Chapter 21 #2
Nobody ever asks me to talk about Jared anymore. Blake lived it with me, so he doesn't need the stories. My dad can't handle hearing them. But Laine's sitting here like she genuinely wants to know.
"He was two years older than me. So is Blake.
Jared was always the leader of our group—me, Blake, and him.
When we were kids, if Jared decided we were building a skateboard ramp, we built a ramp.
If he decided we were going fishing, we went fishing.
" I smile despite the boulder in my chest. "He enlisted first, right out of high school.
Blake joined up the next day; even then he always wanted to take care of everyone.
And I followed them both when I graduated because I couldn't imagine doing life without both of them. "
We were always together. It didn't matter what else was happening, I always knew that when I needed them, they would be there. The two years I spent here without them were barely survivable.
At least at sixteen, that's how I felt. I didn't understand what real loss was like back then. I hadn't lost anyone. I didn't understand the hell that was to come. Mom before I even graduated. And Jared way too soon.
"What was he like over there?"
"Same as he was here. So fucking capable.
" I dig my thumbnail into the side of my knee.
Press hard. "My brother was the chillest, good-at-everything kid from day one.
Military was no different. Breezed through Basic.
So did Blake. Then he moved up the ranks fast, kept everyone out of the shit more times than I can count. "
He always joked he had a horseshoe up his ass. That his luck wouldn't ever fail.
"He only had six months left on his tour. Had everything planned out — was going to use his GI Bill, study engineering. He used to draw these blueprints on napkins during downtime."
"What happened?"
Wrong place. Wrong time. That's all it ever is.
"IED." My voice comes out flat. Somebody else's voice. "He was leading a patrol, checking a route they'd used dozens of times before. It just…wasn’t his day.."
Nausea hits like a wall. I swallow hard, jaw locked, throat burning with bile I refuse to let up.
"I wasn't there. My unit was supporting an action hundreds of clicks away." I stop. Breathe. "My CO pulled me out of the tent that night. And I knew. Before he said anything, I knew it would be bad."
My fingers have gone still. Everything has gone still.
"And for a minute — just a minute — I hoped he was going to tell me bad news about Blake." The words come out barely above a whisper. "As much as I loved Blake, Jared was my blood. I needed him to be okay."
Another swallow. Another breath that doesn't quite fill my lungs.
"And every time I look at Blake, I can't help remember that for a second, I wished he were the dead one."
Laine pulls my hand into her lap, holding it between both of hers.
"Baby. Does he know? I don't know him well, but I don't think he would blame you for that."
My laugh is twisted and wrong. "That's the fucked up thing. I think Blake wishes it were him, too."
She sighs, heavy and low. "God, you guys have been through so much."
"Sometimes it feels like it all happened yesterday. And sometimes it feels like a lifetime." I look at her. "Does that make sense?"
"Perfect sense. Grief isn't linear."
No. It's not linear. It's a twisty, rolling snake that jumps up to bite you at the weirdest fucking time. "After we got home, even after Blake and I bought our place, we were lost for a while. Didn't know how to be a family of two instead of three. We barely talked for months."
"What changed?"
"Time. And realizing Jared would kick both our asses if he could see us wallowing." I almost smile. "Blake came home one day with plans to renovate the kitchen. Said if we were going to live like hermits, we might as well have a decent place to cook."
"And that helped?"
"It gave us something to do with our hands. Something to build instead of just..." I gesture vaguely. "Existing."
Laine's silent, processing. "Is that why tonight was so hard? Because Marcus reminded you of Jared?"
"Not exactly." I stare at the ceiling. The plaster has a hairline crack running from the light fixture to the corner.
"Marcus reminded me of what it looks like when someone doesn't make it back. Not physically—he's alive, he's breathing, his vitals were stable the whole ride. But the rest of him..." I swallow. "Jared never got the chance to not make it back that way. He just didn't make it back."
My hands are in my lap and I'm picking at the callus on my right palm. The one that never goes away because of how I grip the stretcher rail.
"There's this thing that happens on bad calls. You compartmentalize. Shove everything into a box, tape it shut, deal with it later. Except 'later' never comes because there's always another call, another shift, another reason to keep moving." I glance at her. "Tonight the box opened."
Laine pulls her knees up, resting her chin on them.
She doesn't rush me. Doesn't fill the silence with reassurance or platitudes.
Just waits. And something about the way she waits—patient, steady, like she's got nowhere else to be—makes me want to keep talking.
Which is dangerous. Because I'm the guy who talks around things, not through them.
"Marcus is lying on my stretcher, crying because he didn't die, and I'm thinking—" My voice catches.
I clench my jaw, wait for it to pass. "I'm thinking about my brother in that last second before the IED.
Whether he was scared. Whether he was pissed.
Whether he thought about me and Blake in that last minute. "
The crack in the ceiling blurs. I blink hard.
"Seven years, and I still don't know what he felt.
I'll never know. And tonight I'm looking at this kid who got the thing Jared didn't—more time—and he's treating it like a curse.
" My throat is tight. Uncomfortably tight, like trying to breathe through a straw.
"I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and tell him he has no idea what a gift that is.
That my brother would've given anything for another shitty, painful, fucked-up day on this planet. "
I didn't, though. Because that's not what you do. You stabilize, you transport, you hand them off. You don't dump your dead brother's ghost on a kid who just tried to swallow a bottle of Klonopin.
"But I couldn't say any of that. I just held his hand and told him he was going to be okay.
" I exhale, slow and controlled, the way I breathe on scene when things go sideways.
"And the whole time, this voice in my head—Jared's voice, or what I remember of it—is saying you should've been faster, you should've been there, you should've—"
I stop. Because that road doesn't have a destination. I've driven it enough times to know.
"Reid," she says softly.
"Yeah."
"You were there for Marcus tonight. That matters."
"I know." And I do. Intellectually, professionally, I know. But knowing and feeling are two different zip codes, and right now I'm standing in the gap between them with no map.
I rub my face with both hands, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes until I see sparks. When I drop them, Laine is watching me with those dark eyes that see too much. Not with pity—I'd bolt if it was pity. With something closer to recognition.
"I should have—fuck. I shouldn't be sitting here unloading on you like you signed up for this."
Her eyes are so warm. Everything about her is peaceful. I scoot a little closer, wanting that peace to cover me. "Maybe I did."
"I've never done this before," I admit.
"Done what?"
"Fallen apart in front of someone I'm dating. Usually I keep that shit locked down."
She tugs on my ear. "What made tonight different?"
"I came to you because..." Trying to find the words. "Because I needed someone who could just hold this for me. Without it hurting them too. Someone who cares about me but didn't know Jared, so my grief won't fuck you up."
She's quiet for a long moment. "You trust me."
"Yeah. I do."
"Even though we haven't been together that long?"
"Especially because of that. You don't have any baggage with this stuff.
You can just... be here. Present. Without it destroying you.
" She's tough in a way all nurses are tough.
It's tough coated with softness and compassion.
I'll never tell her all of it. I don't want all of the death in her head.
And maybe I'm a pussy, putting any of this on her. Making her carry any of it.
"And you didn't go home because…?"
"I think Blake takes on too much of other people's pain. It's one of the things I love about him, but it's also dangerous. He'll carry my grief along with his own until it crushes him."
Laine nods slowly. "So you're looking out for him."
"It's stupid. I'm trying to protect him. And I needed..." I pause, looking at her. "I needed you."
She lifts my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles.
"It doesn't sound stupid, baby. It sounds like love."
And that's when I completely lose it. The tears I've been holding back since we found Marcus finally come, and I can't stop them. Can't stop the way my shoulders shake, the way my breath comes in ragged gasps.
Laine doesn't try to stop them either. She just shifts closer, pulls my head down to her shoulder, and wraps herself around me. One hand on the back of my neck, fingers in my hair. The other arm tight around me.
I don't know how long we stay like that. Long enough for my tears to soak through her shirt. Long enough for my breathing to slow.
When I look up, her eyes are bright with tears too. Not crying, but close.
"I couldn't save my brother," I whisper against her shoulder. "And I couldn't save Marcus either."
Her hands frame my face, thumbs wiping the tears from my cheeks.
"You saved Marcus tonight," Laine says firmly. "He's alive because of you."
"For now."
"For now is all any of us have, Reid. For now is enough."
I study her face—hair messy, eyes still bright with unshed tears, wearing pajamas and looking more beautiful than anyone has a right to look. She opened her door without question and held my pain without flinching.
"Thank you," I say. "For letting me fall apart here."
"Thank you for trusting me with it."
I lean down and kiss her then, soft and grateful. Not desperate or needy, just... thankful. For her, for this moment, for not having to carry this alone.
When we break apart, I rest my cheek on the top of her head and close my eyes, letting the rest of that hurt curled up in my chest breathe.
Her fingers trace lazy patterns on my arm, not saying anything, just being here. Just letting me feel human again after a night that tried to strip that away.
"Can I stay tonight?" I ask her. I want to wrap myself around her tonight, and not let go. It's selfish as fuck, but there it is.
Her arms tighten around me, and she wraps her legs around my hips. It's intimate and in any other situation, I would be all over her, but tonight it's comforting. Her breath brushes against my ear. "You're going to have to. Because I'm not letting you go."