Page 264 of What We Brave
"How long?"
"It's not?—"
"How long, Reid?"
He doesn't look away. I'll give him that. "A few weeks. She told me she was working on it. That she was going to tell them before we left."
A few weeks.Six, seven weeks of planning this trip. Of me packing a bag and buying a linen shirt and lying in bed at night thinking about shaking her father's hand. And both of them knew. Both of them watched me do all of that knowing I was walking into her parents' house asthe fucking friend.
"I should've told you." Reid's voice is low. "I kept thinking she was going to handle it and I wouldn't have to — I fucked up. I know I fucked up."
I look at him. My best friend. My brother in every way that counts. The person I trust more than anyone breathing.
Fucked up feels way too small for this.
"Yeah," I say. "You did."
He takes it. Doesn't argue, doesn't deflect. Just sits there and takes it.
I turn back to Laine. She's crying now. Not sobbing — just tears, quiet ones, slipping down her face.
"I know what I'm asking," she says. "But you don't understand — they're all I have. My parents are my only family. And their entire world is their faith and their ministry and their community, and if I get this wrong?—"
"What happens if you get it wrong?"
She stares at me.
"Say it, Laine. What are you actually afraid of?"
"That I lose them." Her voice cracks. "That I tell them and they smile and say they love me and then I become the daughter they pray about. The one they worry over. The one they lovewhere she isuntil she comes around." She wipes her face with the back of her hand. "And they never look at me the same way again."
It lands. I wish it didn't. Being all the way pissed would be easier than this. But I don't have parents. I don't have anyone to lose like that. And if I did — if I had people who loved me the way her parents love her — maybe I'd be just as scared.
But understanding why she did it doesn't make it okay.
"I get it," I say. "I do. But you had weeks. You had weeks to tell me, and instead you and Reid decided for me. You decided what I could handle. You decided what I got to know about my own fucking life."
"That's not—" Reid starts.
"I'vebeennothing, Laine." My voice is steady but what's underneath it isn't. I thought I understood pain. I thought that I couldn't hurt worse than I did when I blew everything up.
I was wrong. "I've been the guy on the outside. And you know that. You know that better than anyone because you're the one who told me I didn't have to be that anymore."
She puts her hand over her mouth.
I stand up. Walk to my duffel, drop in on the bed. Unzip it.
Nobody says anything.
I take the linen shirt off the top. The one she picked out. Smooth thefabric, and set it on the dresser. Then the khakis. The new belt I bought because I don't own a belt that isn't holding up work jeans.
The room is so quiet I can hear Laine breathing.
Toiletry bag. Book. The good sandals Reid talked me into. I'm not a sandals guy. Bare fucking feet aren't really my thing. But I was going to wear them with a smile on my face.
"Blake." Laine's voice is barely there. "What are you doing?"
I don't answer. Pull out the last of it. Socks. Underwear. Stack it neat on the dresser because that's what I do. I make things neat and orderly even when everything else is falling apart.
