Page 75 of All I Have Left

EVIE

I dreamed of my wedding when I was younger.

What little girl didn’t? I thought about it constantly from the dress I’d wear, to how Grayson would look in his tux, to the way his eyes would hold mine when we said “I do.” I always knew it’d be with him. Or, at least I knew I wanted it to be.

Frankie and Ethan’s wedding? Extraordinary. Every single detail from the lilac-colored roses to the lace around hay bales is perfect. They say their vows at sunset underneath an arbor Wyatt had built for them and everything is exactly the way she wanted, despite her being five months pregnant.

It’s after the ceremony itself when the real drama begins. Courtney shows up, flirts with Grayson right in front of me, and then proceeds to lay it on thick with Ethan too. He lost his virginity to her when he was sixteen and she never lets Frankie forget it. Even on her wedding day.

Grayson, he’s… extra today. That’s the only way I can describe it. His mood is off and I understand why. There’s simply too many people here for him.

“My granny is shitfaced,” Grayson notes, watching his grandparents as they hold one another up, laughing hysterically .

Leaning into him, I smile. “They’re cute.”

Wyatt’s parents, Gordy and Eden, are a trip. I’ve never met a couple their age so full of life. Eden, she still does headstands in the grass. Which, she’s doing now, thank you, tequila.

It’s while Ethan and Frankie are dancing to their first dance that Grayson reaches for my hand and presses his lips to my temple. “That should be us.”

With his hand on my knee, I lean into him, his warmth radiating into me. “Is that your proposal?”

“No.” He chuckles, his shoulders shaking. I watch his eyes, their spark, their beauty as he sighs. He looks so freaking good in a tux it’s hard to accurately describe. “I can do better than that.”

Moving his hand an inch higher, he grins. “Blood pressure is staying down.”

Heat rushes through my body, settling between my thighs. “Maybe we should leave early?”

Blinking slowly, his tongue darts out to slide across his bottom lip. “Whenever you’re ready.”

And then I think about where we are and the fact we can’t leave the wedding early. Frankie would kill me if I didn’t perform every maid of honor duty she has lined up for me tonight. Which, I have no idea what most are. I just run around telling people what to do and pretend I know what I’m doing.

Their song ends and couples flood the dance floor at The Point. I motion toward it with my hand, smiling at Grayson. “Do you want to dance?”

He snorts, swirling the water in his glass. “Spinning around on a dance floor? Nope.”

I hadn’t thought about that and immediately feel like a jerk. I slump in the chair. “Sorry. I didn’t think about that.”

He sighs, shaking his head as he draws in a deep breath, his hand withdrawing from my thigh. “Don’t let me ruin your fun.” He flips his hand to the dance floor, leaning to one side. “Go for it. ”

Without warning, Kelly yanks me up. “Come dance with me.” She eyes Grayson playfully. It’s funny seeing Kelly drunk because she acts so reserved all the time. Until she drinks. “I promise I’ll keep my hands above her waist.”

Grayson rolls his eyes and lifts the water in his hand to his lips. “Probably the most thrill she’ll have in months.”

Kelly and I exchange a look. Blowing out a breath, I let her lead me to the dance floor. “Bad mood today?” she asks, nodding toward Grayson.

I follow her through the crowd. “More like every day.”

Colt Ford’s “Crank It Up” is playing, and a line forms quickly. I have a good view of Grayson, slouched in the white folding chair, the black in his tux giving him a mysterious look I can’t ignore. He’s sexy.

With one hand on his glass of water, his gaze slides across the dance floor to mine and I sway my hips to the music, wishing it was him holding me now.

He smiles, his gaze lingering on my hips.

Laughing, Kelly grabs me at the same time Paul comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my shoulders.

“Hey, pretty lady,” he says playfully. Paul doesn’t mean any harm, but tonight, he’s high, and probably drunk too and a little grabby.

He’s always been that way with everyone.

And, truthfully, it is inappropriate for him to be all over me. “Paul, that’s enough,” I tell him when he grips my hips, laughing in my ear.

“Last time I checked you weren’t married.”

I shake my head, pushing back against his chest. “No, I’m not, but I’m also not yours to grind against.”

My eyes dart to Grayson who stands from his place at the table, knowing he’s going to emerge from the shadows and cause a scene.

I can tell by the fury in his eyes, he didn’t like what Paul did.

Knowing his temper lately, I have a feeling where it’s heading, so I step in front of him, my hands on his chest. I catch of glimpse of Wyatt and Julia watching us, but everyone else seems to be preoccupied in wedding bliss, completely unaware.

“Grayson, I know you’re mad, but please don’t cause a scene. Don’t ruin her day.” My voice is cold as ice, my eyes narrowing. Not only that, he cannot get into a fight. Imagine what one hit to his head would do? I don’t want to even think about it.

Gently, he takes his hands in mine, staring over his shoulder at Paul. He doesn’t say a word to him, or me.

Paul shakes his head, glaring at Grayson and then getting in his face. “C’mon, man. Relax. I didn’t mean anything by it. We were just dancing.”

Paul, no! No, no, no! He’s going to kill you.

Maybe because he knows his boundaries at the moment, Grayson only shoves Paul out of his face. “Looked like it meant something from where I was sitting.”

Grayson and I hold a stare, my body vibrating that he’s doing this now. This is the kind of shit Shane did, not Grayson. “Grayson, stop it.”

He raises an eyebrow, a ghost of a smile appearing on his lips. The muscle in his clenched jaw eases and he regards me momentarily. “Whatever,” he snaps, and despite the nonchalant shrug that follows, I can see the underlying irritation as he turns around and walks away from us.

On his way toward the parking lot, he reaches over the bar, grabs a bottle of something and leaves.

Fuck .

Kelly sighs. “All because Paul tried to grind on your booty?”

“I don’t know,” I sigh, feeling the pressure build in my chest. “It’s probably something else entirely and that’s just what set him off at the moment.” I motion over my shoulder. “I’m going to check on him.”

She nods. “Okay, I’ll keep Frankie distracted so she doesn’t see you’re gone.”

I snort. “Right? She’ll freak out on me. I’ll be right back.”

It doesn’t take long to find Grayson. He’s in the parking lot sitting on his dad’s tailgate, bottle in hand drinking straight from it.

Stupid fucker. I just… I can’t even believe he’s putting himself at risk like this, but I try to remember that I don’t know what he’s going through.

I have no idea what it’s like to live his life every day.

He also has no idea what it’s like in mine, loving a man who is only a version of the one I fell in love with, and the very real possibility, this might be all we ever have.

“What the hell was that about? And you shouldn’t be drinking!”

“You know, you have a lot of fucking demands for me,” he snaps from the edge of his dad’s tailgate.

I hate the reminder of the truck bed and the harshness in his eyes.

“Don’t cause a scene. Don’t drive, don’t get stressed out, don’t get you off,” he growls, tugging on his tie, a bitterness to his sharp Southern tone. “Stop acting like my fucking mother.”

I stare at the bottle as he brings it to his lips, his eyes on mine as he takes a long drink, hating the fact that I’m obsessing over him mixing it with his medications.

I’m suffocating him, and I know it. They warned me about this, the changes in his personality.

I just didn’t think they’d be directed at me, the one wanting to help him.

I step toward him, my hands on his thighs hanging over the edge.

I touch them higher, squeezing. Our eyes meet, suffering in mine, restlessness in his.

“I’m not trying to act like your mother, Grayson.

The doctor said you shouldn’t be drinking with your medications.

It can cause a stroke or a seizure. I’m only trying to look out for you because I love you. ”

He lies back on the bed of the truck, staring up at the sky. “Yeah, well, the doctor isn’t here. And if I wanted a goddamn lecture about what I should and shouldn’t do, I’ll go find him.”

That pisses me off. I don’t know why, but his harsh words are my breaking point.

I can feel it rising, the tightness in my throat as the heat creeps up my chest, throat and to my cheeks.

Hell, my lips go numb at the sudden onset.

“You know what, fuck you. I don’t need this shit from you too.

I put up with it from Shane for over a year.

He constantly made me feel bad about myself or the situation because he wasn’t happy.

I let him manipulate me into believing it was something I was doing.

I’m not going to let my best friend do that to me too. ”

He sits up angrily, his face inches from mine, and I can tell the motion sends pain through him by the sudden sharp intake of breath, but he’s hurt by what I just said.

The look of confusion and sadness on his face is like I stabbed him in the chest. I’m not sure what hurts more, the fact that he’s been hurting me the last couple months or that I destroyed him with one sentence.

“Don’t you ever fucking compare me to that piece of shit!

I’m nothing like him. Don’t you ever …. That’s a slap in my goddamn face and you know it! ”

I want to take back what I said, but I can’t and I know I need to explain.

“Look at the way you’re treating me now,” I point out, swallowing like crazy to get the lump in my throat to ease up.

“Over a friend hugging me playfully while drunk. I told him to stop, and guess what, he did, Grayson. You can’t blame me for that. ”

“I’m not blaming you!” he shouts, throwing the bottle to the side.

I jump back away from him when it breaks against his dad’s truck, glass shattering in jagged pieces.

I hate the sound, the reminder, the memory that surfaces from months ago.

“I fucking wish I could dance with you like that!” His face breaks with the words.

“I wish I could hold you and it not hurt, but it does. I can’t give you any of that right now. ”

His words hurt more, because I don’t know what he’s going through. I don’t know what Shane took from him. Physically, yes, but emotionally, no, I don’t because he won’t let me.

“I can’t look at you and not be reminded of it,” he whispers, staring at his hands. “Do you know how fucking frustrating that is? I can’t sleep, touch you…. All that shit I went through in Iraq is nothing compared to this.”

Through the tears and sharp intakes of breath, I squint into the darkness around him, his terrified eyes on mine. “Grayson, I don’t know what you want me to say. We can’t heal like this.”

Grayson blows out a breath and tilts his head back in frustration. “Tell me what he did?”

We’re back to that. For weeks, Grayson’s been asking this question.

We’ve argued about it since our last therapy session when he told the therapist that he needed to know what happened.

Fumbling through how to deal with any of this, I refused to go into detail.

Until now. Until he’s pushed enough that fine, fuck it, he can have all the gory fucking details if he wants them.

“I’m so sick of this shit. Fine, you want to know?

Here it is,” I shout back at him. I’m pissed at him, at Shane, at Paul—the entire damn world at this point for swallowing my happy ever after and refusing to give it back.

“What do you want to know? That they held me down and Shane raped me while you begged him to stop? Or what about the part when you begged Shane to just get it over with and kill you? Oh, wait, no, you probably want to know that I had to drag your body toward your truck to find something to stop the bleeding but I couldn’t get you into the truck.

So I ran up the street, completely naked to flag down a truck driver who kindly gave me his shirt.

And then you died. I watched your heart stop beating and begged God that if he gave you back yours, he could have me. ”

Grayson’s eyebrows pulled together, his eyes angling from mine to the ground. His shoulders roll forward.

“Do you want to know that while you were in surgery, I lay on a table, naked, while a doctor photographed my entire body and stuck swabs in my vagina? Or do you want to know about the antibiotics I needed or that I had to take a pill so that I didn’t get pregnant?

’Cause by the look on your face right now, the anger shaking through you, you didn’t want to hear about any of that.

So leave it alone. Let me heal. Let yourself heal and stop hanging onto the shit we can’t change. ”

He says nothing. Not a goddamn word as he stares out at the parking lot for a few moments, his eyes rimmed with tears.

Furiously, he brings his hand up to his head, his palm flat against his temple.

“You want me to fucking forget and move on?” His eyes narrow, and I hate the agony and despair in them.

“It doesn’t work like that,” he growls, his knuckles whitening as he pulls at his hair.

“I can’t fucking forget this bullshit because it’s all that’s in there!

Him raping you. Over and over again. That’s what I see when I close my eyes. ”

Humiliated, I stand there, frozen, unprepared for his anger to immobilize me. I swallow and a sigh leaving my trembling lips. “You said you didn’t remember what happened.”

“I lied.” He shrugs and when he speaks, his voice is chillingly cruel. “Probably won’t be the last time either.”

Our eyes hold and I process his words. Blinded by tears, I draw in a careful breath.

“I think it’s time we take a break before we say something we’re going to regret.

I’m going to go back in there and support my friend and my brother on their day.

When it’s over, we’ll go back to the house and I think it’s best we take a break. ”

Carefully, with my heart lodged in my throat and tears rolling down my cheeks, I turn on my heel, wobbly-legged, and leave him sitting on the tailgate. It doesn’t matter how much you love someone, sometimes you have to show that you will stand up for yourself.