Page 67 of What We Brave
Reid
Night market downtown Saturday me and Blake are going. You should come. Not a date. Just... tacos and bad cover bands. Low pressure.
The text arrives while I'm reorganizing my medicine cabinet for the third time this week. I don't get why it always seems so full. I swear I'm not buying all these face creams. Maybe I have a reverse burglar or something, who keeps bringing me extra stuff. That's the only explanation.
I stare at the screen until the words blur.Me and Blake.Not just Reid. Both of them. Together.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I should say no. Every rational part of my brain is screaming at me to say no. Being around one of them is complicated enough. Being around both of them, after what happened with Blake?—
But hiding in my apartment isn't exactly working either. In the last two weeks I've reorganized everything that can be reorganized. I know every crack in my ceiling. I've watched so much Netflix that the algorithm has given up trying to recommend things.
Jamila's voice echoes in my head.What do you actually want your life to look like?
I still don't know. But I won't figure it out by avoiding the question entirely.
What time?
The response is immediate, like he's been holding his phone.
Reid
Saturday. 6pm. I can pick you up?
No. Absolutely not. Twenty minutes in a car with both of them sounds like torture. Too much space for conversations I'm not ready to have.
I'll meet you there. Where?
Reid
Main entrance. By the giant inflatable taco. Dress warm.
I snort. Of course there's a giant inflatable taco.
See you then.
I drop my phone and stare at my perfectly organized medicine cabinet. Every bottle facing forward, every label aligned. It's ridiculous, but at least it's something I can control.
Saturday night arrives gray and drizzly, because of course it does. Winter in the Pacific Northwest is no joke. I know it could be worse, but I miss the sun.
I change clothes twice—jeans feel too casual, the long skirt feels like I'm trying too hard—before settling on dark jeans and a sweater that hopefully says 'I'm fine and definitely not overthinking this.'
The walk downtown takes forever because I keep slowing down. Stretching out the minutes before I have to face whatever this is. Reid trying to fix us. Blake pretending we didn't kiss a week ago. Allof us acting like any of this is normal when nothing about it is normal.
By the time I reach the market, my hands are shaking and it's not from the cold.
The inflatable taco is impossible to miss—this massive, ridiculous thing bobbing against the gray sky like someone's fever dream. And there they are, standing underneath it.
Reid's in a gray henley and light blue coat, bouncing on his heels. Blake's a few feet away, arms crossed over his red flannel and black vest, watching the crowd like he's expecting trouble.
They haven't seen me yet.
I could turn around. I could just pivot on my heel and walk back the way I came and text something breezy like,so sorry, got food poisoning, possibly dying, rain check?And then I could go home and crawl under my covers and not deal with any of this for another week. Another month. Another lifetime.
But I'm so tired of walking away. So tired of stretching out the distance between me and whatever's waiting on the other side of knowing.
Reid keeps glancing at Blake, opening his mouth like he's about to say something, then closing it again. Blake's jaw is tight. They look like themselves, but not the version from before. There's a little more space between them. A little more tension.
"Laine!"
