Page 65 of What We Brave
I want to argue. Take the full weight of it. That's what I do—carry shit so other people don't have to. But she won't let me, and maybe that's fair. Maybe it's worse.
Silence fills the apartment. The fridge hums. Heat ticks through the baseboards.
"Reid wants to try again," Laine says. "He's been giving me space, but I know that's what he's hoping for. And part of me wants that too. The part that remembers how good it was before everything fell apart."
"Then you should try again." The words taste like ash. "You two were good together. You made him?—"
"Don't." She shakes her head. "Don't make this about what I did for Reid."
"It's true, though."
"Maybe. But right now I'm trying to be honest about something, and I need you to just—" She presses her fingers against her eyes. "Just let me get through it."
I shut up. Grip my mug. Wait.
"I love him," she says. "I love Reid. And the idea of hurting him again makes me physically sick." Her voice thickens. "So the fact that I'm sitting here, in my apartment, withyou—feeling what I'm feeling?—"
She stops. Swallows hard.
"I don't know what's wrong with me."
My hands twitch on my thighs. The instinct to cross the space between us, to pull her against my chest and shield her from her own brain, is a physical ache. I fix things. That's my whole fucking purpose. I take damaged pieces and I put them back right.
But I can't fix this. If I reach for her, I destroy Reid. If I walk out that door, I leave her bleeding. I'm trapped in a vice of my own making.
"Nothing's wrong with you."
"Something is definitely wrong with me, Blake." She drops her hands. Her eyes are wet but she's not crying. "Because I know what this would do to him. Iknow. I watched what your confession did. I saw him after you left. After we broke up. And I'm still?—"
She cuts herself off. Jaw tight. Like the next word is something she can't take back.
"Still what?" I shouldn't ask. I know I shouldn't ask.
"Still here." She gestures between us. "Still wanting to be in this room with you. Still thinking about that kiss when I should be thinking about how to fix things with Reid. What kind of person does that make me?"
The same kind as me.
"You're not a bad person, Laine."
"I didn't say bad. I said—" She exhales. "I don't recognize myself right now. I had a plan. Come to Oregon. Build a life. Stop running. And I did that. Iwasdoing that. And now I'm sitting here with my—with Reid's?—"
She can't even figure out what to call me. Welcome to the fucking club.
"You're not mine," she finishes. Almost to herself. "You're not mine, and I shouldn't want you to be, and I hate that I'm even thinking it."
My heart slams against my ribs so hard I'm sure she can hear it. For one blinding second, everything I've been strangling for months surges up—want so raw and enormous it nearly chokes me.
I crush it back down. Shove it into the dark and throw the deadbolt.
Because she's not sayingchoose me. She's sayingwhat's wrong with me. She loves him. She just said it. Reid is hanging by a thread, and I'm the one who's supposed to hold the line. Guys like me don't get the girl. We don't get the soft landing. We get to stand in the background and hold the walls up so the people we care about don't get crushed by the roof caving in. I've known that since the day Jared died.
"I never asked for this," I say carefully. "You know that. What I told Reid before I left—that wasn't me making a play. I wasn't asking for anything."
"I know."
"I'm still not."
"I know that too." She wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. "That almost makes it worse. If you were pushing, I could be angry. I could shut the door. But you keep trying to disappear, and I keep?—"
