40. Reed
reed
. . .
Steam still lingers in the bathroom after my shower. The mirror is fogged up, except for the streaks left by my hand. My reflection stares back at me; pale, hollow-eyed, water still dripping from my hair, with faint red marks on my shoulders from scrubbing too hard.
I stare at the scars running across my skin.
Faded lines, raised patches, the uneven map of what’s left. Every one of them tells a story I can’t recount without feeling the heat again; the crash of sound, the breath that wouldn’t come, the moment everything changed.
I trace them slowly, my fingertips ghosting over the rough spots. I hate that I still remember the pain, not just from that day but from every time I’ve looked in this mirror since.
There was a time I could stand here and see a man. Now all I see is what’s gone.
Brian’s stupid face flashes through my mind, Layla’s sunshine aura now hollowed into nothing. How she still left with him, leaving me to bleed in silence.
What killed me the most was how she looked at me right before they left, like she wanted to explain something but couldn’t.
I can still feel the burn of it in my chest.
I try to breathe, but my lungs won’t cooperate.
Clenching my jaw against the anger that begins to crawl under my skin, not just at him but at myself, for believing, for wanting, for thinking someone like her could ever truly choose me.
Turning on the faucet, I feel the cold water hit the porcelain. The sound should drown out my thoughts, but it doesn’t.
They come one after another—the doubt, the insecurity, the pain.
You’re not enough.
You’re a freak.
Why would she choose someone like you?
She deserves better. Everyone does.
My hands grip the edge of the sink until my knuckles blanch. The glass trembles in its frame, and my reflection blurs through streaks of condensation.
“Stop,” I whisper, the tears beginning to well. “Just fucking stop.”
But the thoughts never stop, a consistent reminder every single day of what I am.
A fucking monster.
Everything I’ve buried for years claws its way to the surface—the loneliness, the scars, the way people look at me and then look away.
The weight of it hits all at once as I let out a guttural scream before I shove my hand through my hair, pulling hard as I pace the small space, breathing hard, trying not to drown in my thoughts.
Trying so desperately not to let myself go back into that dark place again.
My breath comes in quick pulses, and without a second thought, I smash my hand through the mirror, glass shards falling into the sink.
I lower myself to the floor, watching the blood trickle from my knuckles.
Reaching up, I grab my phone off the counter.
I scroll until I find Maverick’s number. My finger hesitates for half a second before I press call.
It rings once, twice.
“Yo, what’s up, man?” His voice is loud, bright, the sound of life still happening somewhere else.
I can’t get the words out right away as I press my phone harder to my ear. “Y-You home?”
“Yeah. Everything okay?”
I glance at my bloody knuckles and the tremor in my hand, reminding me of the dark thoughts that constantly dwell in my mind.
“No,” I whisper. “It’s not.”
There’s silence on the other end, then the sound of a door closing, voices fading. “Talk to me, bro. What happened?”
I swallow hard, my throat burning. “I just… I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep pretending I’m fine.”
“Okay,” he says softly now. “Okay. I’m coming over.”
The line clicks.
Dropping my phone to the floor, I lean down and rest my head between my knees. My sobs fill the room as the tears fall freely, landing on the aged oak floors.
I allow myself to cry, not because of Layla, the fire, or the scars, but because I finally said it out loud.
I can’t do this anymore.
Not even five minutes later, I hear a truck’s doors slam outside.
The front door opens and clicks shut. Two pairs of footsteps echo through the hallway.
Maverick is first through the door, with Carter right behind him.
Carter’s wearing his ranch jacket, his hair still damp from a shower, and his face looks like stone. The moment he sees my hand and the crack in the mirror behind me, his jaw clenches.
“Goddammit, Reed,” Carter mutters. “You could’ve called both of us.”
“I called one of you,” I rasp, glancing at Mav, pinching my brows together.
“Yeah,” Carter says. “And he called me. That’s how this works. You fall apart; we show up.”
They move into the bathroom as if they’ve done this before, because they have.
Maverick grabs a towel, crouches, and applies pressure to my hand, while Carter leans against the doorway with his arms crossed, his blue eyes sharp but tired.
Nobody talks for a while. The only sounds are our breathing and the faint creak of the floor beneath Carter’s boots.
Maverick breaks the silence first. “What’s going on, Reed?”
Carter’s brow furrows, sadness flashing in his eyes. “Reed, please, we can’t lose you. We almost lost you once.”
I stare down at my shaky hands, watching Maverick apply pressure to the other. “It’s about Layla.”
Carter stills. “Catalina’s Layla?”
“Yeah.”
Maverick lets out a breath. “She’s engaged, dude.”
Carter blinks once, slowly, as if he’s trying to process this information.
Maverick keeps his eyes on me, waiting.
I drag a shaky breath. “I’ve been seeing her.”
Carter’s expression flickers, shock, disbelief, then concern. “You what?”
“We’ve been together,” I say quietly. “Secretly. For months.”
Maverick shifts beside me but doesn’t interrupt.
“She reached out about filming that video for the bar,” I continue. “We started talking. Then she came down to shoot, and we grew close. It just… happened. I didn’t mean for it to. But I—” My throat tightens. “I love her.”
Carter exhales hard, dragging his hand down his face. “Jesus Christ, Reed.”
“I know.”
“She’s engaged,” he repeats.
“I know,” I whisper. “I tried to stop it, but every time I looked at her, it felt like something inside me finally made sense again. Like I could breathe.”
Maverick leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “You think she feels the same?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I-I hope so. She just… she can’t do anything about it right now. I can see it in her eyes, in the way she looks at me, as if she’s begging me to understand.”
Carter’s quiet for a long moment before he speaks softly. “That’s why you broke the mirror?”
“Yeah.”
He nods once, rubbing the back of his neck. “You love her, and you can’t have her. I get that. But Jesus, Reed, you can’t let it eat you alive like this.”
I laugh. “Too late for that.”
Maverick runs a hand through his hair. “Cat and Amelia begged to come. You know that, right? They were worried sick. Cat was screaming on the phone when I called Carter.”
Carter snorts softly. “She was ready to drive here herself.”
That makes me smile a little, broken. “Tell her I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Carter says softly. “You don’t have to be. You don’t have to be the one who fixes everything.”
I stare down at my hands, the towel darkened where the blood’s seeped through. “I shouldn’t have done this to her. To any of us. But I can’t regret it. I can’t regret her.”
Maverick nods slowly. “You always were the one who loved hardest.”
“Yeah, well,” I mutter, voice cracking, “look where that got me.”
Carter steps forward and rests a hand on my shoulder. “It got you here. Alive. Still fighting. Don’t you forget that.”
The weight of his hand steadies me.
I can almost breathe again, almost.
Maverick’s voice cuts through the silence, softer now. “You’re not a bad man for loving someone who made you feel alive. Don’t twist it into something ugly just because it’s complicated.”
I blink hard, fighting the burn in my eyes. “I just don’t know how to stop.”
“You don’t,” Carter says simply. “You learn to carry it. And when she’s ready, you’ll be the one waiting, because that’s who you are.”
I nod, barely holding it together. “I can’t watch her suffer anymore.”
Carter’s hand tightens on my shoulder. “Then we’ll help her. We’ll figure something out. But you don’t do this alone. Not anymore.”
Maverick stands, pulling me up with him, his grip firm and brotherly. “You’re ours, Reed. No more hiding. If you fall, we catch you. That’s how this works.”
I let out a broken laugh, tears spilling before I can stop them. “You two are exhausting.”
Carter gives a faint grin. “Yeah, well, so are you.”
I huff out a laugh. “Please don’t tell the girls.”
Maverick grins, patting my shoulder. “Don’t worry, bro.”
For the first time in weeks, I feel the weight of everything I’ve been carrying beginning to lift, just a little.
The ache’s still there, but it’s softer now.
Because I’m not alone in it anymore.
I’ve been outside since sunrise with my sleeves rolled up to my elbows, my boots caked with soil.
The patch behind the wooden beams has half-tilled, uneven rows lined with empty seed packets.
Sunflowers.
Her favorite.
The first time she mentioned them, we were playing twenty questions in my truck, and she had said how they always face the light, even when it rains.
So now, I plant them because I don’t know what the fuck else to do.
My knuckles sting where last night’s cuts reopened. I press them into the dirt anyway, as if I can bury the pain under it.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
My phone buzzes in my back pocket, breaking the quiet.
I reach into my pocket and pull it out, seeing her name flash across my screen.
For a minuscule second, I consider letting it ring out, about protecting what’s left of me.
But I can’t. I never could when it comes to her.
I swipe to answer, bringing it to my ear. “Hey.”
There’s a pause on the other end, soft static, and faint sounds of the city traffic and distant laughter.
“Hey.”
“You still out here?”
She exhales, and it sounds like she’s been holding her breath for days. “No, I’m back in LA.”
Shit.
I sink down on the edge of the old wooden step, dirt smeared across my palms. “Baby, please be safe.”
“I-I am safe,” she says quickly, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry, Reed.”
I close my eyes, jaw clenched.
“You don’t have to be sorry, baby,” I say softly.
She falls silent for a long moment, then I hear her sniffle. “I-I miss you so much.”
My throat tightens at the stutter in her voice. I stare at the half-dug row of dirt as if it might give me the words I can’t find. “I miss you more, sunshine, more I can put into words.”
“I know you’re mad at me—”
“Baby, why would I be mad?” I say softly. “I’m just worried. That’s all I ever am when it comes to you.”
She becomes quiet again, and I can hear her swallow through the line. “I don’t deserve that.”
“You deserve everything and more, baby.”
She lets out a shaky laugh, the kind that sounds more like a sob. “You’re too good to me, you know that?”
“Not sure anyone’s ever said that to me before,” I murmur, glancing at the sunflower seed packets beside me. “But you deserve it.”
I hear the shuffle of her footsteps and a door closing, the faint sound of her sniffling. “I just needed to call. I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have. I just, fuck, Reed, I need you.”
Those three words hit me straight in the gut.
I can’t even answer right away as I stare at the ground, at the seeds scattered across the dirt.
“Fuck,” I say finally, my voice breaking a little. “I need you more than my next breath.”
There’s another pause, and I hear her take a trembling breath. “What are you doing right now?”
I glance around the empty lot, sunlight beginning to break through the clouds. “Plantin’ sunflowers.”
She lets out a soft laugh, small but real. “For me?”
“Yeah, baby,” I say quietly. “For you. Something to look forward to when you come back home.”
The line goes silent again, and I hear her sniffling. “I don’t deserve someone like you.”
I shake my head, even though she can’t see it. “You deserve someone who cares, I do.”
She sniffles again, voice trembling. “You always say things like that. And every time, it makes it harder to hang up.”
“Then don’t,” I whisper.
She sighs softly. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”
My stomach knots. “You mean—”
She cuts me off. “I just mean pretending everything’s okay.”
The sound of her scared voice nearly breaks me.
“Then don’t pretend,” I whisper. “Not with me.”
“Okay.”
We stay like that for a while, just breathing, not talking, not hanging up, because if we stay still long enough, the world won’t pull us apart again.