She nearly sobbed those words. All I wanted to do was say them.
Turning my head, I watch the pale light from the window dance along the carpet. I don’t need to look at the clock to know it’s still too fucking early. My alarm hasn’t sounded yet, but I can’t lie here anymore. I can’t ignore this strange loss settling over me any longer.
I shower and dress urgently after finally noting the time. Just enough to go see Beth, tell her everything I’m feeling, then bolt it to work. I’ll probably wake her up at this hour. She’ll look all sleep-rumpled and soft against the sheets. Leaving her might be a challenge.
As I’m grabbing a travel mug for my coffee, my phone rings from the bedroom. Puzzled, I run back up the stairs. It’s barely after five. No one calls me this early.
Beth Davis, from McGill’s flashes across my screen.
A familiar heat warms my chest, spreads down my spine. I’m suddenly wide awake.
“Hey, I was just coming over to see you. You’re up early.” My steps feel lighter as I advance back down the hallway. “God, Beth, I . . .”
“Reed, is she with you? P-Please tell me she’s there.”
I halt, not quite at the opening to the kitchen, recognizing the voice instantly. “Hattie? Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Beth,” she strains through a whimper. “Is she with you?”
I glance around me, confused, suddenly expecting Beth to jump out from behind something. “No,” I answer curiously, brushing a wet strand of hair off my forehead. “Why?”
“Oh, no,” she whispers. “Oh, no, no, no.”
Her voice sounds miles away. Worry plagues me, spreading in my veins like an infection. Coffee forgotten, I swipe my keys off the counter and head outside to my truck. I’m sprinting, my boots kicking up gravel.
“Hattie, what’s going on? Where’s Beth?”
She mumbles something I can’t understand, her voice breaking between fragile cries. Trapping the phone between my ear and shoulder, I start the truck and peel out onto the road.
“Hattie! Where is she?” I ask again when I don’t get an answer, my voice more demanding. My skin growing hot at the base of my neck.
She cries harder, sobbing now, breaking down completely. “She l-left. She went b-back ,” she wails, gasping for air.
Panic pollutes my mind. I break out in a cold sweat.
“What?” My response sticks to my tongue, struggling to roll past my lips as the world blurs in front of me. I blink heavily, solidly training on the road ahead. My hand violently shifts gears.
She went back? Why would she leave? What the fuck?
I search my memory for an explanation, something I obviously missed.
Images of Beth poison me with guilt. I looked at her yesterday, but did I really see her? Her sorrowed expression in the morning when I opened the bathroom door, the way she kept her head down, or turned away from me in the truck on the drive home. She was so small, so quiet.
How could I have been so blind?
“I love you . . . I love you.”
Three words, three simple words. The ones she nearly sobbed the night before, the ones I couldn’t seem to repeat. She wasn’t dealing with the shit that happened with her dad. She wouldn’t leave because of him. He wasn’t here.
It was me.
I told her I would never hurt her. I told her I could only give her so much of me, when in reality I never had a choice. I loved her, and I never said it. She left thinking I never will.
I blow through a red-light, heading for the nearest road that takes me to the highway. “Hattie, where was Beth before she moved here? Where in Louisville? Do you have an address?”
Hattie whimpers, quietly murmuring practiced words, as if she’s reading them off something. She isn’t hearing me. I can’t make anything out over the noise of the engine.
“Hattie.” I try for her attention again. Frustration flares to life in my veins. My blood runs hot. Realizing I’m wasting my time trying to get any information from her over the phone, I veer off onto a side road, heading to my original destination.
“I’m coming over, okay? I’m almost there,” I tell her.
Her voice never pauses, never reacts to mine, but it does grow softer as the one in my head dominates for attention, reminding me over and over again why this has happened.
Why this is all my fault.
I feel sick when I don’t see Beth’s car parked in the driveway. I hate that fucking car, knowing she lived in it, but I would give anything to see it right now. I send a short text to my dad before I get out of the truck, telling him I won’t be in today. Speaking to him would lead to being lectured about how reckless I’m being with my sick leave. The opinion of a man who’s never missed a day’s work.
The front door is unlocked, and I announce my presence quietly as I step inside. I don’t have time to knock and wait to be let in. I’m hours away from Beth. This is about getting the information I need and getting on the road.