Page 209 of What We Brave
"I thought we were past this," he says, so quietly I almost miss it. "Today was good. The whole morning. She was holding my hand and I was — I wasthere, Reid. Not behind you guys. Not on the outside. Right there."
"You were. I saw it." I felt it, kind of an us against the world thing. I liked it.
"And then—" Another pass with the plane. "One person. One person she knows and trusts, and I'm the one she lets go of."
And I'm the one she kept.
I've been carrying that since the market. Haven't said it. Haven't known how to say it without making this about me when it's not about me.
But it is, a little. It's about all three of us.
"You want to know something that's been fucking with my head?" I say.
Blake looks up.
"She kept my hand. When she let go of yours, she kept mine." I meet his eyes. "And part of me — part of me liked that. That I'm the safe one. The easy one to explain.This is my boyfriend Reid.Simple. Clean. Nobody does the math."
Blake's expression doesn't change, but he's still. Listening.
"And I hate that I liked it. Because what does that make me? The presentable boyfriend? The one she can hold on to when it gets scary?" I shake my head. "That's not what I want to be. Not if it means you're the one she drops. That shit's not okay."
The plane starts up again.
"I don't want to be the easy choice, Blake. I want all three of us to be the choice. Every time. Even when it's hard."
Blake sets the plane down carefully. Lines it up with the edge of the bench, because he can't help himself.
"You know what's fucked up?" he says. "I see you and Laine together and I think —that's right. That makes sense. You light her up, she settles you down. You're good together. And I watch that and part of me knows I'm just the extra piece. The thing that doesn't fit in the picture."
"That's bullshit."
He shrugs, mouth twisting. "Maybe. But it's what my head does."
"Yeah, well — you want to know what my head does? When I see you and Laine together?" I wait until he looks at me. "I see her go still. In a good way. She's always moving, always thinking. But with you,she stops. She just... lands. And I can't do that for her. I don't know how."
Being still is hard as hell for me. It only works when I can fixate on something. Like her skin, or the way she smells. But I'm not the restful guy. Not sure I ever can be. I'm just not built that way.
Blake's the master of restful. Of slow and deliberate.
Also the Mayor of Grumpytown, but I'm not going to bring that up right now.
Blake blinks. Like this is information he genuinely didn't have.
Oh my god, I'm Yoda.
"You're not the extra piece," I say. "You're the foundation. You're the thing the rest of it is built on. And I'm not just saying that to make you feel better — I'm saying it because I watch her with you and I see something I can't give her, and I'mgladyou can."
He looks down at his hands.
"We're both idiots," he says.
"Huge idiots."
"Both feeling like the third fucking wheel."
"In a three-wheeled vehicle. Which, if you think about it, means we're all equally important structurally?—"
"Don't make it a metaphor," he says on a groan.
