Page 58 of Rise
He didn’t meet her gaze as he moved in towards her. He simply lifted the sweater in the space that separated them, a silent offering.
“Here,” he murmured, nodding. “Put this on. It’ll help you keep a bit of heat.”
Hazel took it carefully, without a word, her fingers brushing his. The fabric was soft, worn down by years of washing and wear. It smelled like him— like clean cotton, cedar soap, and something she couldn’t name but had come to associate with the quiet way hewas.
She pulled it over her head without hesitation, her arms vanishing into the sleeves, the hem falling long over her shorts. It swallowed her up, but she didn’t care. It was warm and it was his. And when she looked up again, he hadn’t moved.
Beck stood rooted in place, watching her. His eyes flicked over the image of her— bare legs, flushed cheeks, swallowed up byhissweatshirt inhisroom— and something shifted behind his expression.
He stepped closer, his movements slower now. Less startled and more… gentle.
Then, without speaking, he reached out and tugged her hair free from the collar where it had been trapped, his fingers grazing the nape of her neck as he pulled the dark waves forward and let them fall loose over her shoulders.
The touch was small, barely there, but itcrushedher.
She felt the contact all the way down to her ribs. Her breath left her in a soft, involuntary exhale.
He lingered for a second and his fingers brushed her skin. And then his hands dropped, his shoulders pulled tight.
His throat worked around another swallow, this one more visible than the last. And his gaze… dipped.
Just a beat. Just a flicker of his eyes to her lips.
And Hazel swore her heart stopped. Her muscles pulled tight, her body going still.
But in the next breath, he stepped back. Quick. Too quick. She wanted to pull him back in; reach out and grab his arm, force him to move forward again. But she didn’t, she couldn’t.
She turned instead, just a small pivot. Her socked feet shifted against the floor as she stepped toward the side table next to the bed, her hands reaching for the tea he’d left there as if it might steady her, anchor her back into herself.
Her fingers curled around the warm ceramic, but before she could lift it to her lips, something caught her eye.
A picture frame. Glossy and black, a little worn at the corners, with a photo fixed at its center.
She reached for it automatically, grateful for the distraction— desperate for it, even. Something ordinary, something harmless. Something to point at and name and talk about, because the air between them had grown too thick with things she didn’t yet have the language for.
The photo inside the frame was small and worn, the corners softened by time. In it was a group of men, standing shoulder to shoulder in desert sand, arms slung around one another’s backs, uniforms rumpledand eyes squinting in the sun. She picked it up with a gentle touch, her thumb brushing across the glass, and turned toward him with the words already forming.
But they died on her lips. Because she saw the shift before she even finished moving.
The frown, barely there, but enough. The way his mouth flattened. The way his shoulders seemed to pull back, his chest folding ever so slightly inward. His hands slid into the pockets of his jeans and he rocked back on his heels, like something inside him had gone still, like the photo had pulled a current over him, dragging him beneath the surface, threatening to steal what little control he had left.
Hazel froze. The frame weighed heavier in her hands now.
“I—“ she started, voice quiet. The words faded, drifting away, uncertainty and regret causing her mouth to run dry.
She didn’t know what she’d been about to say. Didn’t know what words could possibly undo the shadow that had just passed across Beck’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said instead, softer than before.
Beck shook his head once, barely perceptible, like it wasn’t her fault. Like it was just the past, still clinging. Then he stepped forward, wordless, and took the photo from her hands with a careful touch— his own thumb grazing the edge where hers had rested a moment before.
He didn’t say anything for a minute, just stared down at the photo like he hadn’t seen it in a long, long time. Hazel followed the line of his eyes, taking in the image again, this time searching for one face in particular.
Beck was standing in the center, his arm thrown around a man with a thick beard and silver threaded through the dark hair at his temples. He wasn’t just smiling, butgrinning,wide and easy in a way she didn’t recognize. There was something softer about him, then, his shoulders relaxed, his cheeks fuller, eyes squinting into the sun, filled with something she couldn’t name. Not peace, not joy, but something close. Something warmer.
He looked so young. So… unguarded. So unbelievably unlike the man who stood before her now.
“You’re smiling,” she said, her voice quiet. It wasn’t a question, exactly, more an observation, a soft accusation rooted in disbelief.
