Chapter 11
Eleven
Beckett woke reaching for Sarah and found only an empty stretch of bed.
At the coolness of the sheets, he opened his eyes.
The room was dark and quiet. For a moment, he wondered if she had simply sneaked out during the night.
Then he spotted her perched on the window seat, arms wrapped around her up-drawn knees as she stared out into the dark.
Not quite so dark now. Her body was a silhouette against the gradually lightening sky.
Dawn wouldn’t be too far off. And with it, the goodbye that neither of them wanted to face.
He sat up. “You okay?” He felt stupid asking the question. Neither of them was okay right now. But he needed to know what had kept her from sleep. Other than their own insatiable need to fill their last hours together with as much of each other as they could manage.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.” Her voice held that quiet, pre-coffee rasp but no sign of grogginess. She was definitely awake.
“You didn’t. Come back to bed.” He patted the mattress beside him.
There wouldn’t be time for much in the way of sleep, and he didn’t think either of them would rest easy at this point. Not with her departure so imminent. But he wanted no distance between them before there had to be.
Sarah slid off the window seat and padded across the room to slip beneath the covers. The sheets whispered as she slid over to wrap around him. Her bare skin was cool to the touch.
Beckett tucked around her. “You’re freezing. How long have you been up?”
Her shoulders twitched in a shrug. “I don’t know. A while. I couldn’t sleep. My head’s too full.”
After they’d left the main lodge yesterday, she’d stuck to what she’d said.
There’d been no talk of her sister or the situation.
He’d packed an overnight bag, and they’d gathered her things, loading them into his SUV and driving into Briarsted.
On that drive she’d seemingly compartmentalized the whole thing, such that they’d spent the afternoon strolling like any tourist couple, enjoying a fine meal at one of the local restaurants before settling in for the night at a B&Bs in the foothills.
They hadn’t spoken of today. Not of the practicalities or worries of the future.
But Beckett could feel all of them in the tension thrumming in her body.
Tipping his head, he pressed his lips to her bare shoulder. “Are we gonna talk about it now?”
“What good is talking about going to do? It doesn’t change anything. I’m still leaving in a matter of hours.”
Her words held too much of a tone of goodbye.
So had the desperate way she’d turned to him in the night.
He’d told himself that it was simply soaking up every last bit of contact they could, but now he wondered if something more significant had changed.
The moment her sister had arrived, Sarah had thrown up walls against everyone.
Him included. In a sense, she was with him, but she wasn’t with him.
Knowing he couldn’t let this lie, he stroked a hand down the length of her back, wanting to soothe, even as he knew he was about to destroy their last little hint of peace. “Have you heard from Taryn?”
“Yeah. She’s freaking out about what happens next. I’ve been letting her stew in it for a bit.”
“You have to talk to her at some point.”
Sarah’s chest rose and fell against his with a bone-deep sigh. “I know. I’ve got to help her figure out how to get out of this latest hole she’s dug.”
That wasn’t at all what he’d meant. Beckett chose his words carefully.
“No, I mean… Her behavior has had a profound impact on your life. You can’t keep rescuing her.
At some point, she has to stand on her own two feet.
That’s part of being a grown-ass adult. Beyond which, you deserve the chance to stand on yours. ”
She lay quiet for a long time. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. But that’s not today. It’s to my benefit to help her logically consider things before she gets some other scheme as crazy as this one was.”
Why did that sting so much? It wasn’t as if she was choosing to leave him today because of her sister.
Not really. She had obligations back in New York.
But it still felt as if she were choosing everything else over him.
Especially when he knew down to his marrow that going back to Columbia wasn’t going to make her happy.
“Are you having second thoughts?” The words slipped out unbidden.
“Second thoughts about what?”
“Us. The long distance thing.” Whether I can make you happy.
They’d agreed to this. Discussed all the logistics and how they’d make it work. She’d been on board. But Beckett couldn’t shake the sense that something fundamental had shifted yesterday. He’d watched her shift into someone else the moment her twin had arrived. So he braced himself for her answer.
Sarah pressed a soft kiss over his heart. “No. I haven’t changed my mind.” She sighed. “I mean, it’s going to suck. I don’t know when I’ll get to see you again.”
He had a partial answer to that, at least. “Well, sooner rather than later. Thanks to you. Red team is first up for choosing days off, remember?”
He’d hoped that reminding her of that victory would lighten the mood a little. But it didn’t.
She sighed again, settling her head back in the curve of his shoulder that seemed made just for her. “It won’t be the same.”
It definitely wouldn’t. Nothing could compare to working side-by-side with her. Seeing her over breakfast. Having her in his bed. But if his life had taught him anything, it was patience.
“Maybe not, but in the grand scheme of things, summer isn’t that long.
The last session is over at the end of August. Even if circumstances prevented us from managing to see each other until then—and I’ll move heaven and hell to make sure that we do—it’s only a few months.
It’s a pause, not an ending. We aren’t over.
” He hesitated, then gave voice to his biggest fear. “Unless you want it to be.”
Her arms tightened around him in a possessive hold. “No. I meant what I said. I haven’t changed my mind. I don’t want this to end. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
In the ensuing silence, Beckett could hear the soft woosh woosh of his own pulse in his ears as he waited for her answer.
“I’ve been on this path all my life. I’ve always known where I was going, what I was doing.
There has never been a point when I did not have a plan.
I’m someone who thinks seventeen steps ahead, anticipating problems and dealing with them before they ever arise.
And now I can’t even see around the next corner.
The idea of that terrifies me. It’s one thing to talk about changing my whole life when I’m with you.
It’s not scary when you’re right beside me.
But I worry how I’m going to react when I get back to New York, and you’re not there to talk me down when I freak out. ”
Beckett took the time before answering, because he was operating on very little sleep and didn’t want to make a misstep.
“What exactly are you afraid of? That you’ll freak out and finish your thesis and decide to stay in grad school anyway?
That you’ll up and decide to end things because you can’t take the distance?
That you walk away from everything with no parachute or net like I did? ”
“I don’t know. Maybe a little bit of all those things. I just know it doesn’t feel good or right. Things are too unsettled. I need a plan, and I’m not going to get the chance to make one before I leave today.”
Beckett resumed the slow stroking of her back.
“Life can be scary business. And yeah, that’s a lot easier to handle when someone you care about is by your side.
But just because I am not right next to you, not close enough to touch, doesn’t mean I’m not with you.
If you’re anxious or upset, all you have to do is reach out.
Phone call, text, email, carrier pigeon.
Whatever works for you. I’ll be there. As soon as I can. ”
She lapsed into silence again, and he wondered if he’d said the wrong thing.
“Dawn is breaking. We don’t have that much more time. You have to get back to camp, to work. I’ve got to catch a train.” She rolled closer to him, finding his mouth with hers. “Be with me one more time. So that I’ll still feel you long after I’m back home.”
With the sun already peeking through the curtains, how could he do anything but what she asked?
Sarah got back to her apartment by noon, dropping her bag onto the floor with a thump.
For a long moment, she just stared at the little box she’d called home for the past three years.
After the luxury of Camp Firefly Falls, all she could see was the dinginess of the used furniture she’d scrounged up and the drab shade of gray on the walls that seemed to close in on her, further exacerbating the sense of claustrophobia she’d been fighting from the moment she’d gotten back to the city.
Had it always looked this pathetic? Had she simply been so focused on school that she hadn’t even noticed the lack of warmth in what was supposed to be home?
Familiar thumps and groans sounded from the neighboring apartment.
The newlyweds again. Except now they made her remember this morning and her last hour with Beckett before he’d dropped her at the train station.
The ache she’d managed to ignore for the better part of the trip back to the city flared bright.
God, how could she miss him this much already?
Unable to face unpacking or laundry or shopping for groceries, Sarah shut the door and headed back out to the street in hopes that a walk would help loosen the steel band around her chest.