Page 84 of What We Brave
"That's not—" Reid starts.
"Let me finish." Blake says it the same way Reid said it to him earlier, and the deliberateness of that lands somewhere behind my ribs. "And I'm afraid I'd be too much. For Laine especially. I feel things... intensely. I know that about myself. My ex said I was exhausting. That loving me was like drowning." He swallows, and I watch his throat move. "What if Laine never loves me back? What if she tries and can't? I don't think I could survive that."
His voice cracks on the last word, and I have to look away. In relationships you're supposed to take care of each other. But with Blake, with both of them, there's a real possibility of losing myself if I'm not careful. Of focusing on their well being and their happiness, and letting mine fall by the wayside.
"And yeah." He finally looks up. "I'm worried about what people would say. We all are, right? Tony's jokes. Joyce's questions. Explaining this to anyone. Ever. I don't give a fuck what people think about me. But I don't want you two hurt."
Reid nods slowly. "My Dad would have a stroke."
"My parents would pray for my soul," I add. "Literally. With a pastor."
"Hatch would probably just shrug," Blake admits. "But Reid, the guys at the station..."
We sit with it. The fear. The uncertainty. The weight of other people's opinions pressing against something fragile and new.
"So we're all terrified," I summarize.
"Completely," Reid agrees.
"Shitless," Blake adds.
18
BLAKE
Hope is a fucking dangerous thing.
I learned that in Kandahar, watching guys count down days until deployment ended. The ones who let themselves believe they'd make it home got sloppy. Careless. Hope made them stupid.
And now it's flooding through me like poison, warm and terrible, because Laine is sitting three feet away talking about choosing me. About giving this impossible thing a real shot.
My hands won't stop shaking.
"Blake?" Reid's watching me. "You still with us?"
"Yeah." The word comes out hoarse. "Just... processing."
Processing. Like this is something I can think my way through. Like every wall I've spent ten years building isn't coming apart right now while I sit here pretending I'm fine.
Laine tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. That thing she does when she's nervous. I didn't mean to memorize it.
But I did. Just like I memorized every moment I spent near her.
I want to tell her everything. That I've thought about this more times than I can count. Not the all three of us stuff. But her and I. That some nights in Afghanistan I'd lie there in the dark and build this exactmoment in my head — her, looking at me the way she's looking at me now.
But I don't deserve this.
Any of it.
The thought lands and my whole body goes still. No air. Just that one sentence sitting in the middle of my skull, daring me to argue with it.
I spent months systematically destroying her. Called her pathetic. Desperate. Nothing special. Watched her shrink smaller every time I opened my mouth and kept going anyway, because I was too much of a coward to face what I actually felt.
She just told me she still braces herself around me. Still waits for the cruelty to come back.
And I'm supposed to — what? Accept her offer like I've earned it? Like I'm not the one who made her feel crazy in her own relationship?
"I can hear you spiraling," Laine says quietly.
