Page 105 of The Space Between
No one understands better.
Except maybe her… Blakelyn.
I catch him watching me. “What?”
Reece shrugs. “You’re different, man. Ever since Blakelyn showed up.”
I don’t answer because he’s right and that scares the hell out of me.
I stopby the school around noon.
It’s not planned, I just find myself driving past it, then pulling in, like my truck decided for me.
The front office secretary recognizes me—probably from tubing waivers or field trip sign-offs—she waves from behind the glass, but I don’t go in. I just sit there, engine idling, hands on the wheel, staring at the brick building that looks like every middle school in every small Texas town.
I think about her inside.
Teaching kids. Smiling when she doesn’t feel like it.
Fighting for herself in ways I never even had to consider.
She’s stronger than I am.
That’s the truth.
And maybe that’s what’s so damn magnetic about her.
I walkto her cabin and hover outside her door like a man deciding whether to jump or retreat.
I raise my hand. Drop it. Raise it again.
Then, I knock once and step back.
She opens the door in a tank top and pajama shorts. Her hair is piled on top of her head. Her glasses are slipping down her nose. She looks like somethingsoftandrealandhome.
My chest tightens and I forget how to speak.
Oh, damn… I’m a goner.
“Hey,” she says.
I swallow, “Hey.”
We stare at each other.
It stretches too long but I don’t leave. “I owe you something,” I say.
She folds her arms. “You said that last night. But I guess you owe me a lot of somethings.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
Her brow arches, “Are you gonna give them to me? Or just stand there like a ghost?”
I angle my head, and she grips the edge of the door. I walk toward her. Slowly. Deliberately. Like I’m crossing a bridge I can’t go back from.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I start, then stop, shaking my head.
I can’t give her the same tired old lines.
