Page 104 of The Space Between
No. I’m not running.
I want to be here. I want Blakelyn.
Even though I’m still not sure I believe that I deserve to.
She rolls a little in her sleep. Nudges closer. Her body presses against mine like it knows what I still won’t say.
I don’t move. I barely breathe because I don’t know what the hell happens next.
It’s different now… and I don’t get to keep pretending it’s not.
The cabin feels tooquiet when I get up and leave just before dawn.
I don’t wake her. I can’t.
There’s too much in me that still doesn’t know how to give her the morning after she deserves. Not until I figure out what to do with the mess in my head. But I do grab the small pad for her grocery list and leave her a note, tucking it under her coffee mug.
Then, I step out into the early morning air, river mist curling around my boots, the world still soaked in the heavy hush of dawn. August heat hasn’t kicked in yet, give it another hour, andthe fog smells like cedar, cypress, oak, and dew and something sharp and honest.
I walk the gravel path down to the shop dock, where one of the kayaks is half pulled out, probably from Reece yesterday. He never finishes what he starts unless it’s something involving beer or boobs.
I grin, then, I stop. Smiling feels foreign… like my face has to relearn how to stretch that way.
Shaking it off, I get to work. I haul rental coolers out from storage. I restock the sunscreen bins. I double-check the life jackets. The routine grounds me, pulling me into something tangible, but I can’t stop thinking about her.
Blakelyn.
Not just her body.
Her fire.
Her voice.
The way she stood there in her kitchen last night and finally told meno.
Told me to see her.
And I did.
God, I did.
I don’t think I’ve stopped seeing her since she showed up with her hair tied up and her mouth set in that determined way, carrying a trunk full of small boxes containing her life in the back of that dented old Honda in June.
She walked straight into my guarded world and refused to flinch, and now, I’m the one flinching.
Because she’s asking for more.
She’s demanding it. As she should. She deserves it.
But I still don’t know if I’m built for more anymore.
Reece shows up late,not actually, but I’ve been here for two hours, and Blakelyn drove past on her way to the school an hour ago. “Damn, you’re already working? When do you sleep, man?” he asks, slapping the back of my shoulder.
I grunt. “Whenever my brain shuts off.”
He nods. He understands.
He’s been my closest friend for my entire life.
