Page 46 of Rise
“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 alreadygoing.
Already comingto 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, pressedthin. 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, sheknewshe 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 steadinessshe’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 hearingno,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 tohope— 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. Hemeantit.
“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. OfcourseBeck 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.
