A few people sit along the shoreline with fishing poles stuck upright in the sand. Farther out, two kayakers glide in slow synchronization across the water.
He parks on a gravel patch near a cluster of wild grass.
The engine clicks softly as it cools in the open air. He then turns to me, and there is something incredibly steady in the way he looks at me.
“This is Sapphire Lake,” he says. “We can set up just down by the pier.”
He retrieves the supplies from the back while I grab the folded blanket he packed earlier. The grass brushes against my ankles with each step, as we walk closer to the water.
The breeze carries the clean scent of the lake and a faint, earthy undertone from the woods behind us.
He kneels to spread the blanket, smoothing his palms along the edges to keep it steady. He places the canvases gently and arranges the brushes within easy reach.
Lowering myself, I sit cross-legged as he sits beside me, our knees nearly touching. His flannel shifts, revealing more of the burn scars running up his arm.
I feel the question forming before I have time to soften it. My voice emerges barely above the natural hush of the lake.
“Reed… may I ask what happened?”
He pauses, his brush hanging midway over his palette, shoulders rising with a deep inhale before settling again.
Shit, I shouldn’t have asked.
It isn’t because I don’t want to know, but because the second the question left my mouth, something in his demeanor changed.
His shoulders stiffen as his gaze drifts past me, out over Sapphire Lake, avoiding eye contact for a brief moment.
For a moment, I think he’s going to brush it off, deflect the way he always does with pure silence.
He finally lets out a soft exhale, turning towards me, his tortured eyes meeting mine. A slight sheen of tears is dusted on his lash line, and seeing him break, shatters me completely.
“You may,” he says.
My stomach drops, nerves twisting tightly in my lower stomach as my heart rate accelerates with pure adrenaline. I can feel each beat pound against my chest.
“I never told you about before,” he adds, twirling the paintbrush between his fingers.
“Before?” I ask softly, already afraid of the answer.
He exhales through his nose, and the corner of his mouth lifts into something that isn’t a smile, and it fades just as fast.
“Before the bar,” he says. “Before all of this.”
I shake my head a little. “Reed, I don’t?—”
“I was in the academy,” he cuts in gently, “to become a firefighter.”
Firefighter? I blink at him, searching his face for more. “Really?”
He nods once. “Yeah.”
My gaze trails over the scars forming on his left side, starting at the peak of his cheekbone, trailing down beneath the collar of his flannel.
I don’t know the extent of his burns, but I’ve also seenthe scars snaking their way down his arms, now that he’s shown me more.
“I didn’t graduate,” he says before I can speak, his voice firm but brittle around the edges. “I was still in it, working my way to earn the badge.”
Oh my God.
