Chapter 7 #2
I have to look away, focus on a crack in the sidewalk, on the dried leaves collecting against the curb. Anything but look at the man that I have way too many complicated feelings for.
"I felt like I was going crazy," I say quietly. "For months. I kept thinking I must be doing something wrong, missing something obvious, because none of it made sense."
"You weren't." The words are firm, final. "It was all me."
We sit with that for a moment, the truth of it settling between us like something solid, and a car drives past blasting music that fades as it turns the corner.
"How's Reid?" I ask, and the question feels dangerous but necessary. Yeah, he scared me, badly. But I need him to be okay.
Blake's expression shifts and something complicated passes across his face. "He's—we're working on things. It's been hard. But we're figuring it out."
"Is he—okay? He wasn't before."
His shoulders drop, and his face softens. "He's eating. Sleeping. I've got him working out. He's better."
"Good." I mean it, I really do. The idea of Reid in the world, hurting, gave me way too many sleepless nights. Everything in me wanted to be the one who helped him. But there was too much between us. Too much baggage, too much hurt.
Another silence, and this one feels different, less jagged. "How's the restoration business?"
"Steady. Got a big project—Victorian mansion in Laurelhurst. Intricate millwork." A ghost of a smile. "Keeps me busy."
"That's good."
"Yeah."
We're being so careful with each other. I want to ask him more—about Afghanistan, about what happened with Reid, about why he never responded to my text—but it's none of my business. Not anymore.
"I'm sorry," Blake says again. "For all of it. I wish I could take it back."
"I know," I say, and I do, I can see it in every line of his body, the weight he's carrying.
The door of Henderson's opens and a familiar laugh cuts through the afternoon air, bright and unmistakable, and my stomach drops straight through the sidewalk.
Blake's head turns sharply.
Reid walks out carrying a canvas bag, talking to someone still inside, "—just come by the station—" and then he turns and sees us and every thought in my head whites out.
He freezes. The bag slips down his shoulder. His mouth opens, closes.
"Laine."
It's barely a whisper, like he can't believe I'm real, and I can't breathe, can't move, the bench is solid beneath me but the world feels like it's tilting because he looks good, healthy, the frantic desperate version of him is gone, his eyes are clear, his shoulders are straight, but the way he's looking at me—
Oh God.
Like he's been afraid he'd never see again, and my heart is trying to break out of my ribcage and I don't know if I want to run toward him or away from him or just disappear into the sidewalk.
"Hi," I manage, and my voice cracks.
"Hi." He takes a step forward, then stops himself, and his hand flexes at his side like he wants to reach for me but doesn't know if he's allowed. "I didn't—we weren't—"
"We're just picking up supplies," Blake says, and his voice is steady, careful, a lifeline thrown into churning water. "For the garage. We didn't know you'd be here."
I believe him, I do, but it doesn't change the fact that they're both here now, both real and alive and close enough to touch, and I'm sitting on this bench trying to remember how to breathe while Reid stands there looking at me like I might disappear if he blinks.
"You look good," Reid says, and he swallows hard. "You look—God, Laine, you look—"
I don't know what to say, don't know what I'm allowed to feel, and this is too much, both of them here, Blake beside me on the bench and Reid standing there three feet away, and I stand up too fast and the world wobbles.
"Laine—" Reid's hand moves toward me.
I step back and press my palm to my chest, trying to calm my racing heart. "I'm fine. I just—"
The words tangle in my throat and both of them are watching me, Blake from the bench with tension in every line of his body, Reid standing there looking at me like I might shatter, and I can't do this, can't stand here and pretend I know how to handle this situation.
Reid's hand drops back to his side. He's still holding the canvas bag, knuckles white around the strap, and I can see him trying to figure out what to do—stay, go, say something, stay quiet.
Blake hasn't moved from the bench, but the careful distance he'd maintained is gone.
Now he's coiled, tension radiating off him in waves.
"We should—" Reid starts, glancing at the hardware store entrance where people are still navigating around us. "Maybe we should move. There's a—there's that little park. Two blocks over."
"No." The word comes out too sharp. I don't want to go anywhere with them. I don't want to be here at all. But my purse is in my hand and my feet aren't moving and apparently my body hasn't gotten the message that we're leaving.
"Okay." Reid nods too quickly. "Okay, we can—we can just talk here. Or not talk. Whatever you—"
"Reid." Blake's voice cuts through. "Give her a second."
He nods, bouncing on his toes. He's trying, I'll give him that, but the words bubble up anyway. "Blake doesn't know," he blurts. He's looking at me now, something desperate in his expression. "About after. What I did."
Blake's head turns sharply. "What are you talking about?"
Reid's jaw works. "I didn't tell you everything. About what happened after Laine and I broke up."
"Reid—" I start, but I don't know how to finish the sentence.
"I need to say this." Reid's voice is rough. "I scared her. After we broke up. I showed up at the hospital. Multiple times. I sent texts. Too many texts. I waited in the parking lot." He stops, swallows hard. "Bad enough that Joyce had to intervene. Bad enough that security got involved."
The parking lot feeling floods back—that hypervigilance, checking over my shoulder, the weight of my phone constantly buzzing, the flowers I stopped bringing inside because seeing them made my stomach turn.
But just as quickly, they fade away. That's not Reid. I know that. Or it was, but the fragile, broken part of him that did all that. And I'm not angry about it. Not hurt. Just a little sad that both of us were so shattered.
Blake stands up.
The movement is sharp, sudden, and when I look at him his face has gone hard in a way I haven't seen since the workshop, since the night everything fell apart. Reid and I might be at peace with what happened, but clearly Blake has some feelings.
"Security," Blake repeats, his voice dangerously quiet.
"I was drowning," Reid says. "You were gone and she was gone and I—"
"So you made her afraid to go to work?" Blake takes a step toward Reid and I can see the effort it's costing him to keep his voice level. "You scared her?"
"I know. I stopped as soon as Joyce—"
"As soon as Joyce had to tell you?" Blake's hands are clenched at his sides. "You didn't figure it out yourself? You didn't notice she was scared?"
"Stop." The word comes out in a crack. "Both of you, just stop."
They both turn to look at me.
"I don't need you to be angry for me, Blake." My voice is shaking but I keep going. "I don't need you to defend me. I was there. I lived through it. And Reid and I already talked about this."
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 an emotional 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."