Page 54

GRACE

I’m back in my apartment, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore.

The walls are still the same washed-out white, and the books stacked by the armchair are still in the same crooked piles I left them in.

My boots are by the door; city boots, clean, polished, and unused.

My bed is still crisply made and untouched like no one ever sleeps here. Like I never did.

The coffee in my cup has turned bitter and cold.

I haven’t drunk it. I keep holding it because it gives my hands something to do other than reaching for my phone.

It’s facedown on the windowsill next to me, quiet and black.

A viper waiting to strike. I haven’t checked it since I left the ranch, ignoring messages, emails, and news alerts since the article hit and my life fell apart.

Even if I wanted to, how can I go back to work when my CEO and deputy gutted and sensationalized my story and ruined my name?

My mind is a flashing reel of everything I’ve written since I graduated.

All the stupid articles about inconsequential shit that I don’t care about.

They might have been asinine, but at least I could always hear my voice behind them, my twist on even the more trivial of subjects.

But what Rianna turned my piece into sounded like someone else. Cold and tabloid-trash cruel.

I can’t even think about the family I’ve left behind, who were already torn open by life and have now been served up for public consumption and humiliation because of me.

Loving isn’t wrong—reaching out to hold someone’s hand, choosing to care for someone, fiercely and gently, like you care for yourself—but Rianna made it sound terrible.

I’m weighed down by my life and the emptiness of it, crushed under the heel of consequences I don’t deserve to face. I tell myself that all I need to do is let the dust settle. I’ll wake up tomorrow with a clearer head, and I’ll be able to work out what to do. But it’s a lie.

I’m hiding.

From their anger.

From their heartbreak.

From the part of me that doesn’t want to believe I might have lost something I never believed could be mine.

Conway’s voice barrels through my mind, steady and cold, telling me to go.

God, I should’ve fought harder, explained better. I should never have trusted my notes to my cloud drive or trusted Rianna with anything personal. I’ve spent my whole adult life dealing in sensationalism. I should have known better.

But what has it cost me?

The trust I had in my work colleagues. The belief I had about my role at Fine Line Magazine. The faith and hope those good men placed in me.

Their love , my mind whispers. It cost you their love.

I shake my head. I never had it. They didn’t know the real me.

They were lonely and in need of female company, and I was convenient.

That’s all. That’s always been my role. The stand-in.

The layover. I’m the person people walk away from: my dad, my friends, men who spin through the revolving door of my life.

Even my mom filled the house with other people’s kids, like I wasn’t enough.

It’s best this way. What would be the point of pretending to myself any longer that I could fit in their world and they’d want to keep me? At least this way, I can nurse my heart and move on, and those good men and those sweet children can find the life they want with a better woman than me.

I look out the window, watching people go about their day like the world hasn’t shifted. Like I’m not unraveling, inch by inch.

Tomorrow, I’ll open the messages. I’ll read the comments. I’ll figure out what life looks like from here.

But I can’t face it today.

I’m going to hold this cold coffee and let my heart beat too fast, and tears streak mascara down my cheeks, and I’m going to wait out the pain.

There’s a knock at the door, which drags my attention from the window. I don’t move at first, assuming it’s a neighbor or a delivery I forgot I ordered, but then it comes again, and it’s firmer this time. Intentional and demanding. A knock that means business.

I set the cold coffee on the sill, slide off the chair, and pad barefoot to the door, my chest already tight.

When I open it, Allie pushes inside before I can speak.

She’s dressed in joggers and an oversized sweatshirt, hair up in a claw clip, face flushed from the wind or the stairs. She doesn’t bother with hello.

“Allie?”

“Grace,” she says, voice clipped and urgent. “Have you seen it?”

“Seen what?”

She drops her purse on the counter and fishes out her phone. “God. You haven’t looked at anything, have you? Twitter? TikTok? Jesus, Grace…”

I shake my head, remembering when I uttered those same words to Allie when everything in her life hit rock bottom. “I haven’t. I didn’t want to… ”

She closes her eyes, pressing her fingers to her temples like she’s trying to prevent her skull from exploding. “You need to sit down.”

The words land hard, so I don’t argue. I drift back to the chair by the window. The phone I’ve been ignoring still sits face down beside me. “Why?” I whisper.

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she perches on the windowsill, reaches over, picks up my phone, hands it to me to unlock, and opens a browser window. Her fingers type a few characters, and then she turns the screen toward me.

#gracecanride

I stare at it.

At first, it doesn’t register. It’s a stupid hashtag with my name in it.

Then the page loads to reveal video after video.

Some are blurry. Some sharp. Faces I almost remember from bar bathrooms, Tinder matches, and half-forgotten flings. Some I don’t remember at all. All men, smirking and casual. So fucking confident in their cruelty.

“I hooked up with Grace back in… what was it, February? Yeah. She can ride, all right. City girl who left me limping for a week. I’d join a cowboy cult if it meant a second round. No strings attached.”

“Ten outta ten at showing a dick a good time. I’d visit a poly ranch if she’s part of the hospitality package. Not a keeper, but worth a ride. She knows what to do with her hips.”

Another voice. “Isn’t that the journalist who wrote that poly-cowboy thing? Figures. Grace can ride, and apparently, she’s got room for eleven.”

Laughter in the background. Some of the videos are memes. Others are screenshots of my face lifted from the article, pasted over slow-motion horse-riding clips or porn stills. A few are genuinely vile. All of them reduce me to sex and spectacle and nothing else.

I stare, breath gone, eyes stinging.

My name is a hashtag. A joke. A punchline.

And I feel myself detaching, as if I’m watching from outside my own skin .

Allie gently takes the phone and flips it face down again, but the damage is done. I feel untethered, like I’ve floated outside of myself, and there’s no getting back in.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. She sinks into the chair across from me and rests her hand on my knee.

Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t cry. “I hate this. I hate it so much. You know I’ve been there, Grace.

I know how it feels when the world decides your body is public property.

I don’t know what it is about women enjoying sex that makes men feel so threatened, but it’s real. And it’s fucking infuriating.”

I can’t look at her. My throat’s raw with shame. The fallout after her pictures were exposed almost shattered her fledgling relationship. I’m just glad I was there to help when she needed it.

“I did this,” I say. “It’s all my fault.”

“NO.” Allie practically yells the word. “There is nothing wrong with wanting sex, Grace. Or having it. If you’re happy, that’s it. End of conversation. And none of those assholes deserved even a look in your direction… but that’s beside the point.”

“I wasn’t happy,” I admit. “And it was never… good.”

I’m ashamed to admit it. I expect her to look away, but she doesn’t.

Her grip tightens. “Seriously? Fuck. So they’re bragging about the bad sex they gave you. That’s their flex? They should hang their heads in shame.”

This time, I choke out a laugh.

“What about the cowboys?” she asks. “Please tell me they weren’t all hat and no saddle, or Jesus, I’m going to lasso all those jackasses together and make them sit through female anatomy classes.”

I nod, cheeks flushing. “They were good,” I admit, the memory of heat and connection rolling over me like standing in front of an open oven.

“Good with your body or your heart?”

I glance at the painting McCartney gave me. The one I swore I wouldn’t look at. It’s propped against the bookcase, angled enough to catch the light. Maybe I should have left it behind, but it’s the only memento I have of the happiest time in my life.

Allie follows my gaze. “What’s that?”

I stand, retrieve it, and hand it over. It’s easier than speaking when I have a golf ball wedged against my larynx.

She studies it for a long time. When she finally looks up, her eyes are full of tears. “This is beautiful, Grace.”

“It is.”

“I feel it,” she whispers. “The love.”

I shake my head. “It wasn’t real,” I say. “I was the wrong woman at the right time.”