Page 36 of What We Brave
"Blake—" Reid tries.
"You want to know what I want?" Blake cuts him off, still looking at me. "I want to not have fucked this up so badly in the first place. I want to not have spent months being cruel to you because I couldn't handle my own feelings. I want to go back and do everything differently."
"But you can't," I say.
"But I can't." His mouth twists in something that's not quite a smile. "But I can stand here and watch Reid try to fix shit between you. You were good together before I destroyed it and maybe you can be again."
He's narrating our relationship from the outside. Talking about what Reid and I had, what we were building, like he was never part of the equation. Like his feelings are just an inconvenient footnote.
"And you think we can just pick up where we left off?" My voice is shaking. "Pretend the last four months didn't happen?"
"No." Reid shakes his head quickly. "I'm not asking you to pretend anything. I'm asking for a chance to prove I'm different. That I've changed. That I can be the person you thought I was."
"How?" The question comes out desperate, raw. "How do I know you're different? How do I trust that?"
"You don't." Reid's voice is steady despite the way his hands are shaking. "Not yet. The only way you'll know is if I show you. Over time. I can tell you I'm in therapy, that I'm doing the work, that I understand what I did wrong. But words don't mean anything. Only actions do."
I don't know what to say to that. Don't know what I'm supposed to feel standing here between them—Reid offering me a future, Blake stepping back from one he never offered.
Blake is watching us with that careful stillness and I can't read his expression, can't tell what this is costing him. He loves me—present tense, he said—but he's standing there like he's already decided how this ends.
They both have. They've decided. Together. Without me.
Blake's handing me to Reid. Reid's accepting. And I'm supposed to what? Be grateful? Fall in line?
But Blake didn't even offer. He's stepping aside from nothing. From a confession he made and then ran from. So why does this feel like rejection? Why does watching him give me away hurt when I don't even want?—
I don't finish the thought. Can't finish it.
"I can't do this." The words come out strangled. "I can't stand here and—I need to go."
"Laine—" Reid's hand moves toward me.
"Please." I take a step back. "I need space. Time. I need to not be standing on this sidewalk with both of you staring at me. I don't— what am I supposed to say? Nothing about this makes sense."
"Okay." Reid drops his hand immediately. "Okay. Take all the time you need."
Blake doesn't say anything. Just watches me with those dark eyes that see too much, that make me feel like he knows exactly what I'm thinking even though I don't know myself.
I turn before either of them can say anything else, before I can change my mind, before I do something stupid like ask Blake whyloving me isn't enough to make him fight, why he's so ready to let Reid have what he never tried to claim.
My feet carry me down the sidewalk, past the coffee shop and the boutique and the little Thai restaurant with the chalkboard menu. I have no idea where I'm going, no idea where I parked my car, but I'm walking anyway because staying still isn't an option.
Behind me, Blake's voice, low and rough: "Let her go."
Reid, quieter: "I know."
I keep walking.
The February air is cold on my face and my hands are shaking and my heart won't slow down but I keep putting one foot in front of the other until the hardware store is blocks behind me and I can finally pull air into my lungs without it feeling like drowning.
I have no idea what just happened.
I have no idea what I want.
And I still have no idea where my car is.
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