her in the rain and all of that cheesy bullshit. 

“But especially today, with all of this bullshit,” he waved his hand towards the pub. Their parents were always trying to force Beatrice and Benedick together. It made him crazy, made him want to throw beer bottles and throttle his idiot brother. It was his goddamn fault for breaking Beatrice’s heart into a million pieces. Beatrice deserved more than to be cast aside just because his brother couldn’t make up his mind. 

“How do I know you weren’t stalking me, B? How do I know that you aren’t madly in love with me and looking to take advantage of me right outside of this shitty pub?” He laughed, avoiding her eyes so she couldn’t see how hopeful they were. “Let’s ditch this bitch. Their drafts taste like they haven’t cleaned the taps in 50 years. Wouldn’t be surprised, to say the least.”