Page 209 of What We Break
"Reid, let go."
"I'll kick him out," I say, the words tumbling out of me in a desperate rush. "If that’s what you need, I’ll do it. I’ll tell him to go.Tonight. Right now. I’ll walk into that workshop and tell him to pack his shit."
She looks down at my hand gripping hers. She doesn't pull away, but she doesn't hold me back. Her hand is limp in mine.
"You shouldn't have to be forced," she says. "And the fact that you’re only offering now, because you’re afraid of losing me... it’s not enough."
"It has to be enough!" My voice cracks. I’m begging now. I don’t care. I’ll beg. I’ll crawl. "Laine, I love you. Doesn't that matter? Doesn't the last five months matter?"
"They matter so much," she whispers. "That’s why this hurts so bad. You’re the best man I’ve ever known, Reid. You made me believe I could stay."
She pulls her hand gently from my grip.
"But I c—can't stay in a house where I’m tolerated. I can't stay with a man who needs his friend's permission to be happy."
"I don't need his permission!"
She locks eyes with me. And the certainty in them makes me freeze. "You needed him to stay more than you needed me to be safe."
The truth of it hits me like a fist to the gut. Safe. I didn't get it. He's not dangerous to her. Not physically anyway. How the fuck can I be this stupid? She told me she was hurting. But I didn't see it, not really.
I stand there, paralyzed, as she opens the car door. The interior light floods the driveway, illuminating the tears streaming down her face. She looks devastated. She looks beautiful.
She looks gone.
"Please," I whisper. One last time. "Please don't go."
She pauses, one foot in the car. She looks up at me, and her eyes are full of a terrible, final pity.
"He said everyone leaves," she says. "I didn't want him to be right. But I guess he is."
She slides into the seat. The door slams shut.
I stand in the driveway as the engine turns over. I stand there as she backs out. I stand there as the taillights shrink to red pinpricks and then blink out around the bend.
Gone.
The silence rushes back in. Louder than before. It screams.
Everyone leaves.
Blake said that to her. Looked the woman I love in the eye and told her she was temporary. Took the things I trusted him with and used them to cut her open.
And then he told her about the contract.
He told her I made him stay. Painted me as the desperate, clingy friend who couldn't function alone. Took the one thing I did out of love — trying to save his life — and turned it into the thing that killed this.
My knees give. I sit down hard on the bottom porch step. The damp cold seeps through my jeans. I can't feel it. I can't feel anything except the absence. This huge, hollowed-out nothing where she used to be.
She's gone.
Laine is gone. The laughter. The warmth. The future I was building. All of it.
Gone.
And it's his fault.
The thought lands like a match on gasoline.
