The Gravity of Us (Elements #4)(41)

When he was only with his father, he was so, so very much alone.

But when Rebecca came, he remembered how it felt to be loved again.

And he couldn’t lose that feeling.

He couldn’t lose his light.

“Graham.” Rebecca smiled, tears falling from her own eyes as she tried to wipe his away. “You’re okay, please, it’s okay. Calm down.”

“You’re going to leave me, I know you are.” He sobbed, covering his face with his hands. That was what people did—they left. “He’s so mean to you. He’s too mean to you, and you’re going to leave.”

“Graham Michael Russell, you stop it right now, okay?” she ordered, holding his hands tightly in hers. She placed his hands against her cheeks and nodded once. “I’m here, all right? I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re not leaving?” he asked, hiccupping as he tried to catch his next breath.

She shook her head. “No. I’m not leaving. You’re just overthinking everything. It’s late, and you need rest, okay?”

“Okay.”

She laid him back down and tucked him in, kissing his forehead. As she stood up to leave, he called after her one last time. “And you’ll be here tomorrow?”

“Of course, honey.”

“Promise?” he whispered, his voice still a bit shaky, but Rebecca’s remained strong and sure.

“Promise.”





Lucy and I fell back into our normal routine. In the mornings, she’d show up with her yoga mat and do her morning meditation in the sunroom, and whenever she wasn’t working a special event, she’d come over to my house at night to help take care of Talon while I worked on my novel. We ate dinner together at the dining room table almost every night, but didn’t have much to talk about other than the cold that had found its way into both Talon’s body and mine.

“Drink it,” Lucy told me, bringing me a mug of tea.

“I don’t drink tea.” I coughed into my hands. My desk was still scattered with tissues and cough syrup bottles.

“You will drink this twice a day for three days, and it will make you one hundred percent better. I have no clue how you’re even functioning with that nasty cough. So, drink,” she ordered. I smelled the tea and made a face. She laughed. “Cinnamon, ginger, fresh lemons, hot red peppers, sugar, black pepper, and peppermint extract—plus a secret ingredient I can’t tell you about.”

“It smells like hell.”

She nodded with a small smirk. “A perfect drink for the devil himself.”

For the following three days, I drank her tea. She pretty much had to force-feed it to me, but by day four, the coughing had disappeared.

I was almost positive Lucy was a witch, but at least with her tea I was able to clear my head for the first time in weeks.

The following Saturday evening, dinner sat on the table, and when I went to get Lucy to eat, I noticed her in the sunroom on her cell phone.

Instead of interrupting, I waited patiently, until the roasted chicken was cold.

Time passed quickly. She’d been standing in the sunroom on her cell phone for hours now. Her eyes were glued to the rain cascading down from the sky as she moved her lips, speaking to whoever was on the other end of the line.

I wandered past the room every now and then, watching her move her hands to express herself, watching the tears fall from her eyes. They fell heavily, like the rain. After a while, she hung up and lowered herself to the floor, sat with her legs crossed, and stared out the window.

When Talon was down, I stepped into the sunroom to check on her.

“Are you all right?” I asked, concerned about how someone as bright as Lucy could appear so dark that afternoon. It was almost as if she blended into the gray clouds herself.

“How much do I owe you?” she asked, not turning my way.

“Owe me?”

She turned around, sniffling, and allowed the tears to keep falling down her cheeks. “You bet me that my relationship would be over in a month tops, and you win. So, how much do I owe you? You win.”

“Lucille…” I started, but she shook her head.

“He, um, he said New York is the place for artists. He said it’s the place for him to grow his craft, and there are opportunities there that he wouldn’t have in the Midwest.” She sniffled some more and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “He said his friend offered him a couch in his apartment, so he’s going to stay there for a while. Then he said a long-distance relationship wasn’t something he was really interested in having, so my stupid heart tightened, thinking he was inviting me out there to be with him. I know what you’re thinking, too.” She giggled nervously then shrugged and shook her head. “Silly, immature, na?ve Lucille, believing love would be enough, thinking she was worthy of being someone’s forever.”

“That’s…not what I was thinking.”

“So, how much?” she asked, standing up. “How much do I owe you? I have some money in my purse. Let me go grab it.”

“Lucille, stop.”

She walked in my direction and put on a fake smile. “No, it’s fine. A bet is a bet and you won, so let me go get the money.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”