Page 155 of What We Brave
The answer came out easy. Too easy. Because my brain immediately followed it with:With who? In what house? In what version of your life where any of this makes sense?
I handed Claire back before I could think about it too hard.
I make sure the drive home takes a while.
I stop for gas I don't need. The tank's at three-quarters. I stand atthe pump anyway, watching the numbers climb, bouncing on my heels breathing in the fresh spring air.
What if it went wrong?
I pull back onto the road.
What if Blake froze up? Shut down? What if he said something cruel because that's what Blake does when he's scared — he bites?
Left turn. Past the hardware store. Past the diner with the crooked sign that annoys the hell out of me. Is it really that hard to hang a sign?
Okay, yeah, it is hard. But I bet I could send Blake over there to fix it for them. If it bugs me, I'm pretty sure it's close to giving him a coronary.
What if it went right?
That thought's harder somehow.
What if it went right and now everything's different and they don't?—
Nope. Not finishing that one.
I circle the block. Pull into the gas stationagain. The same attendant looks at me through the window like I've lost my mind. I buy a bag of chips I don't want and sit in the parking lot eating them.
You're stalling, Garrison.
Yeah. I am.
Because here's the thing I'm not going to look at directly — the thing I keep shoving behind other thoughts like hiding a bill under a stack of junk mail:
What if they don't need me anymore?
What if Blake and Laine click into place like the last two puzzle pieces and I'm the extra one? The corner piece from a different box that someone shoved in by mistake?
Stupid.Blake would smack me upside the head for thinking that. Laine would give me that look — the one that makes me feel like she's ready to pop the top of my head off and root around inside.
I crumple the chip bag. Toss it in the passenger seat. Pull out of the parking lot.
One more lap around the block.
Okay. One more.
Claire smelled really good though. Like, unreasonably good. Is thatan evolutionary thing? So you don't leave them in the woods? Tony would know. Tony knows weird shit like that.
Focus.
I turn onto our street.
Blake's truck is in the driveway. Laine's car too.
Both still here. That's either really good or really bad.
Or it's just two vehicles in a driveway, Reid. Calm the fuck down.
I sit in the truck for thirty seconds. Tap my fingers on the steering wheel. Bounce my knee.
