Page 40 of Solitude

It starts simple.

When Beck asks what my favorite color is, I tell him orange. (He tells me his favorite color is green.) When I ask him about his favorite food, he says rice and laughs when I scrunch up my nose. (I tell him my favorite food is spaghetti.) When he asks what’s number one on my bucket list, I shyly admit it’s having a family. (He tells me his number one thing is visiting Europe with no financial help.) When I ask him about his favorite holiday, he shrugs and says he doesn’t have a favorite. (I pretend to leave after that, and he chases after me. On the walk home, I tell him my favorite is Christmas.)

Then it becomes so much more complex.

Words about all of my biggest fears and most unattainable daydreams spill from my mouth without preamble, and Beck listens to all of it, face scrunched adorably in concentration. I can’t help but wonder if he’s trying his damnedest to soak up everything he can before thesummer ends like I am, or if that’s my head leading me astray.

Regardless, I hang on every word that Beck offers, voice low and soothing as we sit side by side. I memorize all of the nuances in his speech, the punctuation, the syllables and how his tongue forms them. My heart trips over itself to commit every hidden secret Beckett Hale decides to tell me during the summer to memory.

It marks the first time in my eighteen years I haven’t felt utterly alone in Magnolia Hollow.

Nothing else ever happens between us though.

We talk and text and video call all summer. Heck, he introduces me to his family. I eat dinner at his house at least once a week.

He never gets too close to me again, though, and it has driven me insane all summer.

Beck made me a small strawberry cake to celebrate my birthday with a single gold candle on top. I cried when he sang a happy belated birthday softly to me, those dimples in his cheeks distracting me from the fact that our time was dwindling. He’d brushed his thumb underneath my eyes, collected my tears on his finger, and told me that I’d never celebrate another birthday by myself.

We sit beside each other at family dinners every Sunday with the Fletchers where nine times out of ten I catch Cole trying to figure us out from across the table. We tease each other over the counter at Sugar, and when he tries to sweet talk Gwen into giving him a free cupcake, she always rolls her eyes and gives him a deformed cake.

We’ve become best friends. I say that genuinely. Beckett Hale has become a person I confide in. Someone I lean on. Someone who finds a positive in every negative I throw his way.

Just when he makes me feel like maybe this solitudeisn’tso bad he’s gone. In the middle of the night.

I’m waiting for him to waltz into Sugar one morning near the end of summer when my phone buzzes and a picture I inconspicuously snapped of Beck swinging one night pops up on the screen.

My smile widens as I slide the button and answer, “Hey there.”

“Why do you sound so happy?”

I can hear the exhaustion in his voice, and I bite my lip as my smile threatens levels of cheesy and cringe that I don’t want Gwen to see. “I’m always happy.”

Beck scoffs, “That’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one. You frown more than you smile, I’ve realized.”

I gasp. “That’s not true.”It’s kind of true.

“You’re right,” he agrees quickly. “You always smile around me.”

“I guess you make me happy then,” I say softly, blushing at the confession.

Beck sighs, like the idea that he makes me smile burdens him. “Don’t hate me, okay?”

My smile fades. “Don’t give me a reason to hate you then, Beck.”

“We had to leave early this morning,” he explains slowly. “Coach called, and there’s someone from the bigleagues coming tomorrow. The first flight was at four this morning.”

I inhale deeply and lean my hip against the counter. “Oh…”

I can hear him swallow. Can tell by his tone that he isn’t thrilled to be telling me goodbye over the phone, and that alone gives me a sense of comfort. That maybe he’s as disappointed to leave as I am that he’s gone.

“I’m sorry. I called as soon as I could. It’s been kind of crazy and hectic all morning.”

My head is nodding even though I know he can’t see me. I have to push the words past my lips even though they sound forced and contrived. “It’s okay. I…I’m upset. I’ll be honest, but I understand.”

“I feel like shit for not calling sooner.”

“Beck,” I draw out. A sad smile crosses my lips as I look toward the double doors of Sugar, realizing he wouldn’t be pushing through them with wild hair and grin so beautiful it hurts. “It’s okay. You were leaving soon anyway, right?”

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