28. Scarlett
— ? —
Scarlett
He said however long it takes.
Then he didn’t come.
One week. No Saturday, no call, no text. Josie stood at the door saying “Da?” like she could summon him, and I had to carry her away while she cried.
I drove past his Fort Worth building once. Sat in the parking lot for twenty minutes, staring up at the windows. Then I drove home and hated myself for it.
He asked me to come see the barn. And then the week passed and he didn’t talk again and I didn’t call and we’re right back where we started, two people who don’t know how to reach for each other.
Now it’s three in the morning and I’m on the bathroom floor.
Josie’s flu hit Monday. By Wednesday it was in my chest. This is what the independent life doesn’t warn you about.
My own place, my own name on the lease, and no one down the hall the one night I can’t stand up.
I’ve been running a fever for two days, and tonight it spiked to a hundred and three, and I made it to the bathroom just in time to throw up everything I’d eaten.
I’m lying on the cold tile, cheek pressed against the floor, listening to Josie cry in the other room.
She needs me. She’s been calling for ten minutes and I need to get up.
I can’t move.
My phone is on the counter. I stare at it, watching the screen glow in the dark.
He said he’d wait. He said however long it takes. But he didn’t call, and I didn’t call, and pride is a stupid thing to die of on a bathroom floor.
I reach for the phone and I almost drop it twice. Then, I call him.
It rings once. Twice.
“Scarlett?” His voice is rough with sleep, confused. “What-”
“I need you.” The words come out broken. “Josie’s sick and I’m- I can’t-”
“I’m coming.”
“Beck, you’re hours away-”
“I’m already getting dressed. Where are you?”
“Bathroom floor. I can’t get up. She’s crying and I can’t-”
“Keep talking to me. Don’t hang up.”
I don’t remember what I say. I just remember his voice in my ear, steady and calm, telling me he’s in the truck, he’s on the highway, he’s going ninety and doesn’t care about tickets.
I remember Josie’s crying getting quieter, then stopping, then starting again.
I remember the fever making everything blurry.
And then the door opens.
“Scarlett.”
He’s here. Crouching on my bathroom floor, his hand on my forehead. He’s wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt that’s on inside out, and his hair is wild, and he looks like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Jesus, you’re burning up.”
“Josie-”
“I’ll get her. Can you stand?”
“Don’t know.”
He lifts me. Just picks me up off the tile like I weigh nothing and carries me to the bed. The sheets are cool against my skin and I almost cry at the relief of it.
“Stay here. I’m getting Josie.”
He disappears. I hear his voice in the other room, low and soothing, and then the crying stops. He’s singing something. The horse song, the one I made up, and I do cry then, because he learned it.
Time goes strange. Cold cloths on my forehead and water pressed to my lips. Josie’s weight in the bed beside me, finally sleeping, her fist wound in my shirt.
At some point the sun comes up. Gray light through the windows. Beck is in the chair beside the bed, watching me.
“You came,” I say. My voice is gravel.
“I will always come for you.” He takes my hand. “Every time. No matter what.”
“Where were you? All week?”
His jaw tightens. “Salt Fork. Taking it apart.”
“You didn’t call.”
He looks at our joined hands. “I should have. I was going to finish first, bring you the pieces, show you I meant what I said. And then I realized I was doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Disappearing into work instead of talking to you.” He meets my eyes. “The first thing I should have done was tell you where I was going. I said that to you months ago and I still didn’t do it.”
Part of me is angry, furious that he vanished, furious that I had to call him from a bathroom floor instead of having him here all week.
But he’s here now. He came.
“I took it apart myself,” he says. “Board by board. Loaded it on the trucks. Drove the beam down myself because I didn’t trust anyone else with it, the one with your mother’s name on the end grain.
” He squeezes my hand. “All that’s left standing out there is dirt.
I should have called you every night to tell you I was doing it. I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say sorry again.”
“Then what do I say?”
“Ask me.”
He goes still. “Ask you what?”
“What you asked me before. On the stairs.”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
“Come home. Come see what I’m building. Come tell me how you want it to be.”
“When?”
“Whenever you’re ready. Whenever you’re well enough to travel.” He lifts my hand to his lips, kisses my knuckles. “I’ll wait. However long it takes.”
“Stay,” I say. “That’s my answer. Stay until I’m better, and then we’ll go together.”
Something breaks open in his face. Relief, joy, something that makes him look like the man I fell in love with four years ago.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Not tonight, not tomorrow. I’m not going anywhere ever again.”
I close my eyes. His hand is warm around mine, and Josie is breathing softly beside me, and somewhere in the distance I can see the sun coming up.
“Beck?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I know.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “I love you too. Now stop talking and get some rest.”
I fall asleep with his hand in mine.
And when I wake up, he’s still there.