Beyond What is Given(76)

“Yes,” she admitted softly, and had the sense to look away. “We didn’t know the trial would do anything. She’s really and truly a miracle, Gray. Our Hail Mary.”

“Full of Grace,” I whispered to myself.

Mrs. Bowden stepped in. “The team came here from the University, and they’ve been kind enough to let us stay here. We’ll go to Texas in a month for tests, of course, but their doctors are constantly flitting around.”

“How long will she be in the hospital?”

“That’s up to the doctors.”

I nodded, trying to process everything without losing my shit.

“How long can you stay?” Miranda asked.

Reality split again. I’d spent so long praying for her to wake up, I’d never considered what would happen after she did. “I’m on a four-day.”

“Did you happen to bring Samantha with you?” Mrs. Bowden asked.

My head snapped toward her. Sam. I closed my eyes for a second and let the thought of her rush through me, calming everything just enough to breathe.

The consequences of the miracle in front of me unfurled, hitting me harder than the fake-terrorist during SERE school. Sam. My Samantha.

Grace needs you.

Suddenly there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room, or the world.

“Gray?” Mrs. Bowden prodded.

“No, I didn’t bring her.” She was at home, with my study guides, my helicopter, my friends…my heart. And Grace was here. Fuck. I tried to silence the screaming in my head long enough to form a coherent sentence. “Does Grace know? About Sam?”

Miranda’s eyes filled with sympathy. “No. None of us have breathed a word of it to her.”

Mrs. Bowden touched my arm lightly. “We thought it best to let her be happy. We don’t know how she’ll react, what the stress might do to her. She knows that you’re here every chance that you get, but that’s all. We’d…we’d like you to let her heal before, well, anything.”

“You’d like me to lie? Or you’d like me to conveniently forget that I have a girlfriend at home in Alabama?” I growled, nausea rolling in my stomach.

“No,” Miranda shook her head at her mother. “No, Gray, we don’t. We just need to figure out what she assumes about now—what she needs. Telling her about Sam, that’s your choice. What you choose to do now that she’s awake—well, that’s your choice, too.”

I nodded once, then pushed past them to the door and through it. I ignored my name being called from the waiting room, from the hall behind me, from the person standing in the hall. The door swung open in front of me as I entered the stairwell and then hammered my way down the eight flights.

Sam. Grace.

My future. My past?

Everything I’d ever wanted had suddenly appeared, but I couldn’t have it all. I had to choose between the Grayson I was five years ago, the one who’d loved Grace with every heartbeat, and the one I was now, who’d fallen for Sam so completely that she was as crucial as oxygen.

Even now, as I rounded the staircase to the ground floor, every cell in my body screamed out for Sam, to hear her voice, her laugh, feel her heartbeat under the palm of my hand. But eight floors up, Grace was awake, the answer to every prayer, blissfully unaware that I’d fallen in love with another woman while she’d been unable to put up a fight. Grace, who’d been my best friend since we could walk. Grace, who’d always been my future until that night. Grace, who needed me.

I burst through the doors on the ground floor and didn’t stop until I was outside the hospital. The air hit my face, and I took gulping breaths to calm my racing heart. Saliva filled my mouth, and my stomach rebelled. I made it to the bushes before I vomited, bringing up everything I’d eaten and then heaving nothingness.

“Oh, Gray.” Mom’s hands patted my back like I was eleven with the stomach flu.

I took the bottle of water she held out for me, swished out the sour taste of bile, and spit. She took my arm and led me to the bench that rested inside the gazebo, where we sat side-by-side in silence until I was ready to speak.

“Grace is awake.”

“Yes.” She squeezed my hand.

“I’m in love with Sam.” The words, spoken aloud, sent a bittersweet feeling through me that radiated from my heart to my limbs until I swore my fingers tingled. I thought the first time I said them would be freeing.

I thought the first time I said them would be to Samantha.

“I know.”

“I haven’t told her. I was scared that if I said something, let myself really love her, plan a life with her, something would happen. I’d lose her…like I lost Grace. I’ve been paying for that night for five years, and Sam is the first really good thing to happen to me. But maybe she’s the price?” My stomach rolled again, and I leaned over, resting my forehead on my fists. “Maybe God, fate, irony, whatever…maybe it needed this last ounce of pain it could wring from me, and I deserve it. I do. But Sam doesn’t. Grace doesn’t.”

“Look at me.” Her voice was sharp, and I raised my eyes to her. “You did not deserve this. You were not responsible for what happened to Grace. You saved her life. You were not responsible for Owen driving that night. None of what’s happening is your fault. You cannot carry the burdens of this world on your shoulders. Even you are not that strong.”