Chapter 9 #2
I do know. Haven't I been doing the same thing, keeping busy with extra yoga classes, extra shifts and lots of unnecessary trips to the grocery store?
"Do you think you'll start back up at Pine St?" Reid asks, and the question catches me off guard.
"I…yes. I'm sure I will." I miss everyone there like crazy. And I'm kinda ticked off with myself for staying away so long. It was self preservation at the time. But now? I'd really like to get back to my life.
"I stayed away too," he says quietly. "After I—after I realized what I was doing. Following you, I mean. I stopped going to Pine Street because I figured you might go back eventually, and I didn't want to take that from you."
"So neither of us went."
"Neither of us went." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Danny probably thinks we both fell off the face of the earth."
"Margaret asked about me. Apparently." I cross my arms tighter against my chest. "Joyce ran into Danny at a community health fair last month. He mentioned that Margaret keeps asking when 'the nice nurse' is coming back."
"Margaret." Reid smiles, and this time it's genuine. "She still hoarding all the good blankets?"
"Probably. That woman has a system."
"She does." He shakes his head. "James asked about you too, through Danny. Said the new volunteers don't know how to take blood pressure without making it feel like an interrogation."
"That's not—" I start to protest, then stop. Because actually, that does sound like James. Gruff and particular and secretly softhearted beneath all his military stoicism. "Okay, that's probably accurate."
"Very accurate. Danny said James scared off two volunteers in one night last month. Something about them treating him like a 'charity case instead of a human being.'"
I can picture it perfectly. James in his worn army jacket, arms crossed, glaring at some well-meaning twenty-something who approached him with too much pity and not enough respect.
James doesn't want your sympathy. He wants you to look him in the eye and treat him like a person who's been through some stuff and come out the other side still standing.
"He's not wrong," I say. "There's an art to it. Meeting people where they are without making them feel small."
"You had that art." Reid's voice is soft. "Have it, I mean. You still have it."
The compliment wraps around something tender in my chest.
"I was thinking about going back," I hear myself say. "To Pine Street. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now."
Reid sits up straighter. "Yeah?"
"Was thinking about it. Past tense." I pause. "Or maybe it's becoming present tense. I'm not sure yet."
"What changed?"
You, I think. Seeing you handle that trauma tonight. Watching you smile at me across a room full of blood and chaos like nothing had changed. Like I was still the person you saw that first night with the festival patients.
But I don't say that. Instead, I say, "I think I'm tired of letting fear make my decisions."
Reid nods slowly. "I understand that."
"Do you?"
"More than I'd like to admit." He stands, and suddenly the small room feels smaller.
He's only a few feet away now, close enough that I can see a few individual threads of grey in his dark hair, the small scar on his jaw that I used to trace with my fingertip.
"I spent too long letting fear run my life.
Fear of losing you. Fear of being alone. Fear of what it meant that Blake—"
He stops. Swallows.
"Fear of what it meant that Blake was in love with the same woman I was in love with," he finishes. "Am in love with. That hasn't changed."
The words land like a physical thing. I feel them in my chest, my throat, the backs of my eyes.
"Reid—"
"I'm not saying that to pressure you." He holds up both hands, palms out. "As much as I might dream of us getting back together, I know it's probably never going to happen. And I'm learning to be okay with that."
The words hurt more than they should, given that he's only agreeing with me. That's it. That's all he's doing—saying the thing I've been telling myself for weeks. The logical conclusion. The only safe choice.
So why does hearing him say it so calmly make me want to push back? That's ridiculous. This is what I wanted. For him to understand that we can't go back.
Isn't it?
So why does it feel like losing him all over again?
"I just—" He runs a hand over his face. "I wanted you to know that seeing you tonight wasn't some kind of sign or fate or whatever.
We work in the same medical system, and we're still short-staffed, so I'm taking a few night shifts every week.
We were always going to run into each other eventually.
But it was good to see you. It's always good to see you.
And if you want to go back to Pine Street, you should.
" He stops, sucking in a deep breath. "Don't let me being there sometimes stop you from doing something you love. "
I study him—this man who crashed into my life with a joke about butterfly patients and stayed long enough to make me believe I could stop running.
Who hurt me. Who scared me. Who sat across from me in a coffee shop a few days ago and told me he still loved me while his best friend admitted the same thing.
"You said you've been staying away," I say. "From Pine Street."
"Yeah."
"But you just said you might be there sometimes. If I go back."
Reid's mouth quirks. "I said I stayed away after I realized what I was doing. Stopped going for about a month. But Danny called a couple of weeks ago, said they were short-handed, asked if I could help out just for one Saturday." He shrugs. "I couldn't say no. Not to Danny."
"So you're going again."
"Sometimes. Not every week. Blake's been going more than me, actually. He says it helps."
"Helps with what?"
"Being a person, I think. Having a purpose that isn't just about me or the house or his work." Reid's voice softens. "He's trying, Laine. Really trying. I'm not asking you to forgive him—that's not my forgiveness to ask for. But he's different than he was."
I don't know what to do with that information. The Blake I remember is a tangle of contradictions—warm and cold, cruel and kind, broken in ways I couldn't understand until he showed up at my apartment with blood on his face and confessed everything.
"We're not—" I start, then stop. Try again. "The other day, when Blake said he loved me. I need you to know that nothing ever happened between us. He was horrible to me. Cruel. He made me feel crazy and small and unwelcome in your home."
Reid tucks his hands in his pockets, eyes locked on mine. "I know."
"But nothing happened. I never—I was never interested in him that way. I loved you. I only ever loved you." Crap. That's a lie. But just a tiny one. There was interest there, with Blake. Awareness. But it's true that I never crossed that line.
I don't think I ever would have. Because what Reid and I had was enough. More than enough.
Reid's expression cracks open, just for a moment. Something raw and grateful flashing across his features before he pulls himself back together.
"I know," he says again. "Blake told me. Told me everything—what he said to you, how he treated you, all of it. And I believe you. I believed you before, too, I just—" He shakes his head. "I was too stupid and too scared to really hear what you were telling me."
"You weren't stupid."
"I was something. Blind, maybe. But on purpose." He takes a breath. "You told me Blake was making you feel unwelcome, and I made excuses for him. You told me something was wrong, and I explained it away. I chose him over you, every single time, without even realizing I was making a choice."
"Reid—"
"And the worst part is, I don't even think I was choosing Blake. I was choosing comfort. Choosing the easy path. It was easier to believe you were overreacting than to confront the possibility that my best friend—my brother—was capable of hurting someone I loved."
The fluorescent lights buzz overhead. A phone rings somewhere deeper in the ER. All the normal sounds of a hospital at night, carrying on around us.
"I'm sorry," Reid says. "I know I said it the other day.
I'd say it every day for the rest of our lives if I were lucky enough to have that chance.
I'm sorry for not listening. I'm sorry for making you feel crazy.
I'm sorry for every single time you tried to tell me something was wrong and I made you feel like the problem was you. "
My throat is tight. "Thank you."
"And I'm sorry for after. The following, the flowers, all of it. That wasn't love. That was obsession, but I didn't realize it. That was me being so terrified of losing you that I became the thing you needed to run from."
"I know you've changed."
"I'm trying to." He holds my gaze. "But trying isn't the same as being different. I can tell you I've changed all I want. The only way you'll know for sure is if I show you. Over time. Through actions."
"Is that what you're doing tonight? Showing me?"
Reid's mouth twists. "Honestly? I didn't plan any of this.
I came in on a call, saw you in the trauma bay, and my first thought was there she is.
Like you were something I'd lost and suddenly found again.
" He shakes his head. "But I'm not trying to win you back tonight, Laine.
I just miss us. I miss talking like we used to. "
Used to. Past tense.
"You still matter to me," I say quietly. "That's part of why it's so complicated."
His face twists. Hope and caution and something that might be relief, all flickering across his features before he gets control of himself. I didn't mean to give him false hope. It's not like I'm going to get back together with him.
Or am I? A world without Reid in it is pretty grey. Yeah, I could continue as I am. It wouldn't always feel like this, I know. But I'll always know what I missed out on.
There I go again, assuming we could ever get back to us.
"Okay," he says. "Okay. That's—okay."