Page 68 of Small Sacrifices

He doesn't tell Everett about this. Obviously, Everett knows that something is off, and he asks about it again. But only once. When Reid evades the question, he goes back to business as usual.

The next two days blur into a cycle of dissociation at work and friendly banter with Everett over text, which is a welcome distraction but does little to ease Reid's gnawing anxiety. He's battling a sinking feeling that he might not come out of this situation with his sanity intact.

This emotional turmoil is foreign to him; he's not usually so affected by people he's not related to. He can get angry at someone's actions or worried if someone goes quiet, but Everett has him flushed red and giddy with a single offhand comment like"dont worry ur pretty little head"—and it happens even when Everett doesn't say it directly to him. It's overwhelming.

Friday starts like any other day until Reid looks at his phone and sees a text from Everett. It was sent at two in the morning.

i wish i could stop thinking about u. ur hair makes that very difficult.

It's difficult to do breathing exercises at the same time as he's brushing his teeth, but Reid manages. He has to. After he sat and stared at that text for a whole twenty minutes, he's cutting it close.

In the car, he turns up his music louder than usual and taps out its rhythm on the steering wheel. What does Everett think he's doing, anyway? They said they were going to be friends. They agreed on it!"I wish I could stop thinking about you,"is not something you tell your friend.

"Tough morning?" Officer McNaulty asks as she scans his ID badge.

That rips Reid out of his circling thoughts. He gives her an excuse she clearly doesn't believe and then hurries on, mentally cursing himself. He can't be thinking about these things at work, not with how transparent his face is. Especially not where Mr. Wright could see or where Everett might walk in.

Marisol is chipper, so at least that helps. She's got a meeting with Mr. Wright later, to discuss what she found and how to proceed with it. Excitedly, she tells him she's going to use the opportunity to ask when the next assessment is going to be, so that maybe she can get a raise.

But then, at some point in the afternoon, she disappears into Mr. Wright's office to attend that meeting, and Reid is left alone with his thoughts again. Of course, they start circling immediately.

I wish I could stop thinking about you.What does that mean? It doesn't sound like a good thing. If Everett wants to stop, it can't be a good thing, right? Never mind the fact that theyagreed to be friends.

The entire thing feels inappropriate. Why did Everett have to send that text? And in the middle of the night, too? That's not fair. God, he wishes he never received that text. Even with normal texts from Everett, his heart always beats a little faster when he reads them. But that's just because Everett is genuinely interested in the things he has to say. Reid can chalk that up to not being used to someone paying attention to him. His reaction to this, however...

He's thinking about me!It's not a very platonic reaction, is it? By now, Reid has resigned himself to the fact that he's attracted to Everett. But this is going beyond mere attraction. And it's really fucking inconvenient. He can't be thinking about Everett at work!

It's distracting him from answering all the fantastic questions their constituents send in over social media. "Why doesn't the governor have a dog?"Reid doesn't know either."Is the governor healthy? He looked so pale last week."Reid didn't notice. But he reassures the woman that Mackenzie is in peak physical condition. To which she answers,"Oh, I know."Which... if she knew, why did she ask?

When Mr. Wright leaves his office, Reid is looking at posts they have been tagged in and trying his hardest not to laugh. That becomes easier when Mr. Wright strides past him with a nod and Marisol is still not emerging from his office. There's nothingobviouslywrong with that, but it seems strange.

Reid is spooked enough that he gets up and approaches the open door. What he finds is innocuous. Marisol is sitting on the edge of a chair, back straight and head held high, with her hands on her knees. Her long nails—baby blue, this week—are glittering in the light from the atrociously shaped lamp. But her eyes are vacant. Reid needs to clear his throat to get her to look at him.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

The question kicks off a flurry of movement. Marisol shakes her head almost violently and reaches out to gather some sheets of her notes that are still sitting on the table next to her. Then she gets to her feet and rushes past him.

"I have to get out of here," he can hear her say between her teeth before she starts cursing in Spanish.

Reid doesn't speak Spanish, but he doesn't need to in order to know that this doesn't sound good. She sounds angry. More than that, he can hear the tears already weighing down her voice. He follows her before he can even really think about it.

Her shoulders are almost up to her ears as she hurries through corridors badly lit by neon light. It makes her look even smaller than she is, and it worries Reid. Whathappened?

By the time Marisol turns around to look at Reid, whatever was happening before has turned into stone cold fury.

"If I want a promotion, I have to fuck him," she says.

Reid's own circling thoughts screech to a halt.

"Excuse me?"

She laughs, harsh and cold. "That's what I thought. But yeah, apparently."

"He actually said that?" He just has to ask. Because while Mr. Wright sometimes does things that don't make sense, saying that would be outright stupid.

Marisol scoffs. "No, but he heavily implied it. You're a smart girl, Ms. Contreras. You know how these things work. If I help you, you help me.And he had his hand on my thigh. How much more skeezy can you get?"

She doesn't sound like Mr. Wright so much as a congested muppet, but Reid just can't find it in himself to laugh. Because this is... Fuck, this is bad. He wants to ask if she's sure that she understood Mr. Wright correctly. Maybe something got lost in translation somewhere? That's always the first thing he assumes. But he knows he can't do that right now. He wants her to know that he supports her.

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