Cedar and Maple

by LadyArrin

Beth is a second year student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and gets paired with a dark, quiet, fellow Southerner for a guinea pig project and they both end up getting more than they bargained for. Rated M for future content.

2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you all so much for the positive reaction! Holy cow! This AN will be a little long, the future ones will be shorter. Now, if you've followed me at all for some time on FF or read my other work you'll realize two things. One, that I am terrible with series and two, that my work is often either dark or contains dark undertones in bits and pieces. There is some dark in this story, you'll find it when it becomes relevant. Anyway, My goal for this story is to have about a chapter a week, give or take, but in the interest of being honest I'm going to be out of the country for a week or so come the end of the month. Also. As cool as I am (kidding! Or am I?) I cannot for the life of me write music. Call it a quirk. From here on out any music you see these two 'write' (either separately or together) will be hijacked and I'll tell you exactly what song and who the artist is here in the A/N and maybe provide a link (if the work noted is 'complete' but feel free to look it up if you want as it does give you an idea of where I'm gonna go). Today's semi-finished song comes courtesy of a duo called The Civil Wars, titled "I've Got This Friend". I think these two are in for a hell of a trip. This chapter is a little bit laid back, little more fluff. Drama begins to kick in with chapter three. I do love reviews, they are wonderful motivators! ~ladyarrin

The ride to the range was quiet and uncomfortable. Rick's truck was barely big enough to fit the three of them on the bench seat as they wound through the streets of Boston and down towards the water. Beth had ended up between Daryl and the door but wasn't sure what would have been worse; sitting where she was now with his arm barely over her shoulder and trying to keep some space between them or stuck between him and an equally (if differently) attractive man. Maggie was going to die laughing when Beth told her about this that was for sure. Stuck in a truck with a cop and a redneck musician...it sounded like the punchline to a very bad joke. Beth determinedly kept her eyes firmly ahead but she could feel the way her face was flaming up and burning deep into the tips of her ears. Daryl was radiating heat and the pressure of feeling his side and thigh pressed against hers was almost too much to bear. For his part Daryl was equally uncomfortable and stiff. He was well aware of how she should have fit against his side, filling a vacancy he hadn't really noticed existed before. He was struck by how easy it would be to just drape himself casually across her and to utterly envelop her in his space. Despite the large size of the sweatshirt the man could feel how delicate she really was. Beth's perfume was light, bright, and almost effervescent; something heavy would have weighed her down. Between that and her floral shampoo it was all Daryl could to do to restrain himself from actually leaning over and burying his face into the contained blonde locks.

That wasn't exactly an option because it would be damn creepy for starters. Daryl was a lot of things and was a man of many, many talents and qualities and while a lot of them were bad a lot of them were good too, and he was never the type of a man to force himself onto a woman. That was left to his father and his brother. He was guilty of occasionally get handsey with a girl (especially if he was drunk) and once when he was much younger he had even been slapped but Daryl liked to think he had a semblance of honor. He would never admit it either to himself or to others but he was a loner at heart and could count his encounters he'd had with the opposite sex in the five years on one hand. He had never found a woman he would want in his life. A woman would understand his upbringing and his reasoning, a woman who wouldn't kick him out of bed in the middle of the night because he kicked her when he thrashed with nightmares and cried out in his sleep. He had long since given up and remained resolute in the fact that he was going to be a bachelor forever. Eventually Rick would wise up and get married and have a whole parcel of kids underfoot, move to the suburbs, and he would be "Uncle Daryl" who taught them how to find the joy in fishing on a quiet river, the focus it took to track an animal, the peace you found sleeping in the trees at night. Things city kids would never understand unless they were showed how, a quiet mark on how he left the world. It was all he could ever hope to want in life. A steady income and a place to live that did not have his family. Things didn't always end up happy and pretty and tied with a neat little bow and Daryl had come to terms with the fact that that life wouldn't end pretty for him. He had a decent job working at Berklee, enough to pay the rent. The rest, tuition included, was supplied by the scholarship he had so laboriously acquired. His list of acquaintances was short and his list of friends was even shorter. He had Rick, he had guys from school he went out and had a beer with after class. Now, it seemed, he could add Beth onto his short list of friends.

Soon enough they were crossing the bridge and were out over the water just long enough for this to qualify as an 'island' and then were down into the police compound. Rick showed his badge, filled out the form on the clipboard handed through the window, and handed it back with Daryl and Beth's ID's. Rick had been right. It seemed as if the clouds that were rolling over the horizon had chased away a good portion of the unnecessary personnel. Between the ominous look the clouds seemed to carry and the early hours of the morning it seemed like a good formula for a empty, quiet range. Beth glanced over to the end of the open space to where Rick seemed to have separated himself from the two of them with ear protection already in place as he slid the magazine into the butt of his pistol. She was distracted by his stance, the way his feet were staggered with one forward and one back, shoulder width apart. She studied his shoulders and the slight curve of his elbow and found herself moving to copy him. Angles. It was all about angles in the end. Daryl wasn't sure if he should be impressed that she was so quick and eager to learn or affronted that she was essentially ignoring him to do so. There were a few things about her improvised stance that were a little bit off.

The petite blonde nearly jumped out of her skin when hands placed themselves lightly onto her hips and the sudden presence of Daryl was at her back. He'd been watching her watching Rick, watching as she had advertised her ignorance with what was effectively a neon sign. Crap. The sound of his voice near her ear nearly caused her to shiver; it ended with what was effectively an aborted twitch. His voice was low and quiet and played across the back of her neck before enveloping her in the familiar cadence of home.

"You need t'bring your feet just a little bit farther apart and stagger 'em." Beth felt a gentle pressure on the inside of her right foot, encouraging her to move it until it was in the correct position. "Your back is stiff, too. You're standin' like you got the weight of the world on your shoulders, blondie. Lighten up." The smugness in his voice was borderline annoying but somehow the only thing she could think of was how she had gradated from 'kid' to 'blondie'.

One of his palms came to rest flat against her back between shoulders and rub just along her spine through the fabric of her sweatshirt. "Looser you are less it'll affect your aim." What Daryl didn't seem to realize, though, was that his touch was having the opposite effect of 'relax'. Beth's shoulders were wound tight and the muscles under her skin felt ready to snap. All she could focus on was that pressure on her hip that hadn't let up, the hand on her back, and the realization of how long had it been since she had simply been touched by another human being let alone touched romantically. The fingers trailing across her hip, even over her sweatshirt, were bold in a way she would never have tolerated in another man, causing a brief flare up of emotion that was equal parts anger, desire, and fear of being touched further. Beth had a sinking realization that all together it wasn't exactly a bad feeling. It was thrilling and she felt her heart race and felt, rather than heard, the trilling sound of it in her ears. God above she really needed to get out of her room more. Perhaps if she did she wouldn't be standing here without a clue of how to get her body to calm down. Beth rolled her shoulders and her neck and there was a sudden lack of something at her back. Daryl had stepped away and was pulling a case out from by his feet and putting it on the ledge. His time and care in taking out a revolver and a box of bullets was enough for her to regain her composure and step up next to him.

"It's easy enough, you saw Rick. Basically point'n shoot" He handed her a pair of earplugs. Down on the far side of the range Rick was already firing away with a rapid staccato of shots that were hitting center mass on his human-shaped target in steady, even groupings. "That's what you want. See how his elbow's cocked? Easier t'control the gun. But first things first." Daryl went through the motions of basic safety and education but eventually she was handling a live weapon on her own. "Called the Lady Ultra." It was a small, uneventful looking, snub-nosed revolver. Beth was so focused she didn't even realize that Rick had stopped and was watching her or even pause to wonder why Daryl had a gun that was clearly too small for him. It fit perfectly in her hands.

It was heavier than she had thought it would be for a such small gun and less fragile than she had anticipated, although why she would thin a gun was fragile was really beyond her at the moment. With the earplugs in it was easy to simply focus on the round paper target at the end of the range and line it up within her view. It was so far away. Beth almost found herself in doubt that anything shot from here would really end up there. It was an abstract concept with nothing but theory behind it since she'd never shot a gun before or a bow or a even a slingshot. The trigger responded to a whisper of her finger and the recoil of the gun brought her arms up and back and just like that there was a hole on the edge of the target. Suddenly it wasn't theory anymore. It was alive and the way that the metal in her hands had jumped had sent fire racing through her veins. A predatory, wolfish smile crossed her face as baby blue's locked down onto the target at the end of the range. That wouldn't do. Beth closed herself off. Angles, remember? She opened her eyes and sighted the bright red center again, this time aiming a little to the left of where she'd aimed before. Her thumb pulled gently back on the hammer like Daryl had showed her and then and fired again. Pull back, Fire. Pull back, fire. Three times in quick timing, one right after the other, just to the right of center and then twice more. That was it. All six bullets. Motion at her peripheral drew her back and Beth gently set down the gun and pulled her glasses off and her earplugs out and turned to face Daryl. She was shaking but she'd never felt so damn free in all of her life, not even when she'd gone and climbed the highest tree on the farm and stood in the top branches pretending to be a bird while the wind whipped her hair across her face as a storm rolled in, swift and fierce like she pretended she was.

It was fascinating to watch Beth move through all these emotions that were written so clearly on her face; it was a smile that would haunt his dreams for months to come. Daryl could see the way her brain was working. Freedom. In one morning, in the span of less than thirty minutes, she had broken one of the main chains linking her to her childhood. She was no longer defenseless and he could see that change etched down into the depths of her soul. He had given her a gift and as she turned to him with light in her eyes and her body shaking from the sheer impact of breaking away, he caught her tightly in his arms. There was surprise when he realized that she had wrapped her arms around his ribs and was squeezing the breath right out of him. For such a tiny person Beth held such force in her being and if he hadn't been wearing his earplus he would have sworn to high heaven and back that she was saying "Thank you." over and over again against his chest. And just like that she let him go and that grin was back and she was bouncing on the balls of her feet with her blonde hair falling out of her hat and catching brightly against her scarf. "Again. I gotta do it again. Help me get it right, Daryl. I wanna be good at this." Her grin was infectious and he could feel a rare smile of his own tugging at his lips in return.

"Alright, blondie. Well the first thing you gotta do is..."

The rest of the time on the range flew by and before she knew it they were packing up and the guys were discussing the prospect of lunch. Something had broken between Beth and Daryl in the time while he was teaching her to shoot. She seemed more comfortable just being with him, bumping his shoulder with hers as she effortlessly skipped past them in the parking lot. When her hat started slipping her slender fingers simply plucked it away, tucked it in her pocket, and let her blonde hair tumble around her shoulders in a wave of bright gold. As he watched her bounce back to the truck Daryl realized it wasn't so much that she was immature as she was an eternal optimist. Beth's unique perspective of the world simply allowed her to be happy and not question it; she just accepted it as it was. There was no doubt in her mind that she deserved happiness. It was something he found himself beginning to admire because Daryl had been running on borrowed luck for years now and it was bound to run out at some point. There wasn't forgiveness written in the cards for a man like him but for the first time since he had gotten lost deep in the woods at the tender age of nine he found himself wondering if redemption was a possibility.

Beth had figured they would drop her off at her dorm and take off but when they got in the truck and she was once again against his side Daryl asked her what she would like to do for food. "We were thinkin' of getting delivery, unless you want something else?" He was struck by the instant look of gratitude that crossed her face as she turned to look at him and realized she was included.

"Delivery is fine with me."

The rest of the ride was spent with her leaning casually against his side as he draped an arm over her shoulders.

The next month passed in a blur of consistent happiness; the first Daryl had felt in a long time. Musically speaking he and Beth were well matched. He found that she was coming over three or four times a week and sometimes they would work, sometimes they would play, and sometimes they would just hang out. The longer Beth was around him the more she was able to let go. He got to see all sides of her. What she called 'dancing it out' to a song (apparently a phrase she had picked up from something called Grey's Anatomy) on Pandora or something that he was playing, the serious part of her as they watched movies. He saw her giggle and he saw her lose her temper (if never actually get angry) and all he wanted was to see more of her. They texted so much that Daryl had actually had to go into the store and upgrade his plan because he had burned through his 300 messages in less than a week. He had no idea how they managed to talk so much, especially when she was seemingly busy all the time. She did have a full class schedule and a social life, after all. When they were bored enough and it was late at night they would actually talk or Skype despite being close enough to walk and see each other. He would keep her company as she did her homework and sometimes they simply worked and never said a word, both of them just taking comfort in the fact that somebody was on the end of the connection. Sometimes she would play bits and pieces of things for him, briefly and quietly because it usually so late but her voice was unearthly and sometimes in the deep depths of his nightmares he would be pulled back by a song on a guitar that somehow...just somehow he knew it was hers.

Beth had grown up in a family of casual touch and communication. She and Maggie would snuggle on the couch and watch movies, feet on the laps of their mother or their brother or their father. It was simply natural for her. She and her siblings would puppy pile on the grass outside the house and just hang out after chores were done, still sticky and hot and tired from working before running off to jump in the river fully clothed. That was the hardest part of their new friendship as far as Daryl was concerned. As close as he and Rick were they were not men for hugs or touching, just the occasional handshake or clap of hand on shoulder or forearm to forearm grasp. He realized that no matter what she was doing, even if she was playing her guitar or studying or even napping, some part of her would be touching him. He'd gotten used to the weight of her feet across his thighs and resting his hand across her shins, the spontaneous touches as he was up and in the kitchen or getting something out of a bookshelf and they happened to cross paths. It opened him up to a whole world of affection and pure vulnerability that he had simply never known before. Daryl had lived in a household (if you could call it that) where touch had been nothing short of a weapon, where being alone and cold and hard meant safety and comfort and security.

Rick had mentioned more than once that Daryl was in danger of 'going soft', jokingly of course but he had no idea how dark of a memory that phrase dragged up. He found himself waking from his nightmares shaking and sweating with the echoes of Merle's voice and his father's belt and 'going soft' plaguing him. Those were the nights he found himself halfway through a bottle of whiskey before walking the distance to her building. Daryl didn't know why he did it. He could have gone anywhere, picked any direction to go, and the place he went was where she lived. The first few times he simply stood and let the chill of the October night settle and ease the whiskey out of his mind along with the fear. A few nights he would lean on the bright and sit in the shadow of the building and watch the street in front of him. One night it finally happened. Her light was on despite it being three in the morning and he called. Daryl was drunk, scared, angry, closed off and desperate. He just didn't know what else to do.

It rung. And rung. And then her sleepy voice answered the phone, low and quiet.

"Daryl?"

"Hey..." There was a long pause.

"Are you drunk?" her voice was still tinged with something dark and blurry.

"A bit."

"Where are you?"

Another pause. "Outside." He saw a figure check behind the blinds.

"Here? Like, my outside?"

"Yeah."

"Hang on." The phone clicked off. There was no questioning, no telling him to go fuck off, no yelling at him for calling so late. But had he really expected that of her? Beth, with her sweet smile and kind nature. She fucking trapped spiders and put them outside instead of killing them and opened the window for the flies to get out. He should have known she would never turn him away like this. What had he been thinking?

Beth lacked the foresight to put on some sort of coat or shoes or semblance of heat and here she was standing outside in a tank top and mesh shorts at the end of October with her arms crossed over her chest. She was standing in front of a drunken, shirtless, barefoot redneck wearing only a pair of unbuttoned jeans and was trying to persuade him to come inside. "Come on, Daryl. Somebody's gonna call the cops on you if you just stand here all night. I'm gettin' cold." Beth reached out between them and took his hand in hers and tugged. He followed her with his head down and watched the patterned rug of the hallway pass under his eyes and as the elevator dinged softly he brought his head up. He'd never been in her room before. Briefly he wondered what it was like.

Beth had apparently fallen asleep at her desk in the middle of studying something. There were books scattered and open, an uncapped highlighter had found a place in the middle of one, rolled there by gravity. Her bed was made, something fluffy, thick and warm-looking with water-color style blue and purple flowers on a white background. Purple pillows, blue sheets. Daryl stood in the middle of the small room and simply stared, taking it all in. Her walls were covered. Poetry, posters, photographs, art. It seemed as though every inch of wall was covered. There were christmas lights strung around the desk and bed in a pale blue. Beth's computer was on screen saver mode, photos of her and her friends from high school and her family. It was so normal. It was the life he'd wanted since he was early enough to recognize what the desire was. Where Daryl had reached out and found nothing but harm and pain she had grown up in a bubble of love. Where he was hard and scarred and deformed she was nothing but soft and unlined. She was his opposite in just about every way. There was another wash of pain across his chest and he settled into her seat at her desk with his head hung low.

Beth had never seen him like this. He was utterly defeated and defenseless. Daryl was a fairly large man but she felt like she could have knocked him over with a feather. He was broken. If Beth was going to be honest she was freaking out. He was starting to shiver and was frozen when she touched him. He smelled rank of sharp sweat, the kind created from fear, and alcohol. Her hands came to caress the side of his face and pull his face up so he would look at her. "Stay here for a second, okay? Don't go wandering off on me." She had played nursemaid and mother to a good chunk of her friends over the last year and some. This, at least, was familiar territory. Beth trod down to a friend's door, had a quiet discussion with the shirtless young man who groggily opened the door and came away with a pair of mesh basketball shorts and jogged back to her room.

She returned to find Daryl exactly where she had left him, staring at her computer screen. His gaze moved to her when she opened the door. Beth could feel the weight of his stare as she realized she wasn't too far off from naked but the man needed a shower before he could sleep this off. She refused to have her bed smelling like a bar. Beth tried to pull him to his feet with a grunt but he wouldn't budge from his spot at her desk. She could feel her temper rising just a hair as she snapped her fingers in front of his eyes and raised her voice. "Hey. Daryl. I'm willin' to help but you're bigger than I am. You gotta help me a little here, okay?" Something must have clicked because he got to his feet and Beth pulled his arm over his shoulders and hooked her arm around his waist. Even with his 'help' it took some serious maneuvering before she could get him down towards the bathroom at the end of the hall and it was even more difficult to get his jeans off (and wouldn't it figure he was naked under that?) and get him under the water.

The water is what finally snapped him out of his daze enough to function. Beth's gentle touches across his hips and his legs, the gentle tug at his ankles as she tried to get him to step out of his battered and now-soaked jeans. He blinked some of the drops out of water from his eyes and scrubbed his hand across his face. And then...he realized that he was naked and Beth was there in her tiny camisole and those tiny shorts, just as wet as he was, and he thanked God for all the whiskey he had consumed. If he'd been even remotely close to sober there would have been no hiding how he reacted to that particular stimuli of cloth nearly turned transparent. He felt fingers in his hair and down across his shoulders and his back. The delicate touch stopped at his hips and somehow he got a sense that he was clean. The grime and fear was washing away and then the water was shut off and she was handing him a towel. Everything was hazy and confusing but he was functional enough to dry himself off and get into the shorts she handed him; men's shorts. Shorts that came along with a fierce stab of jealousy and possessiveness that vanished as quickly as it had come. He realized dimly after they had gotten back to her room that she was still wet. He handed her the towel and slowly climbed up into her bed and under her covers. It was only after he'd been settled in under the covers with the wall at his back did Daryl realize she hadn't really touched the ropes of scars that were across his back any more than was strictly necessary, or even admitted their existence. She must have seen them, she'd been staring at him and washing him but she didn't ask or linger or question about them at all. Beth was the first person to simply accept them as part of who he was, as a sign of a dark and tumultuous path that had led him to where he was today. The only person who had reacted like that (or not reacted) was Rick.

He was safely in bed before Beth took the time to dry off her hair and change into something dry. She had a feeling he may not remember but she faced the door anyway before changing into a sports bra and a clean (and DRY) pair of shorts and undies. She fumbled and cursed the fact that she hadn't had a chance to do laundry this week; that was literally the last pair of underwear she had and she had run out of sleep-able t-shirts two days ago. Now, though, there was another problem. Since he had clearly claimed the bed where else was she supposed to crash? Anything was better than the desk she'd been sleeping on before but the floor wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind. Fuck it. It was her bed and her room and he had come to her. Beth huffed quietly but wasn't going to get kicked out of her bed at four in the morning on a Wednesday. She slid under the covers and reached for the light, clicking it off and she settled into the dark realizing that she wouldn't quite be making it to class the next morning.

Despite being drunk Daryl was awake long after Beth had fallen asleep. He was tormented by the view he'd gotten while she had changed. It was fleeting, just a hint of smooth pale skin, shoulders, curves, and something lacy and blue. Then, of all things, she'd gotten into bed beside him. Somehow in her sleep she had curled herself around his side as he was on his back, her soft, damp, hair forming a halo around her face and over his shoulder from where she was resting on his chest. She was extraordinary. Beth had so calmly accepted the fact that he had shown up drunk on a weekday with no purpose. This amazing woman (how could he have ever thought her a child?) had seen him for who he really was; a coward. She had seen him and not turned him away or spurned him or mocked him. Those blue eyes of hers had taken everything in from the alcohol to his marred skin without a word. He had been expecting an interrogation at the least or at the worst flat out refusal and denial of help. But.. Beth wasn't the type of person to leave somebody out in the cold, not when they needed help. She had taken care of him with nothing but compassion. The soft floral smell of her shampoo (jasmine?) combined with the beating of her heart and the warmth of her body against his was enough to finally lull him to sleep with his nose buried in her hair.

Beth woke to a warm body in her bed and her alarm blared at her at after four measly hours of sleep. The events of the night came rushing back and her eyes opened wide even as her body stilled realized realized that she, Beth Greene, had not only overslept and missed her class but also missed her Skype date with her sister. And then she realized that she was sharing the same bed as Daryl Dixon, that she could feel the strength and solidity of his muscles under her arm and the searing heat of his chest pressed against her cheek. Fuck. Beth slowly detached herself and slid out of bed before silencing her alarm. She spared a moment to stare at him with a hand pressed over her mouth. Crap. What exactly was she supposed to do now? She could leave. She could claim she had a class, leave him a note, let him get the hell out of her room with dignity. It was a tempting thought but...he had been seriously messed up. Something was going on with him and as his friend (did friends drunkenly sleep in the same bed?) she owed it to him to at least try to talk. Her feet carried her across the narrow room again and again as she wracked her brain for a solution that would satisfy her need to run and also her need to be a decent person. She could try and make the conversation easier for him and Maggie had told her once that the secret to get men to open was food. It had worked for her and Glenn, after all. There was a tiny little place down the road that made the best 'southern' food in the city. Good comfort food made by a Southern transplant that reminded her of home. The blonde paused long enough to start some coffee in the hopes it would help him stay until she got back.

Beth changed into a pair of jeans and her sweatshirt deciding not bothering with a shirt anyway because he'd been passed out long before she'd gotten into bed. She took a moment to open her notebook to an available page and scrawl out a note for him before ripping it out and taping it to the mirror on the back of her door. Then she grabbed her wallet and her keys and left.

Daryl woke to silence and a stuffy head with no shirt and in a pair of shorts that weren't his. Beth had already left so he decided to count his blessings and get the hell out of here before he had to explain anything that was the fiasco of last night. He threw back the covers with a grunt as the heat left him, searching desperately for his shoes as his feet hit the ground. No shoes. Had he come with shoes? No. He hadn't. Fuck. He ran a hand through his hair before spotting the note on the mirror.

Morning, Daryl! Ran out for breakfast. It's good, trust me.

Stick around. Coffee is already made.

-B

Even her note sounded perky. He couldn't believe it. Breakfast? Daryl met his own eyes in the mirror and took the time to seriously look at himself and came up with a sick feeling in his gut; he looked terrible. There were deep circles around his eyes and he had no shirt, no shoes, and that meant he couldn't even get coffee on the walk back. But...Beth had her own coffee maker. And she'd left him some in the pot along with a mug. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to run but he couldn't do that without hurting her. Yes, he needed her for the grade but this was so much more than that. The thing Daryl wanted to do was hurt her and she'd trapped him by carefully extending an invitation to stay, both written and with her actions. Instead he settled his bulk down into the chair next to the tiny desk and written words along a page caught his eye, the notebook she'd gotten the paper out of. It looked to be a personal notebook with the beginnings of a song penned in her neat hand. He knew he should not have looked. Staring down at this notebook Daryl knew it was wrong of him. That if she had ever looked at his counterpart he would be furious. And yet...he couldn't stop himself. There wasn't a whole lot of it on this page, just enough. Enough to cause an uncomfortable knot in his chest that he couldn't readily identify. There was a trace of a tune sketched out with notes that was beautiful in its simplicity and clearly just an idle thought, the focus here was the words and not the song itself.

I've got this friend
I don't think you know him
He's not much for words
He's hid in his hardened way

Oh I've got this friend
A loveless romantic
All that he really wants
Is someone to want him back

Oh, if the right one came
If the right one came along
Oh, If the right one came, along

I've got this friend
I don't think you know her
She sings a simple song
It sounds a lot like his

Oh I've got this friend
Holding onto her heart
Like it's a little secret
Like it's all she's got to give

It would be such an asinine thing to assume it was written about him when he really knew nothing about her. He didn't know a whole lot about her friends and while she talked about her family this clearly wasn't written for one of them. There was longing behind it and parts of it were scratched out and rewritten again but it couldn't be about him. Not even he was that arrogant. It wasn't about him but there was a faint, faint glimmer of hope that maybe it was.

Daryl left the notebook as he had found it and stared instead at the photos on the walls. It was a clear-cut picture of her life spread along four walls, fingers tracing over the people in the images as he went and looked at them all carefully one by one as he held onto his mug of dark coffee. Beth at a river with a group of teenagers jumping off a rock down into a deep pool with her arms folded across her chest and her hair streaming against gravity. Beth in an arena lit by bright lights against the dark navy of the sky, on a horse going after a calf with a look of concentration on her face and a black Stetson on her head with a lariat already leaving her gloved hand. Beth sitting on the porch with her sister and her guitar on a summer night. Beth in a tight, short, form fitting blue dress and sky high heels with a boy in a tuxedo. Beth in a long, pale golden gown that was cut deep in the front and close around her hips before falling in gentle folds to her feet. Her hair was up this time but she was also with the same boy who was in another tuxedo. Another pang of jealousy that left a bitter, alkaline taste in his mouth. Beth at football games, in 'selfies' with her friends. Lots of hot weather and hazy heat and photos Maggie had stolen as Beth sat out on a green lawn with her guitar, dressed in a soft beige halter top and a pair of cutoffs with her hair piled ontop of her head. Beth surrounded by riot of reds, oranges, and yellows of fall as she walked and laughed her way down a dirt road. Beth in her graduation gown standing tall next to her father, her mother, her sister, her brother, her hair in a side braid and a look of triumph on her face. Beth camping deep in the mountains with her siblings. Beth at the aquarium here in Boston, at the beach, at the Common, at a Red Sox game in Kenmore square, one photo of her group of college girlfriends walking down the road in a deserted Central Square late at night, arms linked, short skirts and glittery tops and high heels as they tried to hail a cab. It was easy enough to pick her form out of the line, all pale leg, clad in a short black skirt that hugged the curve of her hips. Beth on Newbury street and the Freedom Trail. Beth at a Bruins game holding a flask high in the nosebleeds and cheering with her friends. Beth. Beth. Beth. Beth. Beth. Beth. She was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Daryl was surrounded by her, absorbing the very essence of who she was, fingers tracing over smiles and soft-looking cascades of hair. He was drowning in her. Then his ears heard the lock turn in the door behind him and he turned around to be greeted with the smell of food and his pixie-like little friend (friend?).

In the end they didn't talk about anything relating to Daryl or to why he had shown up drunk and incoherent in front of her building. They talked about how she was a passable cook and how she'd grown up, Daryl peppering her with questions even as he dug into a chicken fried steak and biscuits and gravy out of a styrofoam container. The duo ended up sitting on the floor drinking coffee out of mugs and talking and laughing and if they'd taken the time to admit it, they would have realized that this thing, whatever it was, felt natural and right and easy between them. All Beth knew was that this was one of the best days she'd had since she had returned to college after a long summer home.