Chapter 13 #5
And then, without a word, Beck stepped closer.
No hesitation, no pause for permission, just a slow, careful folding into her space, his arm curling around her shoulders like he was made to fit there.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t freeze, she just went.
Her body moved into his like breath returning to lungs, like muscle remembering the shape of warmth.
She pressed her face into the curve of his neck, the collar of his jacket cool against her cheek.
Her fingers curled into the fabric at his side, and for a moment, she stopped trying to hold anything in.
He didn’t stiffen and he didn’t speak. He just held her, as steady as stone, one large hand anchoring her against him.
Then, with a slow dip of his head, there was the gentlest brush of lips at her hairline, not a kiss so much as a silent promise.
A way of saying I see you, without needing to speak.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, barely louder than the wind, the words curling into her scalp like warmth seeping into cold skin. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”
Her throat tightened. Her grip on him did not loosen.
“But I’m here,” he added, softer still. “I’ve got you.”
And he did.
In the absence of questions, in the absence of explanation, he had her.
And for the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to be held. Not as something fragile, but as something tired. Something human.
They stood like that for a long, long moment, the softened breeze licking at the edges of her coat, salt and snow on the air.
Her face tucked into the collar of his jacket, breath warm against his skin.
His hands were large and still against her back, save for a thumb that brushed back and forth— rhythmic, like a tether.
Then, with a soft sort of reluctance, Hazel spoke.
“She looked good,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.
“Healthy. Her hair was down and brushed and she was smiling when I walked in.
And for a second I thought—“ Her breath caught, eyes pressing shut.
“I thought maybe I made it all up, that maybe I remembered things wrong. Because she was… bright, even. Warm.”
Beck didn’t speak. Just exhaled a soft breath, like he didn’t want to jostle the shape of her words. His hand at her back slowed, then resumed its careful motion.
“But the last time I saw her… it was completely different. There’d just been a rainstorm, one of those nasty ones that knocks trees sideways and grounds half the flights.
I managed to get there, anyway, flew in early and rented a car.
And she…” Hazel shook her head, the words catching like thorns.
“She was frantic. Paranoid. Kept talking in these whispered riddles, like we were being watched. She told me not to use my phone, said ‘they’ were always listening. I asked her who, and she just looked at me like I should already know.”
Hazel drew back a little, not all the way, just enough to tilt her face up, resting her temple beneath his jaw.
Beck’s brows were knit together in a deep frown. “That must’ve been hard… seeing her like that.”
“I don’t even really see her as my mom,” she whispered, and though the words were honest, they were threaded through with years of unspoken shame, with emotions she’d never allowed herself to feel, not fully. “Not really. It’s just not a role she ever played. Not since I was too small to remember.”
Beck’s hand at her back stilled, then pressed to her more firmly, like he could hold her in place with sheer will alone. “Do you remember when it started to shift?”
Hazel blinked, surprised by the gentleness in his voice, by the question that didn’t pry so much as invite.
“My grandmother always said it started after I was born,” Hazel murmured, pressing her eyes shut.
Just saying the words out loud scraped something raw.
That old guilt, buried deep but never dormant.
Over the years, people had tried to lift it from her shoulders, told her it wasn’t her fault— that it was the system that failed her mother, not the child who marked the beginning of her unraveling.
But guilt didn’t always obey logic. It lingered like something damp— quiet, clinging, and hard to shake.
“She had postpartum depression,” Hazel continued, voice thinner now. “But no one named it. No one treated it. And over those first few years, she just… drifted. Got quieter. Smaller. Sank deeper and deeper inside herself until there wasn’t much left.”
She paused, sucking in a slow, withered breath.
“She used to hum when she cooked,” Hazel said, softer.
“And she’d trace my freckles with her finger when she put me to bed.
I remember that. I really do. But most of it after that is fog, just glimpses.
And then I was living with my grandmother, and the version of my mom I saw after that came in fragments.
Short visits or letters. The rare, good spell that made us all wonder if she’d find herself again. ”
She swallowed, gaze dropping toward the seam of his jacket, no longer brave enough to hold his gaze.
“And now she lives somewhere soft and quiet, and she seems… content. But it’s not with me. It’s not because of me. I’m just this polite girl who brings cookies and smiles and pretends not to notice the cracks in the surface.”
Beck finally spoke, his voice low, rough like sea glass worn smooth. “That’s a heavy thing to carry all on your own, Hazel.”
Hazel’s breath trembled out of her. “It shouldn’t matter anymore. I’m grown. I shouldn’t still want a mother the way I did when I was ten.”
“It matters,” he said, one of his hands lifting from her back. It settled beneath her chin, instead, his thumb pushing upwards until her gaze was forced to meet his. “It’ll always matter, but that doesn’t mean it defines you. That doesn’t mean it’ll always hurt.”
His words slipped under her ribs, quiet but steadying. She let them settle, like silt stirred up and drifting down again.
“There was a part of me,” she admitted, her eyes falling shut. “That wanted to yell. Or cry. Or ask her why. But then she reached out and held my hand, and I just… couldn’t. I sat there and told her about the bakery, showed her a picture. And pretended it was all fine.”
Beck gave a faint hum, something deep in his chest. His thumb caressed softly over her skin. “Sometimes not breaking the moment is its own kind of love.”
Hazel let that linger. Then, so quietly she wasn’t sure she’d said it aloud, she whispered, “I don’t know if that makes me strong… or just afraid.”
“That was brave,” Beck said. And when she flinched, he added, “It’s okay if it doesn’t feel like it. Doesn’t change the truth.”
Hazel looked up at him, again, the corners of her eyes tight. “I was afraid if I said the wrong thing, it would disappear. That version of her. That tiny piece of something I thought I’d lost.”
Beck didn’t try to fix it. Didn’t feed her platitudes or tell her it would all make sense someday. He just reached for her again, slow and certain, and wrapped both arms around her, drawing her fully into his chest.
His lips brushed her hair again, barely a touch, but weighted with meaning.
“Up here,” he murmured against her temple, his coffee-stained breath brushing over her skin. “No one’s watching. No one’s listening. Say whatever you need to say, or don’t say anything at all. Either way, I’ve got you.”
He tightened his hold a fraction. His coat shifted as he moved, one arm wrapping higher around her back, the other steady at her hip.
“You don’t have to hold it all alone,” he added, quieter still. “Not with me.”
And for a while, that was enough. The wind howled, the ocean murmured far below, and Hazel stayed where she was— held fast, held steady, in the arms of someone who didn’t need to understand everything to offer her exactly what she needed.