Chapter 22
What About Next Time
Maliyah
Reed's apartment smelled like stale air and old coffee.
The curtains were drawn despite it being two in the afternoon.
Dishes in the sink. Mail piled on the counter.
A prescription bottle on the coffee table, the label facing away.
Good Lord. It had been less than a week since he was released and this place looked like it had been taken over by a bunch of teenaged boys.
"You should sit." I set my purse down, moved toward him where he stood by the window. "Let me—"
"I'm fine." But he wasn't. His skin had a gray tinge. Dark circles under his eyes. Hair unwashed, sticking up where he'd been sleeping on it. "You didn't have to come."
"I wanted to see you. It’s been days since I’ve laid eyes on you."
He nodded but didn't move toward me. Just stood there, his left arm in the sling, his right hand shoved in his pocket. The space between us felt larger than the length of the room.
I crossed the room, each step on the hardwood floor echoing in the silence between us.
My fingers found his—cold, limp, unfamiliar.
His eyes fixed on some point beyond the window as my thumb traced the ridge of his knuckles, searching for the man I'd kissed goodbye that night. I croaked out, “Talk to me.”
He let me hold his hand but didn't squeeze back. "What’s there to talk about?"
"You've barely responded to my texts. You sent me home from the hospital. You—" I stopped, tried to control my voice. "You're shutting me out."
"I'm recovering."
"This isn't recovering. This is hiding." I gestured around the apartment. "Have you even been eating?"
"I'm fine."
"Stop saying that!" The words came out louder than I'd intended. I took a breath, tried again. "You're not fine. I can see that you're not fine. And I want to help but you won't let me."
He finally looked at me then. Really looked at me. And what I saw in his eyes made my stomach drop—resignation. Like he'd already made a decision and was just waiting for the right moment to tell me.
"What?" My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "What are you thinking?"
He pulled his hand away. Moved to the couch and sat down heavily. "I keep seeing it. Every time I close my eyes."
"The shooting?"
"No. After." He stared at his hands. "When I was on the ground, bleeding out—all I could think about was Lucas. He's so close in age to the age I was—I thought of him having to hear that I died. Just like I had to hear about my dad."
I sat beside him carefully. "But, Reed—you didn't die."
"This time."
"Reed—"
"What about next time?" His voice was raw. "What about the next call, the next traffic stop, the next time someone has a gun and I don't see it fast enough? What then?"
"Then we deal with it. Together."
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You say that now. But you didn't see my mother after. She was—" He stopped, swallowed hard. "She died a couple of years ago but she'd been dead inside since he died. Just going through the motions, waiting for it to be over. I can't do that to you."
"So what are you saying?"
The silence stretched. Outside, someone's car alarm went off. Stopped. Started again.
"I need—" He rubbed his face with his good hand. "I need some space. To think. To figure out—"
"Figure out what?" But I already knew. Could feel it in the careful distance he was keeping, the way he wouldn't meet my eyes.
"If I can keep doing this."
The words landed like a punch. "Doing what? Being with me?"
"Being with anyone. Having people depend on me.
Putting myself in a position where—" He stood carefully, groaning as he moved. It took everything I had not to try to help him, but I just couldn’t do it.
I watched him move to the window, and while his good arm braced against furniture, I braced for his words.
"I'm not cut out for this, Maliyah. I thought I was. I really did. But I'm not."
"That's not true." I stood too, moved toward him. "You're good with the kids. You're good with me. This is just fear talking—"
"Of course it's fear!" He spun to face me. "I'm terrified! Is that what you want to hear? That every time I leave for work I think about dying? How one wrong move can be the difference between life and death. I can’t take the chance of doing to the kids what happened to me!"
"Reed—"
"You have to go." His voice was flat now. Cop voice. "I need time alone to recover. The pain meds make me tired, I can barely move my arm, and it’s all just—" He gestured vaguely. "It's too much. I need space."
Every instinct screamed that this was wrong. That space was the last thing we needed. But I also heard the finality in his voice.
My purse strap twisted in my fingers as I fumbled to pick it up, my hands betraying me with their trembling.
"Don't do this, Reed." My voice cracked.
I thought about movie nights. About pancake breakfasts.
Our trips to the park. Festivals and markets.
All those moments over the last six months when I'd believed—this is it.
He could be the one. "You were there. Every step.
Every day. But you were never really committed, were you? "
He didn't respond. He just looked away, unable to look me in the eyes.
"I'll give you a couple days. I know you're scared. I know what happened was terrifying. But you need to figure this out, Reed. My kids and I aren’t fucking disposable.
" My purse strap slipped off my shoulder.
I didn't bother adjusting it. My feet felt heavy, each step toward the door requiring conscious effort, like I was walking through water.
"You’ll need to figure it out soon, though," I said. "I won’t let you pop in and out of my kids’ lives.
" Grabbing the handle, I paused, not even looking back anymore. I leaned my forehead on the door and said, "You’re so worried about what would happen to them if you died. But what you’re doing right now—this is you leaving them just the same.
The only difference?" My voice trembled. "This one is completely your choice."
The door closed behind me and I stood in the hallway, staring at the scratched paint, trying to breathe around the tightness in my chest.
He wasn't going to call.
I knew it even if I couldn't admit it yet.