Page 207 of What We Brave
"It's not okay." I keep my voice even. This isn't about starting a fight. But I'm not letting this slide into the place where Blake forgives everything and carries it alone and we all pretend the wound closed. "What she did hurt you. And you standing here saying 'it's okay' when it's not — that's you taking care of her again. Like always."
"Reid—" Blake starts.
"I'm not attacking her. I'm not attacking either of you." I look at Laine. She's pale. "But I watched you drop his hand and keep mine, and I watched him spend the rest of the market carrying bags so his hands had something to do, and I watched both of you not talk about it. And I'm not doing the thing where we all go to bed and pretend this is fine."
Silence. The music I put on is still playing — some acoustic thing that's way too cheerful for this room.
Laine's eyes are wet. "I know it's not okay. That's what I'm trying to?—"
"I know. I know you are." I cross the kitchen, stand closer to both of them. "But Blake's going to forgive you in about ten seconds because that's what he does, and then he's going to go sand something in the workshop and never bring it up again. And you'll feel better. And he won't."
Blake's jaw tightens. I can see him wanting to argue. Wanting to sayI'm fine, drop it, don't make this bigger than it is.
"Tell me I'm wrong," I say to him.
He doesn't.
Laine lets out a shaky breath. "He's not wrong."
"I know he's not wrong," Blake says quietly. "I just — what do you want me to do? Be angry?"
"I want you to feel what you feel instead of pretending you're fine," I say. "For once."
That lands. I can see it land — the way his shoulders drop a fraction, the way something behind his eyes shifts from locked to... not unlocked. Cracked, maybe.
Laine steps closer to him. "Can I explain something? Not as an excuse. I just — I want you both to understand what happened in my head."
Blake nods. I nod.
She takes a breath. Wraps her arms around herself.
"The strangers — the looks, the whispers — I can handle those. Those people don't matter to me. They're just... noise." She pauses. "But Joyce isn't noise. Joyce is — she's been in my corner since my first shift. She believed in me when I was just the new nurse who didn't know anyone. Shemattersto me."
"She already knew," I say, not accusing just stating facts.
"She already knew." Laine's voice breaks on it. "That's the worst part. She already accepted it. She's been wonderful about it. And I still — when I saw her face, my body just..." She opens and closes her hand. The one that let go. "It's not the strangers that scare me. It's the people I love. It's the people whose opinion could actually hurt me."
She looks at Blake.
"I wasn't choosing Reid over you. I wasn't — it wasn't about who's acceptable and who isn't. It was about me being a coward. For half a second, with someone I love walking toward me, I was a coward. Reid and I have a history. She knows him. And I just…glitched."
The kitchen is very quiet.
Blake reaches out. Traces her cheekbone with his thumb. "I know the difference between a choice and a reflex, Laine."
"But it still hurt."
He doesn't answer right away. And I'm glad, because that pause — that honesty of not just saying no it didn't — is finally real.
"Yeah," he says finally. "It still hurt."
Laine makes a small sound and steps into him, her face against his chest, and his arms come around her. He holds on. Presses his mouth to the top of her head.
I stay where I am. Close enough to be part of it. Not inserting myself into a moment that belongs to them.
"It won't happen again," she says, muffled against his shirt.
He doesn't sayI know.Doesn't sayokay.Just holds her. I hope like hell it never happens again.
