Beyond What is Given(87)

“That’s crossing the line.” Grayson’s voice dropped.

“Maybe. But I’m right. You know I’m right, too, don’t you, Sam?”

My stomach dropped like I’d gone off the rails on a high-speed roller coaster.

If none of it had happened, he would have gone to UNC with Grace. They’d have gotten married after graduation and made perfect, G-named babies and raised them on the beaches of the Outer Banks. But his perfect life had come unraveled.

Grayson would never absolve himself of the guilt, and Grace would always hold that string.

He would never be entirely mine.

“Don’t tell her.” My voice sounded flat, like it belonged to someone else.

Grayson spun around and took me by the shoulders. “What?”

“Parker’s right.” The words tasted like acid, but I had to lessen some of the guilt that was suffocating him. “You don’t know what it will do to her. Her doctors aren’t here. She’s eight hundred miles away from home, and you might very well break her heart. She doesn’t deserve that.”

“Neither do you.”

He put me on equal footing with Grace, and even though I didn’t deserve it, I loved him all the more for it. “I’m strong enough to handle a few days of ambiguity. Just…keep your hands…you know.”

His face was stoic but his eyes, they spoke volumes. “My hands only want to be on you.”

I forced a smile. “See, nothing to worry about.” Parker’s smug face was a blur as I passed her, damn-near tripping over my feet to get out of that room. His room. Our room. Where she would sleep. In his bed. Our bed.

While he set everyone up, I studied in my room.

“Sam?” Parker knocked and entered in the same motion.

“What can I do for you, Parker?” I asked, putting my book down.

She looked at the general chaos of my room and forced a smile as she sat on my bed. “I know we don’t really get along.”

“That’s a gross understatement.” I tiptoed the line between handing Parker her ass and remembering that she was important to Grayson.

“It’s not that I don’t like you—”

“Oh, you don’t like me, but there’s no legitimate reason. You see, I don’t like you because you treat Grayson like crap. You won’t forgive him for something that happened five years ago, when he was basically a kid. Something that wasn’t ever his fault, though you won’t let it go because you love Grace so much that you needed someone to blame.”

She picked up the pencil off my notebook and twirled it. “Yes.”

“So you take it out on Grayson, which is why I don’t like you. Valid. But you don’t like me because I have the audacity to love your brother.”

“I watched him pray for a miracle. For years, at her bedside, he begged. Now he has his miracle. She’s here, and he’s throwing it away…for you. You’re the instrument of his ruin, and if you really loved him, you’d be unselfish and let him go. But you won’t, will you? You’ll make him suffer, torn between the two of you so that you can hold onto him a little longer.”

Selfish. She hit the nail on the head with an accuracy that exposed every one of my nerves. “He wants to be with me.”

My soul ached, all my deepest insecurities laid bare in front of the last person I would ever want to display them for.

She looked at me, all traces of menace and snark gone. “Just do me a favor. While she’s here, watch them. See how they fit together, complement each other. Really pay attention to them, and when you do, you’ll see it.”

“What?” I asked, my voice cracking.

“His future. Their future. He wants to be with you, yes. But he loves her. It’s his happiness in your hands, Sam. Let him go.” She patted my knee like I was a dog, and left me alone with a heart that was slowly ripping itself in two.

In the middle of the night, Grayson came into my bed, sneaking like we were teenagers. My laughter didn’t last past the first kiss. He made love to me like we had forever, lingering, savoring, promising me things with his body that I wasn’t sure his heart was capable of.

God, I wanted so badly to believe it.

We fell asleep in a tangle of limbs, and when the sun rose, he kissed me gently and snuck back downstairs to the couch as quietly as possible.

Like we’d done something wrong. Dirty.

I scrubbed myself clean in the shower, and as I came out into the hallway in my bathrobe, I startled and stepped back so Grayson could pass with Grace in his arms.

He shot me a longing look, but that was it.

“Good morning, Sam!” Grace called back over his shoulder as they headed toward the stairs. Her hair was perfectly mussed, and her eyes joyful as Grayson jumped the last two steps to the landing. They both laughed.

She makes him laugh.

Dazed, I walked back into my bedroom and stared at my bed. The extra pillow still smelled like him, and I held it to me for a few moments. Then I ripped every piece of linen off the bed and threw it in a pile by the door for the laundry.

What had I done? I’d moved to Alabama. Gotten a job. Gotten into a college, even as small as it was. I thought I’d grown, changed, evolved, but I hadn’t. I’d made over everything about my life except the most important part: me.