Page 11 of What We Brave
I picture the kitchen. The morning light hitting the table I built. The way Reid leans his hip against the counter. The way Laine tucks that stray piece of hair behind her ear.
The ache in my chest isn't an ache. It’s a fucking cave-in. A physical tear behind my ribs.
He kicked you out.
She knows exactly what you are.
You’re here because you’re poison.
I pull my hand back. I don't touch the phone.
I’m not a carpenter anymore. I’m not a brother. I’m just a weapon. You don't keep a weapon around to comfort it. You keep it in the dark until you need it to kill something.
I close my eyes.
The nightmare is waiting. I know it is. The fire. The screaming. Reid’s face melting in the heat.
Good.I hope it fucking hurts.
3
LAINE
"Long shift," Joyce says, threading her arm through mine as the automatic doors slide shut behind us.
My shoulders drop for the first time in twelve hours. "They're all long shifts lately."
The January air bites through my jacket. Joyce steers us toward the parking lot, her pace unhurried despite the long shift. I've got to admit, some mornings, it's all I can do to keep from running out of here. Some days, life just comes at you harder, you know?
We walk in comfortable silence until we reach her car. She leans against the driver's door, studying me with that too knowing, too patient look.
"You seem calmer lately," she says finally.
She's right. I am. "I'm not jumping every time the ambulance bay doors open anymore. Not scanning every paramedic crew like..." I trail off, then force myself to finish. "Like I'm afraid."
"And are you? Afraid?"
A month ago, I would have deflected. Changed the subject. Now I actually think about it.
"No. Not anymore." For a minute there, Reid got... intense. But I don't think that's who he really is. The whiplash of it—going from thisincredible, dependable guy to someone who wouldn't take no for an answer—that was scary. But I don't think I was ever truly afraid ofhim.
Okay, maybe for a minute or two. Enough to file that report.
Which I still regret.
But at the time, it felt like the only way to make him hear me.
Joyce's expression softens. "Reid's a good man. I've worked with him for years, and he's never been anything but professional and kind." She pauses. "But that doesn't mean you have to want him back. Good men can still be wrong for us. He was wrong to push the way he did."
"He is a good man," I say. And then I say the thing that's been growing in my chest for weeks. The thing I almost don't want to admit out loud. "I miss him. God, that sounds so stupid after everything."
Joyce doesn't look surprised. "What do you miss?"
The question catches me off guard. I've been so focused on why we ended that I haven't let myself think about what we had.
"The way he looked at me when I was teaching him to cook. Like I was doing magic instead of just chopping onions." I lean against her car next to her. "How he'd text me pictures of random things during his shift—a funny bumper sticker, a dog wearing a hat. Nothing important, just... thinking of me."
"Those sound like good things to miss."
