Page 45 of Gracie Harris Is Under Construction

It’s a cool night, so when we get back to the house after our evening out, we decide to sit on the porch swing for a bit.

The lightning bugs are floating through the yard and the fresh air feels comfortable in my lungs.

Josh and I fall back into an easy conversation about the interview tomorrow with Maisy.

“I wanted to let you play it cool in front of James and Kendell, but tell me the truth—are you nervous?” he asks, grabbing my hand and tangling our fingers together.

“Do I seem nervous?” I ask with a playful grin on my face.

“We’ve spent a lot of time together this summer, and I feel like I read your emotions pretty well, but I can’t completely read your mind yet. It’s been hard for me to tell.”

“Honestly? All week I’ve been slingshotting between total confidence and tiny flecks of despair,” I admit, realizing that in less than twelve hours I’ll be on the plane to Nashville.

“I’ve texted with Dr. Lisa a bit, so I know this is a natural way to feel.

Jenny has also been giving me lots of straight talk about it.

I’ve definitely needed your relentless positivity in addition to their reality checks, so you’ve been playing an important role. ”

I lean in to sweetly nudge his shoulder. His pivot back to early summer–style interview sessions over the last few days has helped so much. I really do feel more prepared than the last time—and it’s buoyed my spirit every time he’s yelled out “Nailed it!” when I landed on a great answer.

What’s also true is that with Maisy, I really don’t know what to expect, and I haven’t had a free moment to listen to her first two live stream podcast episodes.

Going in blind is best, I’ve decided, since trying to stick to a prepared strategy didn’t quite work for me during my previous visit in April.

Last time, I thought that I was fully prepared and knew what to expect…and we all know how that ended up. I don’t know what I don’t know. Predictions are futile. Yes, the stress is beginning to bubble up, but that might be how I feel before anything this big, and I’ve got to learn to deal with it.

My support system is also ready to jump in because nothing can change the fact that grief is weird . Even a perfectly executed “good” interview could crack open my heart in unintended ways. A poorly executed interview could end up being not so bad on the emotional Richter scale.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to hop on a plane and come with you?” he asks, completely genuine. This is not something most normal people would offer someone they’ve only been dating for a month, but even I know that this thing Josh and I have is anything but normal.

“It’s tempting, trust me, but Lucia will be there, and it’s barely even a full twenty-four hours. You’ll hardly notice that I’m gone.”

“That, I’m afraid, is entirely untrue,” he says, pulling me close for a kiss as a light breeze blows across the porch.

We sit in silence for a few minutes before Josh admits that sitting outside makes him realize all of the outdoor projects that need to be tackled at the house.

This man is never not wanting to fix something.

The way I love wrestling with words and trying to figure out how to convey a complex emotional feeling for my readers—that’s Josh with home projects.

See a problem, break it into pieces, and solve it.

I like the feeling of being here with him, just quietly existing together. The crickets are chirping, and you can hear the voices drifting softly down from the restaurants on Main Street that are still open. The nights here are so peaceful. Usually.

“Can I be honest with you?” I ask, rising from his chest, where I’ve had my head resting for the last few minutes, so that I can look him in the eyes.

“Of course.”

“I was nervous when Katrina showed up tonight,” I say with an embarrassed half smile.

“A little while back, Lenny mentioned that she might be back in town, and then Sunny was super cagey when I asked her about it. I should’ve told you, but there was no way to make it not weird.

There’s so much history between the two of you, and I didn’t want to spoil anything for us.

Tonight, everyone seemed on edge having her back, but you were perfectly normal and made me feel entirely safe. ”

“I’ll be honest with you,” he says with a laugh. “I have no idea what tonight was all about. It’s the first time she’s been back in years. I’m sure someone, probably Sunny or James, will give us the gossip in the next few days.”

“That stuff she said about you was so harsh. I don’t think or believe any of that. I mean, I know you know that. I guess I just wanted to say it out loud.”

“Gracie, when you hear people say that you’re good for me, they mean it.

For years, I had this terrible habit of sort of morphing into the people I dated.

It wasn’t only Katrina, although it was the worst with her because of how she operates.

I’ve been single on purpose for the last few years to work through it.

To figure out who I am when I’m on my own.

When I’m with you, I feel completely myself for the first time ever in a relationship,” he shares.

Relationship . It’s the first time either of us have given this thing we have a formal declaration.

“I definitely can’t identify anymore with the dynamic she and I had,” he continues.

“That’s the thing about relationships. We’re all different people from one to the next.

Katrina’s idea of who I am is stuck at who I was nearly five years ago—before I figured my shit out.

The last few years changed so much for me.

I’m definitely a different guy than the one she knew.

I adapted so much of my personality to her.

She’s got enough personality for ten people. ”

“I caught on to that. And, still being honest, it’s weird for me because I think of you as the guy who fills the room with personality,” I say, and I run my fingers up and down his arm. “It’s wild to think you were the shrinking violet in the relationship.”

“In retrospect, it’s obvious to me that she and I had this really unsustainable energy. It comes down to this: you don’t know the same Josh that she did,” he says, before nonchalantly adding, “Just like I don’t know the same Gracie that Ben did.”

For reasons I can’t explain, that last part sends a sharp pain through my gut.

Suddenly, I can’t feel the breeze, I can’t see the lightning bugs, and time seems to have stopped.

My head starts to throb as he continues in the background.

I’m having a physical reaction to this conversation, and I don’t know why.

“The one piece of your writing that I have read is the first essay. I told you that James sent it to me before we met. I’ve spent all summer trying to reconcile the person you described in that essay with the person I’ve gotten to know.

You’re not this antisocial person who hates physical touch.

You are a kind and open person who loves talking to people.

You’ve made friends in every place you’ve gone this summer in town.

I’ve watched you hug pretty much everyone.

You’re different now, Gracie. The version of you that exists now is different. ”

He says all of this to me like I’m supposed to take it as a compliment—like he’s figured out some previously hidden Gracie that no one else was smart enough to uncover.

A new version of me? No. I’m me. The same me .

I’m the same person. I have to be. Because if I’m not the same person that Ben knew, that means a piece of him is gone, too.

Ben and Gracie. That’s the me that my friends know.

My family knows. My kids know. I have to be the old me.

People can claim I’m new or different, but that doesn’t make it true.

My eyes are welling up, and I don’t know what to say or do.

“You’re wrong,” I finally blurt out without really thinking. “I’m not like you.”

“What?” he says, completely confused by my change in tone and posture.

“I’m still the same person as before. The same me that Ben knew. Maybe you change all the time, but I’m still me,” I say with breath as thick as molasses. Every word is a struggle.

“Gracie, I don’t know what I said that made you so upset—”

“You insinuate that somehow I’m this magical new person. Like, if Ben walked up these steps right now, he wouldn’t recognize me.”

I see a look of recognition come over his face, but all it tells me is that he knows why I’m mad and not that he’s in any way sorry for what he said.

“Can we just pretend that the last minute never happened?” he asks. “All I was trying to say is that I really like you and that we’re both the best versions of ourselves around one another. I like the Gracie that I’ve gotten to know and learned to—”

“There is no special version of me, Josh. I’m just me. You could never understand why even the idea of this conversation is hard for me,” I interrupt, using a tone that I instantly regret.

“I just told you in, like, five different ways that I like everything about you, and this is your reaction? You think you’re the only one who’s ever had something shitty happen to them, Gracie?”

“You’ve never experienced anything like this.”

“Gracie, I was practically left at the altar by the woman you met tonight. I’m over it now, but I was a train wreck for years .

I took all of that anger and frustration out by working to the point that I almost killed myself from exhaustion.

Death isn’t the only sad thing that happens to people.

You know that. There are lots of ways to lose people. ”

“Yeah, well, death happened to me, and I survived it. But it didn’t change me. I’m not some entirely new person now,” I say, knowing how petulant and ridiculous I sound, but I’m fully committed to these feelings that are trying to overwhelm me.