Page 31 of What We Brave
"Same time Thursday?" she asks, leaning back to study me. She does that a lot lately, that deep little furrow between her brows.
"Wouldn't miss it."
I grab my bag and push through the door into the afternoon sun. The February air has that crisp edge to it now, the kind that makes me want to curl up with a book and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. Which is exactly what I've been doing, and I'm mad about it. Five weeks of dwelling on that conversation with Reid, wondering if I did the right thing reaching out to Blake a month ago, wondering if he even got my text before he deployed or if it just sat there in some server somewhere waiting for him to land back in the States.
He's not my responsibility anymore. Neither of them are.
I'm dwelling. I hate dwelling. Dwelling is for people who don'tknow how to move forward, and I've spent my entire life moving forward—it's the one thing I've always been good at.
No more, Laine. That's enough.
I scan the street and lock on to the hardware store. Bookshelves. I can finally get the anchors for those shelves that have been leaning against my bedroom wall for two months now because the mounting hardware that came in the box was garbage, cheap plastic anchors that would rip out of the drywall the second I put a hardback on them. I'm all about the nesting lately, making my place feel more and more like mine, and even if everything else in my life feels upside down, my apartment is starting to feel like a little sanctuary.
Henderson's smells like sawdust and metal and that specific sharp tang of cut lumber that instantly transports me back to being twelve years old, sweeping up construction sites in the Philippines while my dad framed a new roof. It's a comforting smell. A smell that makes sense.
I bypass the front displays and head straight for aisle seven because I don't need help, I know exactly what I'm looking for. The fasteners aisle is a mess—bins mixed up, sizes mislabeled—and I dig through one marked "Heavy Duty," tossing aside plastic plugs until I find the toggle bolts.
"Quarter-inch," I mutter, checking the thread count. "Come on, where are the three-sixteenths?"
I spot a box on the top shelf, just out of reach, and I'm stepping onto the bottom rail of the shelving unit to grab it when a body crowds my peripheral vision, all heat and the sharp scent of sawdust and something darker like ozone, and a massive arm reaches right over my shoulder, effortless, and a voice I know drops straight into my chest.
"You don't want those."
My sneaker slips off the rail and I'm stumbling back and my hands are shaking, the plastic package of bolts I'm holding rattling because I know that voice. I know the weight of that presence behind me, the way he takes up space, the way the air changes, and I don't turn around because if I don't turn around it's not real.
If I don't turn around, I can keep my heart inside my chest where it belongs instead of letting it climb up my throat and strangle me.
"The spring mechanism on that brand jams half the time." His voice is closer now, rough and careful at the same time. "You want the Toggler snaps. Bottom shelf, blue box."
I turn around.
Blake.
My purse hits the floor—I didn't drop it, my hand just stopped working—and he's here, alive, solid,massivein a way I don't remember, his shoulders stretching the seams of his flannel shirt like he's wider now, harder, like he spent the last four months doing nothing but lifting heavy things and surviving.
Which he did.
The bruises from that night are gone, the hollow haunted look is gone, and he's just—he looks?—
Run.
The thought fires through my nervous system like a starter pistol and I'm moving, not a decision, just my body taking over, pivoting toward the end of the aisle, my feet already carrying me past him, past the shelving unit, and my shoulder clips the corner display of paint samples and they scatter across the floor in a cascade of color chips but I don't stop, the exit is right there, glass doors and sunlight and open air?—
I hit the sidewalk and my lungs remember how to work.
Breathe. Just breathe.
I reach for the strap of my—my purse is on the floor in aisle seven. My phone, my keys, my wallet, everything is in that bag and I just ran like a startled animal.
Oh geez. Why did I do that. It wasn't a conscious decision, but now I get to turn around and walk back in there like a normal person and find my purse.
Why can't I just be normal?
I press my palm to my forehead and groan, and a woman walking past with a toddler gives me a concerned look.
I smile at her and it feels manic.
The door opens behind me.
