Page 105 of What We Break
"We had this call tonight," I say into her hair. My voice cracks. Splits right down the middle. "This veteran who... who tried to..."
Can't finish it. The words are right there and I can't make them come out.
Laine doesn't make me. She pulls back just enough to take my hand and lead me inside. The door clicks shut behind us.
The apartment is dim. One lamp in the corner. Smells like her — that vanilla candle she always has going, something floral from her shampoo.
"Sit," she says, gentle, guiding me to her couch. "I'll make tea."
"You don't have to —"
"I want to."
She disappears into the kitchen. Water running. Cabinet doors. The soft beep of the microwave. Normal sounds. Ordinary sounds. They pin me to something real.
When she comes back with two mugs, I'm sitting on her couch staring at my hands. They're shaking. I don't know when that started.
She sets the mugs on the coffee table and settles beside me. Not across from me. Not at some careful, polite distance. Right next to me, her thigh pressed against mine. One hand on my knee.
This is what I needed. Not just connection. Not just touch. Laine. Specifically Laine.
"Tell me what happened," she says.
So I do. Tell her about Marcus. About finding him unconscious in his bathroom. About getting him stabilized and loaded into the rig. About the way he cried when he realized we'd saved him. How he kept saying he just wanted it to stop.
"What did you say to him?" Laine asks quietly.
"I tried everything. Told him I was military too, that I understood coming home was hard. Asked about his unit, his family. But he just kept saying 'you don't know, you don't know' over and over." I stare at my tea. It smells like flowers. "Maybe he was right. Maybe I don't know."
Her hand moves from my knee to my arm, thumb stroking slowly.
"What don't you know?"
"How to live with it. How to come home and pretend everything's normal when you've seen..." I trail off.
"When you've seen what?"
"Too much death. Too much waste." The words feel thick in my throat. "At least Marcus made it home to fall apart. My brother never got that chance."
Laine shifts closer on the couch, her hand finding mine. "Tell me about Jared."
Nobody ever asks me to talk about Jared anymore. Blake lived it with me, so he doesn't need the stories. My dad can't handle hearing them. But Laine's sitting here like she genuinely wants to know.
"He was two years older than me. So is Blake. Jared was always the leader of our group—me, Blake, and him. When we were kids, if Jared decided we were building a skateboard ramp, we built a ramp. If he decided we were going fishing, we went fishing." I smile despite the boulder in my chest. "He enlisted first, right out of high school. Blakejoined up the next day; even then he always wanted to take care of everyone. And I followed them both when I graduated because I couldn't imagine doing life without both of them."
We were always together. It didn't matter what else was happening, I always knew that when I needed them, they would be there. The two years I spent here without them were barely survivable.
At least at sixteen, that's how I felt. I didn't understand what real loss was like back then. I hadn't lost anyone. I didn't understand the hell that was to come. Mom before I even graduated. And Jared way too soon.
"What was he like over there?"
"Same as he was here. So fucking capable." I dig my thumbnail into the side of my knee. Press hard. "My brother was the chillest, good-at-everything kid from day one. Military was no different. Breezed through Basic. So did Blake. Then he moved up the ranks fast, kept everyone out of the shit more times than I can count."
He always joked he had a horseshoe up his ass. That his luck wouldn't ever fail.
"He only had six months left on his tour. Had everything planned out — was going to use his GI Bill, study engineering. He used to draw these blueprints on napkins during downtime."
"What happened?"
