Page 29 of What We Brave
"But," I say.
He opens one eye.
"I’d do it anyway."
"What?"
"I'd want to tear my own skin off," I say, the truth tasting like battery acid. "Every single day."
Reid flinches, looking away.
"But I'm not running away again." I lean forward, forcing him to look back at me. "I'd stay. If you get another shot... you take it. I’ll figure my shit out. I’ll move out of the house so you don't have to look at me, but I won't disappear. You take the shot."
He watches me, his jaw working as he processes the absolutewreckage I just laid out between us. "You're a fucking idiot," he whispers. "And I love her too much to tell you no. But it doesn't matter. She won't ever take me back."
The tension in my shoulders loosens slightly. Not gone, but manageable. How fucked up is it that his staying alone makes me feel better? I'm not going to question it right now. It's something I can unpack later, when I'm alone. Some fresh material for me to hate myself over.
"We should eat something," Reid says.
"When's the last time you ate?"
He has to think about it. That's answer enough.
"There's nothing in the fridge," he says.
"That pizza place that delivers until two. They still open?"
"I think so."
"Then we're ordering pizza." I stand up, looking for my phone. "And you're eating at least three slices."
"You can't just?—"
"I'm not taking care of you," I interrupt. "I'm making sure my brother doesn't pass out from low blood sugar while we're having an important conversation. There's a difference."
Reid stares at me for a moment. Then something in his face softens.
"Pepperoni and mushroom," he says. "And breadsticks. If you're ordering, you're getting breadsticks."
"Done."
The pizza arrives thirty minutes later. We eat it on the couch like we used to, the box between us, some terrible late-night show playing on the TV neither of us is watching.
Reid eats four slices. I count.
It's not fixed. Nothing is fixed. Laine is still out there, still hurt. Reid and I just admitted out loud that our old life is over, that we have to build something new without knowing what that looks like. And somewhere underneath everything, I'm still carrying feelings I have no right to have for a woman who deserves so much better than me.
But we're here. Both of us. Alive and honest and trying. Whoo-fucking-hoo.
"I should shower," Reid says eventually. "I smell like the rig."
"You smell like three days of the rig."
"Thanks for that."
"Anytime."
He stands, stretching. His back pops audibly. "Your room's all set up. Clean sheets and everything."
