Page 213 of What We Brave
"Get back to the boxwoods."
"The boxwoods are done."
I look past him. They look like something went through a blender.
"The boxwoods look like they were attacked with a machete."
"They lookartistic.Laine, tell him they look artistic."
She glances over, presses her lips together. "They look like someone trimmed them during an earthquake."
A gasp and a dramatic slap to his chest. "How dare you. Nobody appreciates me."
He flops onto the grass beside the flower bed, grabs a water bottle. Drinks half of it. Squints up at the sky like a man who's got nowhere else to be.
We're quiet for a minute. The three of us. Dirt and sweat and the smell of cut grass and the careful distance we're all pretending isn't there.
Laine's hands are still in the soil, fingers working loose a stubborn root. Reid's peeling the label off his water bottle. I'm crouched between them with my forearms on my knees, trying not to bring up my shit. Shit doesn't always have to be talked about, right? Sometimes letting shit go is smarter.
"So," Reid says. "Yesterday."
God dammit.
Laine's hands go still.
"We probably need to talk about it," he says. "Not the kitchen stuff. We did that. But the... rest of it."
"The market," I say.
"The market." He nods. "The being-out-in-public-all-three-of-us thing."
Laine pulls the root free. Sets it aside carefully, like it matters. "What about it?"
"I think—" Reid sits up, crosses his legs. "I think we need more practice."
"Practice," she repeats.
"Yeah. Like, yesterday was basically our first real outing. All three of us, holding hands, being... us. In front of people. And it went sideways. But maybe that's because we haven't done it enough."
"It went sideways because I panicked," Laine says quietly.
"It went sideways because it was new," Reid corrects. "And new things are scary. Especially when—" He gestures vaguely at the three of us. "—when there's no playbook for what we are."
I pick up a stick. Snap it in half. Snap the halves into quarters. Give my hands something to do.
"People stare," I say. "At the market. Before Joyce. A woman at the soap stall."
"The soap lady." Reid nods. "Yeah, I saw her."
"That part I can handle," Laine says. "Strangers don't bother me. It's?—"
"The people who matter." I finish it before she can. Not accusing. Just repeating what she told us yesterday.
She looks at me. Something raw and sorry in her eyes.
"Yeah."
The yard is quiet except for a bird somewhere in the maple tree. Some insistent little thing that won't shut up.
