Page 11 of The Space Between
You don’t pull any punches, do you Blakelyn?
I suck in a sharp breath before exhaling raggedly. “Yup.”
She gasps.
I blurt out, “My wife.Andmy daughter,” before she can say anything.
Why am I telling her this?
Her breath hitches and her eyes widen as she turns to stare at my profile.
I don’t face her. I don’t expand, but her hand lightly brushes across the top of mine on the dock and I don’t pull away. I don’t turn my hand and accept her comfort either. I just… sit.
She sits with me in silence, because sometimes the only thing more dangerous than the river… is surviving it.
Standing quickly, I mutter, “Night, Blakelyn,” and head to my cabin, leaving her at the edge of the dock.
CHAPTER 3
Blakelyn
The wateron my feet dries faster than the sting of his words from earlier.
He told me he lost his wife and daughter to the river.
How do I deal with that?
How does he?
By the time I get back to my porch, my skin still feels too tight. Like it doesn’t fit me. Like it’s trying to contain something it wasn’t made for.
His voice after he pulled me out of the river earlier still rings in my ears. It’s replaying over and over and over.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
The words weren’t even the sharpest part—it was the way he said them. Like I was nothing but a danger to myself. Like my presence alone puts him at risk.
Maybe it does. He lost his wife and child, and I foolishly went into the river alone.
I didn’t expect the pull of the current. It took everything in me to stay upright.
What if I’d fallen? I can swim, but I can’t fight a river and hope to win.
Going in that way was idiotic.
Walking inside, I sink onto the couch and wrap both hands around my knees. I’m not shivering. It’s still about eighty-four degrees outside. Seventy-six in here. But I feel… exposed. Like he saw straight through me and didn’t like what he found.
I wasn’t trying to make a statement. Wasn’t trying to provoke him. I just needed the quiet. The stillness.
He said my name. Just now.
Just once. Quiet. Barely audible over the chirp of crickets and the hush of the river below. But I heard it.“Night, Blakelyn.”And the way it landed in my chest was nothing short of a damn collapse.
I don’t even try to undress or wash my face or pretend I’m doing anything other than falling apart. I slide off the couch until I’m sitting on the floor, knees pulled tight to my chest, arms wrapped around them like maybe I can hold myself together.
It’s not that he told me he lost them.
It’s how he told me.
