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“I’m so sorry I left you. I thought… I thought I was doing the right thing. The night I left….” I pause and look her directly in the eyes, searching for forgiveness I suppose, and finding it, though I don’t deserve it. “I wanted to tell you I loved you. I always have, but I wasn’t ready to admit to you that my feelings for you were much more than a friend. When I found you graduation night, I saw you sitting on the dock with Chris, and for the first time in a while, you looked genuinely happy with him. I didn’t want to upset you so I left. I always felt like you were pushing guys away because you thought it would hurt me. As your friend, you never gave anyone a chance. You were always more concerned about my feelings than finding your own happiness.”
“Grayson,” she gasps, her eyes widening. “All those guys I ever dated, I pushed away because I wanted you,” she interjects. “Were you really that blind that you couldn’t see I was so in love with you?”
“Don’t you see though… I didn’t want you to settle for me because you thought we should be together. I left because I wanted to give you a chance to fall in love and give someone else a try. I was the boy next door. Doesn’t mean I was the one for you.”
“You were though,” she whispers, the blanket around her slipping off her bare shoulder. “And I didn’t move on. I can’t move on from you.”
Anxiety builds in my chest as I process her words. I turn my head and stare at her, blinking slowly. “What do you mean?” I ask in confusion.
“The night you left, I looked happy because I broke it off with Chris.” Her explanation hangs in the air, pulsing between uswith a familiar beat. “I went to your room to tell you and found that note.” Her voice is almost a whisper.
I shake my head at the irony of it and let out an agonized chuckle and reach for her hand. “I’m a fucking idiot.”
Evie snorts, shaking her head. “Yeah, you are.”
Laughter shakes through me. “Thanks.”
There are parts of being in love that people warn you about. The great poets, song writers, movies, it’s embedded deep within everything. The broken parts. The ones you have to repair to move on. It’s like trying to piece together shattered glass. If not done gently, it all falls apart again.
In a world where everything about the last three years has been ruthless and shit, I want to give this girl beside me a never-ending kind of love. But I don’t know if I’m capable.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to make this better.”
Evie sighs, lying back on the bed. “Just hold me. That’s all I need right now.”
29
EVIE
Iused to think to myself that no one can take from you what you don’t give them. I guess that can be true, to a certain extent. And then I lost Grayson.
And met Shane.
Shane took what I didn’t give him and he ripped it to fucking shreds right before my eyes. Now here I am, my heart in pieces and wondering if it will ever be whole again.
We all have emotional scars. Scars you can’t see but ones you feel deep, as if they’re soul deep and carried for lifetimes to come. With any scar, they say you have to rip off a bandage and let it heal naturally, with time, but what they don’t tell you is the level of pain you have to endure when it hits air and begins the process of healing. It can be unbearable.
Sometime Wednesday morning, four days after the incident with Shane, I wake up next to Grayson. I haven’t left his room much. Here I feel safe, protected and loved. It takes a certain kind of man, a tenderness, to know when a woman needs them. I’m not talking about being protective or fighting for them. I’m talking about the ones that know when all they need is to be held. And to have the patience to do that. To get her through those times in her life when she’s afraid of being alone and whenthe tears come so easily. When she can’t ask you for anything yet needs everything.
That guy is Grayson Wyatt Gomez.
He’s also practically on top of me with something poking me in the leg while his hand is on my boob. Yep, cradling it like it’s a precious gift he can’t let go of.
I have to admit, it’s kind of nice. And for a moment, I leave it there. Enjoying that his touch will never come with conditions. Not Grayson. Never. His love, his touch, it’s unconditional and forever.
Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time Grayson’s hands have ended up on my boobs, or the first time he’s lying on top of me come morning.
When we were about fifteen or sixteen, it seemed every morning we woke up he was on top of me with one hand on my boob. Once, he dry-humped me in his sleep and I’m not positive, but I think he came. It was the hottest, most erotic experience of my life. Don’t you dare say anything to him. It’s my treasured secret memory that I will hold forever.
Heat rushes through me at the memory and I squirm unintentionally underneath him.
My movement wakes him and he quickly moves to the side, turning away from me, noticing he has a problem. He reaches for the pillow behind his head and covers his hips with it.
“Someone is happy this morning,” I tease. I can’t help myself as I giggle. And then I realize how unfamiliar the sound feels on my lips. I’ve been so emotionally drained these last few days I had no idea how good it’d feel to laugh again.
Grayson grumbles, dragging himself off the bed and into the bathroom.
Sitting up, a lump rises in my throat when reality returns. I have a life outside this room and it’s fucked up beyond repair at this point. I look over at my phone on his nightstand to see if I have any messages. Nothing. There’s no messages or voicemails.