Beyond What is Given(105)

“Losing you was hell for him.”

A nurse knocked on the door. “Ms. Fitzgerald? There’s a Grayson Masters on the phone for you.”

I swallowed and avoided Grace’s eyes. Awkward. “Could you tell him that I’m sleeping?”

“Sure thing,” she said, and left.

“He’s going out of his mind. Maybe you could call him?”

I shook my head. “No. I need a clean break. He’s better off with you, no matter what he’s thinking right now. You’re his miracle. His Grace. If I see him, talk to him…I just can’t.”

“You love him.”

“Deeply,” I answered, and then studied my blanket. “This has got to be the most awkward conversation ever.”

She laughed. “No. Try having constant one-sided conversations for years, and then we can chat awkwardness.”

“True. Wait. If you were aware all that time, you met me. You knew about us, and you still kissed him.” I took my hand back.

She swallowed and looked away for a moment. “Yes. People do things they’re not proud of when they’re scared. I woke up and everything was different. The whole world had moved on while I’d stayed stagnant. Gray was the one stable thing I’d always had. I should never have kissed him, or even come to Alabama. It wasn’t fair to you, or him, and I am truly sorry. I hope you can forgive me.” Her voice faded to a whisper.

“Grace, he belongs with you. I’m doing everything I can to walk away from him for his own good, and for yours. Please don’t make it harder for me.”

“Well, I’m trying to do the same. Especially now. He’s changed so much. He’s harder, more distant, not as quick to laugh. He didn’t used to be like that. Oh, and he used to love raspberries! I put them on his cheesecake at dinner with my folks after the beach, and he didn’t even eat them.”

“The seeds get stuck in his teeth,” I explained.

She nodded. “Right. What I’m saying is that I’m the same Grace, for the most part, but he’s not the same Gray. And as much as I love him, as my best friend, I don’t think we’ll ever be more. I want him to be happy, and that goes for you, too.”

“There’s too much history between you. You have nicknames for each other, and you know him on a level I never can.” And that hurt more than anything, knowing there were pieces of Grayson I’d never have when he owned every inch of me.

“He calls you ‘squall,’ you just don’t know it,” she said.

“What?”

“Squall. Like a sudden storm that comes out of nowhere, shakes up the ocean, overturns everything. You did that to him. You were the only thing to pull him out of himself and get him to live, and I watched that transformation from the first time he told me about you a couple weeks after you met.”

He was a storm in my life, too.

“I have to go back to Colorado. There are things I have to do there…on my own. The odds are stacked too high against us. He made up his mind and chose North Carolina.”

“Then make him change it.” The ferocity in her voice brought my eyes to hers.

“Would you? Force him to choose between love and his family? Or make him wait while I get the rest of my life sorted out? He waited five years for you to wake up. I can’t ask him for that.”

“I would choose love.”

How simple she made it seem, instead of the crazy Jenga tower we’d built ourselves, pulling the blocks out one by one until we crumbled.

“Yeah, well, I choose Grayson’s happiness, and the two don’t go hand-in-hand at the moment.”

There was no answer.





Chapter Thirty


Grayson


“Where the hell is she?”

Morgan flinched in her doorway. “I told you. Yesterday the movers arrived and took her stuff. I don’t know where.”

I was ready to rip my f*cking hair out. “No forwarding address? Nothing?”

Morgan shook her head. “No. Nothing. I’m so sorry, Grayson.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” I made it back to my truck in a daze and climbed behind the wheel. A week. I’d been gone a week, and in that time she’d checked out of the hospital, cancelled her cell phone, and moved out of her apartment.

How the hell was I supposed to find her when she didn’t want me to?

My phone rang, and I hit the button on the wheel to answer it. “Hey, Mom.”

“Grayson.”

“Oh, hey, Dad. Sorry, I saw the number and assumed Mom.”

“No, she’s out shopping. I wanted to call and tell you that she told me about your long-distance flight.”

“Oh, yeah? It was crap timing, but I did really well.” Hint being—get off my ass.

“It was foolish.”

“I had orders.” Like he was ever going to understand. We could go rounds and rounds, and we’d still end up at the same place.

“I waited for you to see the light, son. To be safe.”

“Yeah, well I’m a chronic disappointment there, Dad.”

“I need you to know that I love you. That everything I’ve done is out of a place of love, and needing to protect you.”

“Dad, I’m twenty-three years old. I don’t need you to protect me.”