Page 35 of What We Brave
Blake's expression shifts, something between shame and confusion. "You talked about it?"
"Five weeks ago." I look at Reid. "In the station parking lot. He apologized. He explained. And yes, it was bad, and yes, I was scared, but I don't need you two fighting about it now like I'm not standing right here."
The silence that follows is thick and uncomfortable. A car drives past. Someone laughs from inside the coffee shop next door.
"You're right," Blake says finally, throat bobbing. "I'm sorry."
Reid is staring at the sidewalk, shoulders hunched. "I'm sorry too. For all of it. For not understanding sooner. For making you feel unsafe." He looks up at me and his eyes are red-rimmed. "I told you before but I need to say it again. With Blake here. I was wrong. What I did was wrong. And I'm—God, Laine, I'm so sorry."
I don't know what to say to that. Don't know where to put the apology, in my chest where everything already feels too full.
"I changed my schedule," I hear myself say. "After. I stopped going to Pine Street. I rearranged my entire life around not running into either of you."
Reid flinches. Blake's jaw tightens but he doesn't say anything.
"That's not fair," I continue, and my voice is getting stronger now, anger bleeding through. "I'm the one who stayed. I'm the one who chose to put down roots here. And I had to hide just to survive it."
Okay. Apparently, I'm not totally over it.
"I know," Reid says quietly. "That's why I stayed away from the hospital. Why I avoided Pine Street for weeks even after I stopped everything else. I didn't want to take that from you too."
A woman with a stroller navigates around us, giving us a wide berth, and I realize we must look insane—three people having anemotional breakdown on a February sidewalk outside Henderson's Hardware.
"I see you," Reid says suddenly, and there's something fierce in his expression now, something that reminds me of the man I fell in love with before everything went wrong. "I see you standing here and I—" He stops. Breathes. "I haven't stopped loving you."
The words land and I don't know what to do with them, don't know how to hold them alongside everything else. Those words meant everything to me. Now, I don't know what to do with them.
"These past four months, I've tried to convince myself that what we had is over," Reid continues. "That I need to move on. But I can't. I don't want to. If there's even the smallest chance that we could try again, I want that. I want to do it right this time."
My heart is pounding too hard and my hands are shaking and I can't look at him anymore so I look at Blake instead, and he's watching Reid with something complicated in his expression, something I can't read.
"And you?" I ask Blake, and my voice sounds strange even to my own ears. "What do you want?"
Blake is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is careful, measured. "What I want is for the people I care about to be happy."
That's not an answer. That's a deflection wrapped in noble sentiment.
"You told me you loved me," I say, and I don't care that Reid is standing right there, don't care that this is messy and complicated and probably the worst possible time for this conversation. "Four months ago. Outside my apartment in the rain. You said you'd been in love with me since we met."
"I did." Blake doesn't look away. "I meant it."
"Past tense?"
"No." His jaw tightens. "Not past tense."
Reid doesn't react. No surprise, no shock, nothing. He already knew. They've talked about this. They've discussed me and my feelings and what happened between us, and suddenly I'm furious.
"So what?" The anger is loose in my voice now, hot and sharp. "Youlove me but you're just—what? Stepping aside? Handing me over to Reid like I'm a problem you've both decided how to solve?"
"Laine—" Blake starts.
"You didn't even offer." The words are coming faster now. "You confessed and then you left. You got on a plane and disappeared for four months and you didn't ask me what I wanted. You didn't give me a choice. And now you're standing here acting like you're being noble by stepping back from something you never tried to have in the first place."
Blake's expression cracks, just for a second, something raw flickering across his face before he gets control of it. "You're right."
"Don't." I shake my head. "Don't just agree with me to make this easier."
"I'm not." His voice is rough, unpolished. "You're right. I didn't give you a choice. I made the decision for you. For both of you. Told myself it was the right thing, the only thing, but that's bullshit. I was a coward."
