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“I get it, Jess. I do. But I didn’t do this to you.”Didn’t you, though?my heart whispered. “Get in the car. Please. I’ll drive you home, okay?” he pleaded.

And just like that, the fight fled from me, bleeding from my fingertips as I tried to grasp onto what was left of it. It was useless. I walked over to his car and got in, shutting the door and slanting my body towards the window.

Greyson slipped into his seat and turned the engine over, pulling away from Jaymes’ house.

I watched the cracks in the sidewalks shift from dark lines to rhythmic shadows flitting past the faster we drove.

“Why’d you stay?” I eventually asked him.

“Honestly?” he said. “I had a feeling things might go that way.”

I turned to him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Did he know something I didn’t this entire time? Had he been keeping Jaymes’ dirty little secret behind my back?

“Jaymes is Jaymes,” he shrugged. “So I can’t say I’m surprised.”Touché,I thought, and let out a breath.“He’s an idiot, though. The fact that he can’t see what he has right in front of his face.” He shook his head. “He’s a fucking idiot.”

I felt like turning his words around on him, telling him he was an idiot, too. Because if he could see what was right in front ofhisface? He’d see that he had me, so much more than Jaymes ever had.

“And what is that, exactly?” I asked him instead.

He looked at me questioningly.

“What is it that he has?” I elaborated.

He smiled a little. The right side of his lips, anyway. “I know what you’re doing, Jess. Don’t. Please.”

I forced a smile back. “Right,” I said, and we left the conversation at that.

Fifty-two Before

WE DIDN’T TALKmuch after that, Greyson and me.

And I didn’t really know why, except that sometimes it hurt just to look at him. The one thing in this world I’d desperately wanted but would never have. Yet another prayer gone unanswered.

There wasn’t any animosity between us, though. We simply kept our distance. Smiling when we caught eyes or waving when we passed in the hallways. It was our acceptance, I think, that this was where our lives were meant to fork apart.

But still…it hurt.

Every time I looked at him. Every time I thought about him. Every minute of every day, every second I spent breathing, the thought of him leaving crushed me in a way I didn’t know how to come back from.

I didn’t understand it. Not really.

So I avoided it—avoided him. Just like he’d been avoiding me. Because if we severed most of our ties now, it wouldn’t hurt as much later, right?

I could only hope.

So, I focused on school, on painting, instead. I focused on the therapy I’d only recently started but could already tell was going to help me. I focused on everything but the fact that Greyson was avoiding it, too: the tiny granules of sand falling through the hourglass, counting down the last days, hours, minutes, seconds we had left before we’d have to say goodbye.

Fifty-three After

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM,goes my heart. A steady pulse in my throat; a whooshing in my ears. Too fast to track the beats, to differentiate one from the next. Just a steady, continual thunderingthat reverberates through my entire body.

He gave me no time, no time at all, to linger on the relief of these revelations before slamming a new one down on me. The most insane one. The most important one.“There’s only one woman I’ve been interested in connecting with for the past eight years, and I think we both know that’s you.”No questions about it. Intentions clearly drawn.

I swallow thickly. Our eyes are still locked together, emotions running high. So high I can’t tell which are his and which are mine as we gaze deep into each other’s eyes, into what feels like our souls. I think we share them all. Relief, curiosity, fondness,yearning.

I lick my lips and his eyes follow the movement, making my heart race even faster. His mouth pulls up into a slow smirk, like he somehow knows and enjoys how much he still affects me after all this time.

My phone rings in my lap, jolting me and effectively severing our connection.