Page 4 of What We Brave
I can't fucking breathe.
She comes out twenty minutes later with two bags. When she sees me leaning against her bumper, she stops dead.
"Reid, what are you doing?"
My chest is so tight. Am I having a heart attack? Honestly, that wouldn't be the worst thing. Dropping dead, getting out of this mind fuck I'm currently living, would be a relief. "I was just—I needed groceries too. I saw your car and thought maybe we could talk."
Her brow furrows, and her eyes dart around, landing everywhere but on me. "In a parking lot?"
"Anywhere. Laine, please. It's been over a month. Can't we at least?—"
"No." She pulls out her keys. "Move away from my car."
"Just five minutes. That's all I'm asking."
Her eyes close, and her inhale is long and slow. And when she speaks, the words seem painfully final. "I said no."
"But I love you. Doesn't that count for anything?"
She stops fumbling with her keys and looks at me directly for the first time in weeks. "Love isn't supposed to feel like this, Reid."
"Like what?"
"Like I'm being hunted."
The word hits me like a defibrillator to the chest.Hunted.My stomach drops so fast I actually sway on my feet. I take a massive step back, my hands shooting up in the air. "Laine, no. God, no. I'm not?—"
"You're hurting me right now," she says, her voice cracking. "I need you to leave me alone."
I can't breathe. I step back again, bumping into the cart corral. I watch her drive away, the exhaust from her Civic hanging in the cold air.Hunted.The one thing I swore to do was protect her, and I'm the monster in the dark.
Week Six
I stop sleeping.Not on purpose—I try. But every time I close my eyes, I see her face in that parking lot. The fear in her eyes. Not fear of me, exactly, but fear of the situation. Of what I've become.
My job performance starts slipping. I miss details. Forget protocols. Tony covers for me twice, but I can see the concern in his eyes.
"You need help, man," he says after I nearly give a diabetic patient the wrong dose of glucose. "Professional help."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're falling apart."
He's right, but I can't stop. If I stop moving, the voices catch up.
It's not just Laine anymore. It's Jared. I close my eyes and I see Jared in the casket. Then the face changes, and it's Blake. Blake bleeding out in the dirt, staring at the sky, because I exiled him.
I hope it's a long one.
Those were the last words I said to him. If he comes home in a box, that’s the eulogy I wrote for myself.
I sent him another text yesterday.Just let me know you're alive. Please.Nothing. I'm shouting into a void, and the void doesn't give a fuck.
I can't save Blake. That ship has sailed. But I can still save us.
I drive past her apartment every night after shift. Not to bother her—I've learned that lesson. Just to see if her lights are on. Just to know she's okay.
Sometimes I park across the street and sit in my truck, wondering what she's doing. If she's happy. If she misses me at all.
