Page 38 of The Space Between
He’s patrolling. Alone. Silent. Making sure the banks are clear, and no one can sneak up from the water.
This is not for him.
It’s for me.
He won’t say the words. He’ll never say the words, butthisis his promise.
I believe it.
Gruene
The river’squiet this morning, almost too quiet.
No rafts. No tourists. No half-drunk laughter drifting up from the water. Just the sound of the cicadas and the thick, weighted silence that’s been hanging between our cabins since she came home from the school yesterday looking like her insides had been carved out.
She didn’t tell me everything. She didn’t have to. But I know how to fill in the blanks from what she has said and what I saw myself.
I saw it on her face the second she stepped out of that car. She wasn’t panic. It wasn’t pain. It was something harder. The kind of resolve that only shows up when a person’s got nowhere left to hide. I hated that I recognized it, because that means I’ve felt it, too.
I don’t knockwhen I step up to her porch. I don’t ask if she’s busy. I just open the screen door, lean in, and speak like I’ve got every right. “You got a minute?”
There’s a pause. Then, the sound of bare feet on the floor before she opens the door. She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t look surprised. She just steps back and lets me in.
The place is warmerthan it should be. Sun is filtering through the gauzy curtains. A box fan is on in the corner, struggling to circulate the hot air. She’s barefoot with her hair pulled up and wearing a grey tank top and cutoffs.
She looks like summer, but she carries herself like a storm.
“Do you need something?” she asks quietly. “Is everything okay?”
“I just need to know if you’re safe,” I reply, hating myself for needing to ask.
She folds her arms over her chest, pushing her breasts together. My gaze dips for a scant second as she says, “Define safe.”
I shake my head, “You think he’ll come back?”
Her jaw tightens and she exhales. “Yeah, I do. I think he’lltry.” She shrugs. “He thinks I’m his. Not because he loves me, but because I dared to leave him when he told me not to. He’s not going to just let me go. I was stupid to think he would.”
I nod once. “Good, I’m glad you realize he isn’t going to stop. But I’ll be here.”
“I didn’t ask you to—” She sputters.
“I know. But I am. And youaresafe, Blakelyn.” I cut her off.
I don’t say more. I don’t ask to stay. I don’t make promises to her I don’t have the right to keep.
I just walk to the back window, peer through the screen, and scan the bend in the river like it’s a habit I never lost, because I didn’t. I spent the entire night out there. Setting markers and trackers.
If Tyler is stupid enough to try to come for her that way, I’ll know.
I leave after five minutes.She doesn’t try to stop me. But when I step off the porch and hit the gravel, I hear her screen door creak open behind me.
I don’t turn. She doesn’t speak. But Iknowshe’s watching me walk away. And I hate how much I want to turn back.
I’m countingtubes when Reece swings by the shack around noon after picking up some floaters from the first landing spot. He hands me a greasy paper bag and a drink and sits on the edge of the dock. He waits. I join him and both of our legs dangling off as we eat.
He asks, “You check on her?”
I grunt. “Yeah?”
