Chapter 8 #2
She turned away from the mirror, the phone burning warm against her ear.
“It’s me,” she said finally, voice thin and breathless. “Hazel.”
There was a pause on the other end, just long enough for her heartbeat to fill the silence like a drum.
Then he said it back, like he was trying to confirm what he’d heard. Like he couldn’t quite believe it. “Hazel.”
And something in her stilled, like a shaken jar settling quiet again.
He didn’t rush her, didn’t demand to know why she was calling. He just said her name like he meant it… like it was the most important thing he could offer her in that moment.
She breathed through her nose, slow and shallow, and tried to find words. “I didn’t mean to— I know it’s late,” she started, stumbling. “I just... something happened. I’m okay, but—“
“Tell me,” Beck cut in, quiet and calm.
His voice was different, now. There was a shift within him, and though it was small, she could sense it instantly.
Hazel gripped the edge of the sink tighter and cleared her throat. “A tree came down out front. I was outside when it happened. I heard something, so I went to check, and I didn’t see it coming. I got out of the way, mostly. The porch took the worst of it.”
She hesitated, eyes pressing shut.
“My leg got caught. It’s not... I don’t think it’s serious. Just bleeding and cut up a bit.”
On the other end of the call, Beck was silent. She wondered, for just a beat, if somehow the call had gotten dropped. And then she heard something— movement.
There was the sound of a door and the scrape of something being picked up. A soft grunt as he shifted the phone and then the clink of keys. A rustle of fabric, his coat, maybe, and beneath it all, the sound of him already going.
Already coming to her.
“How bad is it?” he asked. His voice came through the phone low and tight, controlled, but only just. There was an edge beneath it, something strained. Not panic, but the shape of it that loomed, pressed thin. Like he was holding himself steady for her and every word cost him.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, trying to recall what she’d seen before she’d rushed back inside. “One side of the porch was completely crushed. One of the beams snapped right in half.”
There was a sharp breath on the other end. “Not the porch, Hazel. Your leg.”
She exhaled, gaze dropping to her thigh like she was seeing it for the first time.
The torn fabric of her sweatpants was soaked through, the blood a dark bloom spreading in uneven edges.
Beneath it, the sting had sharpened to something hot and insistent, a steady throb that pulsed like a second heartbeat.
“Oh,” she murmured. Her voice was quieter now, the false brightness gone. “I don’t know. It’s not deep, I don’t think, but I couldn’t find anything to clean it with. And it’s… messy.”
There was more movement on his end now, the shuffling of heavy footsteps, the creak of hinges, the dull thud of a door closing behind him. Then the sharp patter of rain against metal, the low howl of wind catching on the speaker, folding itself into the line like static.
“I didn’t know who else to call,” she whispered, the words hitching halfway out of her mouth. Her stomach twisted the second they left her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into—“
She paused, throat thick with something sharp and shame adjacent.
It hit her then, how sudden this was, how unplanned.
She hadn’t even thought about what he might’ve been doing when the phone rang.
Had he been watching something on TV in the quiet comfort of his house, half a beer in hand, the lights low and the world safely at bay?
Or was he already in bed, the rough kind of tired that people like Beck probably earned at the end of long days spent on his feet, fixing other people’s broken things?
She’d interrupted that, she knew she had. And somehow that made everything feel worse.
“You didn’t,” Beck said then, firm but not unkind. There wasn’t even the faintest note of irritation in his voice, just that same low steadiness she’d known she could count on. “You didn’t drag me anywhere. I’m already on the road.”
Hazel opened her mouth, then hesitated.
It hit her all at once, sharp and sudden, like stepping barefoot onto broken glass.
That familiar, instinctive tug to backtrack, to make herself small.
This was why she never asked for help; because in doing so, she opened herself up to so many complex levels of risk.
Risk of burdening someone, risk of hearing no, risk of finding out she didn’t matter quite as much as she wanted to believe.
Even now, even with Beck, the fear flared up without warning— that she’d overstepped, that she’d pulled him into her mess without realizing it. That she was too much. Or not enough. Or worse, both at once.
“You don’t have to—“ she began, the words slipping out too fast, an apology dressed like an escape hatch.
“I do,” he said. Not loudly, not like a demand, just with quiet conviction, like he was stating something obvious, something that didn’t require explanation. Something he’d never question, and didn’t want her to question, either.
It stunned her, how quickly the air shifted.
That small, shameful voice in her head— the one that warned her not to rely on anyone, not to expect too much, not to hope— was silenced in an instant. Not with grand gestures or impassioned speeches, just two simple words, spoken like fact.
Her throat tightened. She blinked fast, a breath catching sharp behind her ribs. The softest sound cracked loose from her chest, half relief, half disbelief.
He meant it. That was the hardest part. He meant it.
“I’ll be there in ten,” he continued, as steady as ever. “Maybe less, if the roads are clear.”
For half a second, Hazel faltered.
Ten?
She hadn’t even told him the address. Not her street, not a landmark.
But of course he knew. Of course he did.
She didn’t ask— didn’t need to. The realization settled over her gently, like warmth creeping in after a long-held chill. Of course Beck knew where she lived, of course he did. Somehow, he always just... knew. Knew what she needed, where to be, when to say nothing at all.
Like most things with him, it didn’t come with fanfare or explanation. He just showed up. Steady and unspoken, like she was someone worth showing up for.
That thought caught in her chest, sharp and aching.
Because it wasn’t a truth she’d ever let herself believe, not really.
Not since childhood, when people had left and never looked back, when absence had taught her how to be small, how to be self-sufficient, how to stop asking for things she wasn’t sure would come.
She had learned how to be the one who was always left behind.
But Beck was coming anyway, no questions asked, no hint of hesitation.
And something in her, tender, bruised, and long-protected, flinched toward it like a hand reaching for light. She wondered if it could be real, if she could be enough, just as she was, to make someone choose to stay.
She pressed her hand over her heart, as if to hold the thought in place before it dissolved.
“I don’t want to make this your problem,” she murmured.
“You’re not,” he said. Then, softer— softer than she’d ever heard him, softer than she knew his voice could go— he added, “Hazel, you’re never a problem.”
Her lips parted but no sound made it out. Her heart stuttered, the emotions circling within her too full and too much.
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe past the insistent ache in her throat.
And somehow he seemed to know, because he didn’t fill the silence with noise. He just let it exist, held open like space carved out for her, and her alone.
“Listen to me, alright?” Beck said after another beat, his voice quiet but anchored. “Go sit down and keep your leg elevated if you can. Don’t touch the cut, don’t try to wrap it, just leave it. Unlock the door before you go, so I can come straight in.”
“You should come in the back,” she replied, voice faint. “It’s safer. I’ll make sure it’s unlocked.”
“Okay.”
It wasn’t just agreement… it was reassurance. A promise, tucked into a single word.
Then he said her name again, his voice so soft she barely heard it over the sound of the storm raging on outside. It tipped up at the end like a question.
She closed her eyes against the weight of it. “Yeah?”
“You can always call me,” he said. There was no question in it, no hesitation. Just gentle certainty, like it had always been true and he was only now saying it out loud. “Doesn’t have to be this. Doesn’t have to be an emergency.”
Each syllable landed gentle, but with weight, like raindrops on thick glass, like he wanted her to hear it in her bones.
“I want you to call me,” he added. “Alright?”
Her grip on the phone shifted, her fingers trembling where they curled around the edges. It wasn’t just what he said, it was how he said it— like it mattered to him. Like she mattered.
And it cracked something open in her. Not wide, but enough. Enough to let the warmth in. Enough to make her feel the ache of wanting— so much so, she didn’t know where to put it all.
She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. Her eyes continued to sting, the sensation rising in the back of her throat… the sharp, familiar threat of tears.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Alright.”
Somewhere on the line, she could hear his engine start. “I’ll be there soon.”
And then the line went silent, but this time, the silence didn’t feel empty.
It felt like company, like someone lit a light just down the road and had started walking toward her.
The warmth of his voice had left something behind in the room with her. Not heat, exactly, but presence.
You can call me.