Once Daryl had grabbed onto the woman's arm, she spun around wildly.
"Hey…" Daryl said softly and with uncertainty. It was Beth. It was her. She was here. He couldn't believe his eyes. He felt his stomach lurch and all of a sudden he felt like he couldn't breathe. All the crazy feelings of the last few days, his anger, frustration, embarrassment, and fear, they all converged on him – but then they were overcome with one bigger emotion, joy. Beth was right here, and in that moment, he wanted to forget about everything and just wrap his arms around her.
She didn't respond to his words, but before he knew it, she was lunging herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck, eliminating any space that existed between them at all. Daryl was at a loss – he felt like the missing part of him, that he'd been mourning over for the last three days, had found its way back to him. But nothing had been resolved between them. And something seemed very wrong with Beth – she wasn't letting go and he realized that she'd started to sob uncontrollably into his chest.
He pulled her away, just enough that he could actually look at her, but not breaking the contact between them. He needed that contact – feeling it now after three days of not seeing her, not touching her, her touch now made him realize how thirsty he was for her. It was in that moment that his heart really broke, though – he only thought he'd been experiencing pain over the last few days – but the way Beth looked made him realize how wrong he'd been. In a matter of just a few seconds, Daryl swore he'd felt the pieces of his heart coming back together again, only to be shattered again. Beth had obviously been crying a great deal, and not just in that one moment, because her face was extremely swollen and red. Her eyes, which were normally bright and sparkling, were the puffiest he ever remembering seeing anyone's and the skin underneath them was rimmed with very dark circles. But what haunted him the most was the dead expression that he found when he looked into her eyes – there was nothing there, no feeling or emotion, not even a real sense of recognition. The normal blue of her eyes had been replaced by a dull gray color, and Beth's facial expression almost resembled that of someone who had seen a ghost – instead of being scared, though, she just seemed to be in utter and total shock.
She remained silent, the blank expression on her face haunting Daryl. He noticed then that she was only wearing her lifeguard bathing suit, her jacket, and flip flops. No shorts. Luckily her jacket was large enough to cover her, but it wasn't like her to be dressed like this. And her hair was wild – half still up in the top knot that she often wore while working, but the rest had fallen haphazardly around her face. And she'd obviously made no effort to fix it, which again, Daryl thought was unlike her. She had random patches of sand covering her skin – some around both feet, then another patch around her right knee, some on her chest, and even a little on her face. But what concerned Daryl the most were the two large scrapes across Beth's shins. Daryl had never seen her come home from work that way – and it startled him. Had something happened at the beach today? He'd thought she told him that she had the day off – but he must have been mistaken. Why else would she be wearing her lifeguarding uniform?
Daryl didn't know what it was, but knew something was wrong, knew she was going through something painful. He knew that things between them hadn't been good, but he just couldn't imagine that her current state was related to what had happened between them on Friday night. It had been bad, sure, but it wouldn't have caused this, right? She wouldn't be this messed up over that, could she? She'd been texting and calling him constantly until this morning. This morning, he thought to himself, was the last message he'd gotten – and she sent it around the time she'd have been getting ready for work. Maybe something had happened at work today, but for the life of him, his brain couldn't think of what it would have been that would have caused her to have this type of reaction.
"Beth? What's going on? Are you okay?" Daryl asked. He realized how shaky his voice sounded – but it reflected how scared he felt in that moment. He instantly thought he'd asked an incredibly stupid question – obviously she wasn't okay, far from it, it seemed. He was confused, and felt powerless. He wanted to tell her in that moment how sorry he was for being so careless with her, and for not calling her back. He wanted to hold onto her and beg her to forgive him, beg her to forget what had happened between them, and ask her if they could just start everything over. He wanted to kiss her, tell her that everything was going to be okay, and that he would protect her, that he'd be more careful with her heart from now on. He wanted to promise her that he'd never walk out on her again, that he'd been wrong to do that. He knew he normally would have been too proud for any of that, and in the past he would have let that pride get in the way of being honest about how he really felt. But after the last few days he knew he couldn't let that limit him anymore. He'd thought he could just forget about her, but today had shown him just how wrong he was. And now that she was standing here before him, he knew he didn't want to forget. Beth deserved to hear all of those things from him. And he wanted to tell her.
But she reminded silent, despondent. Her eyes were still glazed over – and Daryl was struck with the violent turn that her emotions had made within just a couple of minutes. At first she'd been crying so intensely, obviously upset. But now, she was stoic, almost seeming catatonic. And Daryl had no idea what to do to pull her out of it. He felt so much pain in seeing her this way, so obviously broken, and especially guilty for the part that he'd possibly played in it, if these emotions actually were a response to what had happened between them on Friday. He knew Beth was very emotional, she'd shown him that several times, even in the short amount of time they'd known each other. He'd realized quickly how fiercely she cared about others, and how quickly attached she became – and that anything that tampered with those connections often sent her into a tailspin.
"Sir?... Sir?" the cashier's voice broke into Daryl's thoughts, snapping him back into reality. The cashier had apparently already rung up all of his items, bagged them up, and loaded them back into a buggy for him to take to the parking lot. He was shocked that enough time had passed to allow her to do that, but then again, he'd been lost in the moment, in Beth and what was going on with her.
"Sorry…" Daryl apologized quickly. "Here…" he said as he quickly dug out his wallet, handing the woman his debit card, paying no attention to the total. In that moment, he couldn't care less about what he was spending – he wished he didn't have all these bags of stuff to deal with now. Beth needed him and he had to get her home – had to get her out of here and talk to her, figure out what was going on.
"Here you go, sir…" the cashier said. She had realized the gravity of what was happening in front of her, and so, instead of instructing Daryl on how to swipe his own card through the small machine at the checkout, the woman wordlessly processed Daryl's card for him, handing it back to him, along with the receipt. "I put her bags in the seat of the cart… I… uh… assumed y'all are together?".
"Yeah…" Daryl responded, a bit of uncertainty in his voice. "Thanks".
"I… I hope she'd okay" the cashier said, a somewhat bewildered look on her face. Daryl moved towards the cart that was overflowing with his things, and Beth's too, nodding at the cashier in response. He didn't know what to say. He hoped Beth would be okay too, but he didn't know what to say or do to help her. She was still just staring ahead blankly, emotionless, her body almost limb.
Daryl didn't know what to do – but he knew he had to get her out of the store. Maybe if he could get her home, get her cleaned up and fed, maybe she'd snap out of this, he hoped. Pushing the cart with one hand, he grabbed Beth protectively around the waist and started to lead her towards the door of the store. She shuffled her little feet slowly along, following Daryl's lead, but saying nothing. She didn't fight him and Daryl hoped that at least that was a good sign, that she was going along with him willingly. Daryl's mind raced. What was happening? What should he do? Had he caused this or was it something else? Beth's initial reaction in seeing him had suggested that she wasn't mad at him, but he couldn't be sure what was causing her to be so visibly upset.
They got out to Daryl's truck quickly and he went straight to the passenger side, getting Beth loaded in, before wanting to attend to getting the million little plastic grocery bags into the back. Beth was nonresponsive – and Daryl placed her seat belt around her, then cupping his hands around her face, forcing her to look at him.
"Beth… I'm not sure what's going on. I'm gonna get you home, though. I'm gonna take care of you. I'm so sorry, baby. It's gonna be okay. I promise." Daryl said, speaking very slowly but confidently, and pausing between each statement. He cringed a bit when he realized he'd called her "baby" again, like he had so many times on Friday. Saying it then had just come naturally to him. He hadn't called her that because he was pretending and he sure wasn't pretending now. That term of endearment fit her, for him, and although he knew that Beth might not like it, he couldn't worry about it now. He wasn't even sure if Beth could hear him, or if she was listening. He hadn't known what else to say – and he knew that wasn't nearly enough. But without knowing what was causing Beth to have this type of emotional catharsis, he didn't know what else to say or do. He hoped those simple few statements would at least be enough to reassure her that he was going to take care of her.
Daryl quickly loaded all of the bags into the back of his truck. He didn't care much about any of this stuff now – but he couldn't just leave it there, and he'd figure out what to do with it once he'd gotten a better handle on what was happening with Beth. His first priority now, though, was getting her home. He couldn't even imagine that she'd driven herself to the store in her current state and he shook his head thinking about how dangerous that had been. He was glad that he'd stumbled upon her; her car would just have to stay here for a while, he thought. That wasn't really of too much concern at the moment. He took extra care to place Beth's two bags next to her in the truck – he wanted to make sure they got taken into the house once they'd gotten there. She'd wanted those things for a reason and he wanted to make sure that she had them.
As he climbed into the truck, he quickly buckled himself in and then, looking over to check on Beth, who still was just staring straight ahead, he started up the truck and started to pull away. A moment later, he glanced back over, only to see a single tear streaking down the left side of her face. She was hurting, Daryl thought, and he was going to do everything he could to get her through this, whatever it was.
He reached over towards her, grabbing her left hand and squeezing it in his tightly. He held it on the seat between them, on top of Beth's bags, trying to give her whatever physical reassurance that he could – he wanted her to know he was there, that he wasn't going to leave her. Her despondency was breaking his heart, but she'd let him hold her hand and hadn't tried to pull it away. He brought her hand up to his mouth, pressing his lips to it for a long while, finally bringing it back down onto the seat.
"I've got you, baby girl. And I'm not letting go".