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the first time beth is left behind, she is nine and her mother is dead, her car a wreck on the side of the road. everyone talks about how terrible it was, a horrible accident. beth keeps her mother’s last words to herself.
she’s fifteen when she leaves jolene behind. her first friend, her best friend. she packs her suitcase, what little items she has, and then she’s gone. it hurts, but not as much. beth decides that it’s better to leave than be left.
she leaves townes. she’s sure of that much. she leaves him in his hotel room, she leaves him staring after her taxi on the steps of the hotel. that one hurts too but she can’t bring herself to cry. after all, what is there to mourn?
she’s not sure who leaves who with mrs wheatley (alma, mother, mom). she dies in a hotel room in mexico city but beth doesn’t stop seeing her, doesn’t stop feeling her, until she’s laid to rest in lexington and the house is redone. alma left beth in that hotel and beth left alma in lexington. it hurts more than her birth mother and so beth leaves that box blank.
harry leaves her, after weeks of chess and drinking and sex. he stands in the foyer with his bags packed and her heart hurts. he puts her pills on the table and tells her to be careful and then he leaves. she doesn’t cry but she aches. (next time they meet she’s hungover and bitter and he tells her that she broke his heart. she laughs.)
next is benny. she leaves him in new york while she goes to paris and she leaves him in new york while she gets high and drinks back home and then she calls him and he ends it. and that hurts. beth always thought that benny couldn’t love anyone more than himself, more than chess, but his voice is harsh and hurt when he tells her not to call and she‘s left to cry as she listens to the dull tone of the receiver.
her eyes are bloodshot and her head is pounding when she sees jolene again. her smile is bright and her voice is the same and beth swears she can feel her heart begin to stitch back up, even as she goes back. back to the trailer, back to the orphanage.
she goes to moscow alone, a government-issued bodyguard for protection and jolene’s money paying her way. she’s alone again and ready to focus on chess when she sees townes again. in a crowd of reporters pushing and shouting for attention he is still and quiet, smiling at her like he did when she was fifteen and unranked, yet still so much better than anyone else in the room. and she invites him to her room and he stays. he plays and watches and advises and she’s beginning to feel like it could be enough.
she gets a call to her hotel room, the night before the end. she takes the phone and then she can do nothing but smile because there’s benny and harry and matt and mike and even benny’s friends who had only met her the once. it‘s friendship and forgiveness and support and staying and for the first time in over a decade, beth feels light.