Page 46 of What We Brave
This is so fucked up. How am I supposed to carry on like this? How am I supposed to pretend that I don't love everything about her. Like, how the fuck does that version of Blake look at her? Talk to her? How do I be that?
"No problem."
I should leave. Set up the second heater somewhere else, find another task, put distance between us. That's what a decent person would do. Give her space. Let her work without the reminder of everything I fucked up.
But then the woman winces, and Laine's brow furrows, and I hear myself asking, "You need another set of hands?"
Laine pauses. Looks up at me. I can't read her expression, and that bothers me more than it should.
"You want to help with medical?"
"I want to help. Period." I shove my hands in my jacket pockets. "Whatever you need."
There's a long moment where she just studies me. I don't know what she's looking for—some sign that I'm going to lose my shit again, maybe. Some hint of the asshole who said things I can never take back.
Whatever she sees, it must be okay, because she nods.
"I could use someone to handle intake. Talk to people, figure out what they need, help them get settled while they wait." She pauses. "Think you can manage that?"
"Yeah. I can manage that."
The next hour passes in a blur of faces and problems. Blisters. Frostbite. A guy with a cough that sounds like his lungs are full of gravel. A young woman with a gash on her arm from climbing a fence—she won't say where, won't say why, and I don't ask. Everyone's got their own story out here, their own reasons for ending up in a camp instead of a bed.
I keep busy. Talk to people. Write down names and symptoms on the clipboard Laine handed me. Fetch supplies when she needs them. Refill the propane heater when it starts sputtering.
And I watch her work.
Can't help it. She moves through the chaos like she was born for it, calm and efficient and so fucking competent. She touches people gently, even when she's doing things that must sting like hell. She talks to them—actually talks, not just medical instructions but real conversation. Asks about their lives. Remembers details from previous visits.
She's good at this. Really good. And watching her be good at something, watching her exist in a space where she's confident and capable and completely herself?—
It's the closest thing to peace I've felt in months.
"Blake?"
I snap back to attention. Laine's looking at me expectantly, and I realize I've been standing here like an idiot with an empty clipboard.
"Sorry. What do you need?"
"Mr. Wiley." She nods toward an older guy shuffling toward the station, favoring his left leg. "Can you get him settled? Looks like something's wrong with his foot."
"On it."
Mr. Wiley turns out to be a talker. Ex-Navy, served in Vietnam, hasn't trusted the government since Nixon. He tells me all of this while I help him onto the foam pad and get his boot off, which takes longer than it should because the laces are knotted to hell and his fingers are too cold to work them.
"Goddamn thing's been bothering me for a week," he says, gesturing at his foot. "Stepped on something sharp. Thought it would heal up on its own."
I get the boot off and peel back his sock, and?—
Fuck.
The wound on the bottom of his foot isn't just a cut. It's infected, angry red streaks radiating out from a puncture that's gone green and yellow around the edges. The smell hits me a second later, sweet and rotten, and my stomach does a slow roll.
"Laine." My voice sounds weird. Too tight. "You should look at this."
She finishes taping a bandage on her current patient and moves over to us. I step back—way back—as she kneels down to examine the foot.
"When did you say this happened?" she asks, her voice carefully neutral.
