Page 59 of Second Position (Astor Hill #2)

Grant

The fabric of my suit itches against my forearm as my truck skates across the icy highway, the steady thud of the wipers in sync with the beat of my heart as they slice the snow away from my windshield.

The traffic into the city has taken way longer than I expected and every time I check the clock on my dash my stomach plummets a little further.

I can’t be late.

I can’t be.

Gen’s face flashes in front of me breaking through all my defenses, the pain written in her eyes so palpable it feels like my own and hell, maybe it is.

When I saw her at the mixer, saw all the hurt that I caused, heard that I broke her heart …

I suck in a deep breath. Seeing her made me realize my heart was never broken, but missing completely.

She stood there in front of me, tears streaming down her face, holding it out to me, asking if I wanted it back.

It was so clear in that moment that it was right where it belonged, that the choice to trade mine for her’s was made up for me the very first time I saw her bite that bottom lip, witnessed th e corners of those plush lips twitch at whatever backhanded comment she threw my way.

Even just holding her hand felt like the first time my bare feet touched grass, grounding me, and the absence of it has left me free falling in a way I couldn’t truly place until I saw her.

All I know is I’m going to get it back, all of it, even if it means spending the rest of my life convincing her that her heart is safe with me.

I clench the steering wheel, turning off the exit leading to the conservatory, each mile I inch closer my nerves spiking a little bit more.

I glance back at the clock—I’ll make it.

Just in time for the curtain, but I’ll make it.

The ornate building starts to enter my periphery just as my phone vibrates on the passenger seat.

I glance at it and see Sloane’s name. She’s probably wondering where I am.

Hopefully she went in to grab our seats instead of waiting outside like we originally planned. I click the button to answer.

“Hey, sorry traffic’s been?—”

“Grant…” Her voice is a muffled cry, the kind that puts all your senses on high alert.

“Sloane what…what’s wrong? Where are you?” I ask, the muffled beeps and shuffling in the background an indicator that she isn’t at the conservatory.

“Grant, I’m so sorry—” she sniffs, trying to catch her breath on a sob. “Can you come to the hospital?” My knuckles grasp the wheel, fear like fire burning the inside of my throat.

I glance over one more time at the conservatory approaching on my left, rolling my lips together before taking a sharp U-turn.

“I’m on my way.”

The hospital is a flurry of nurses with clipboards and frantic families asking the status of whichever patient they came to see.

I rush to the check in area, drumming my fingers against the desk to get out some of my nerves.

Images of Sloane, hurt and in a room all alone, keep spinning in my mind and it takes everything in me not to charge through the hallways of the hospital and look for her myself.

The nurse to the right of me, a kind, older woman with soft eyes, finishes with who I assume is a patient's mother and makes her way toward me.

“Who are you here to see, honey?” she asks, her voice calm amongst the anxiety that coats the rest of the waiting room.

“Sloane…Sloane Fielder,” I choke out, tears springing to my eyes knowing she’s here in this hospital and I’m not there with her.

The nurse squints down at her computer, typing and clicking through whatever inventory of patients her computer holds.

“Is that the only name she goes by?”

I bite the inside of my cheek, and confusion must be present because she says, “Let me just try Fielder…” She clicks through again, shaking her head no before looking back up at me.

“Try Sloane Tucker.” I swallow hard and it feels like a rock has lodged in my throat.

She types again, scrolling down the list of names before her eyebrows raise just slightly. “I don’t see a Sloane Tucker, but I do see a Connie…” Her tone is patient as I process what she’s saying. I try to blink away the emotion brimming in my eyes but I feel the wet droplets landing on my cheek.

“Oh, dear.” She clasps my fist now tightly balled on her desk. “She’s in room 5C right down the hall to the left. Do you need me to take you there?”

“No…I’ll…I’ll find it.” I sniff, nodding at her before moving through what feels like cement toward Connie’s room.

All I can think about is what’s going to happen when I open that door.

Is she getting her stomach pumped? Did she hit someone while driving under the influence?

I stop just a couple feet away, breathing in through my nose and rubbing my lips together to get ahold of myself.

I push it open and immediately notice the bed is empty. I barely have time to glance around the room before Sloane’s arms are around me.

“Grant!” Her voice is a desperate kind of relief as her arms circle me and I can’t stop myself from hugging her back, finding solace in the knowledge that she’s okay.

I step back, taking her in, her cheeks red and eyes puffy from the tears she had been crying on the phone, the ones still present on her face.

“What happened?” I ask, my voice calm but stern as I peer down at her.

“Grant I wanted to tell you, I swear, I just, I don't know…I thought it would be better coming from her.” She uses the back of her hands to wipe her face.

“What? What would’ve been better coming from her?”

“She’s dying, Grant. Mom’s dying.” She chokes over the words, her lips pushed into a thin line as she attempts to stifle a sob. A buzzing fills my ears, like the words set a bomb off.

“No…Sloane. No, she’s not—” I move to the edge of the hospital bed, sitting at the end, stunned.

“She is Grant. It’s why I came here. Why I left California.

” Sloane’s eyes are glassy as she sits beside me, turning in and grasping my hand.

“Pancreatic cancer. She had to get emergency surgery because her liver was failing and I didn’t know who else to call and—” Her mouth moves into this cartoonish pout it used to fall into when we were kids, the only way I could tell her emotions were genuine.

She sucks air through her nose, squeezing her eyes shut.

“I’m sorry, Grant. I know you didn’t want to know all this, I just—I didn’t know what to do.

I don’t know how to save her.” She whispers the last part almost to herself, biting the inside of her mouth like saving our mom’s life is a riddle she could solve if only she had a little more time.

I wrap my arm around her, pulling her into me.

For a second, I feel like that twelve year old boy again.

Waiting for someone who isn’t coming back.

Maybe I’ve been him this whole time. Waiting, only to discover I’m completely alone.

But then I look at my sister. My sister who is so full of love and hope despite it all and I realize I’m not that boy.

That I clung to that moment because it was one of the few memories of my mom that didn’t leave me missing her.

Didn’t have me wishing she hadn’t left. I swallow.

“I’m sorry I made you deal with this alone,” I say, Sloane letting herself melt into my side and we sit there for a minute, grieving the woman who brought us here, who gave us each other.

There’s a light tap on the door and, hoping it’s the doctor with some news on Connie, I look up.

I blink hard, just to make sure she’s really there.

Her light pink tutu stands out well past her waist and her leotard adorned in hundreds of crystals that seem to twinkle against the fluorescent hospital lights.

She looks like magic. Like a dream, like a fantasy I want to escape into, and I feel the tears hit my eyes before I can say the name that’s been cut into the front of my heart like a marking etched into an oak tree.

“Gen,” I say, and I watch her face shatter into a million pieces, eyes rimmed with red as she looks over me.

“Hi,” she whispers, and it’s that same shy whisper she had that very first night—the one that cracked me open just enough for her to slip in.

I look over at Sloane who stares back, guilt lacing her features. “I wasn’t sure you’d come…” She nervously worries her lip and I loose a breath, destroyed that I let down the two women who mean everything to me.

“I’ll always be here, you know that,” I tell her, and she shrugs with a sniff.

“Go, talk to her. She came this far.” Sloane’s eyes shimmer, a mixture of grief and hope racketing her expression.

“We won’t hear anything for another hour or so.

Besides, I need a coffee.” Her laugh is sad, her smile not reaching her eyes, but Sloane’s voice is still hers and that makes me feel a little better.

I stand, wiping my palms against my pants before facing Gen.

“Wanna go on a walk?”

She gives me the tiniest nod and I grab my jacket before we leave the room.

We walk through the hallway of the hospital without speaking, Gen earning a few curious glances as we walk through the kids’ ward, until we come across the chapel— empty, quiet, and private.

“Should we sit?” I feel disoriented by her being here.

“Sure.” She moves to an armchair in the furthest corner, the evening sun streaming in through the stained glass window shadowing her in hues of gold and red, the rhinestones sewn into her costume lighting her up and it takes my breath away.

She looks like the memory of a ballerina, straight out of a day dream, and it takes me a second to remember that she’s here and real.

The need to make her mine again splinters through me.

“You left your show…” I sit beside her, jacket in my hands.

She bites her lip, like she’s embarrassed.

“Sloane said she needed me. It was nothing, my understudy is covering for me.” She stares down at the slippers I’m assuming she quickly slid on when changing out of her pointe shoes.

She says it like it’s not a big deal, like it’s a small gesture she’d make for anyone but I know her, know the way she puts the people she loves yards ahead of herself.

I shake my head. “It’s not nothing.” Her lip wobbles and I turn toward her in my seat, using my fingers to gently guide her face to look at me. “Gen, if I could say sorry a thousand times I?—”

“Stop, we don’t have to do this right now. Your mom?—”

“No. We do, I need to say this.”

Her cheek feels damp beneath my touch and I rub my thumb under her eye, wishing I could wipe away all the ways I hurt her.

“I know you said that you couldn’t fix me, that you wouldn’t, but you need to understand that everyday I spent with you it felt like another piece of who I’m supposed to be clicked back into place.

I’ve been stupid and stubborn and I pushed you away.

Pushed you away because I was so afraid of how deeply I loved you.

The idea that you could walk away….” I stop shaking my head, my jaw clenching at the very idea.

“If you walked away it would have fucking killed me, Gen. You think I’m broken now?

You leaving me would have ruined me, burnt me to the fucking ground.

It’s stupid, I know it’s so damn stupid, but pushing you away felt like the only way to save myself. ”

She shakes her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “From me?”

“No, no…” I squeeze my eyes shut, needing her to understand.

“I was terrified because you have changed me, fixed me. Every moment—every second I’ve spent with you has made me feel like I found my reason.

Found that thing I’ve always been looking for, always been missing.

There aren’t many people who I can’t fathom losing and the idea that you could change your mind…

” Her fingertips trace my cheeks and I let myself lean into the feel of her, my lips grazing her wrist before I duck my head.

Meeting her eyes I see a love I never thought I’d have.

“Something about you, though. I can’t escape it.

This shred of hope, this faith you’ve rooted inside me.

Faith in myself, in us. I can’t keep running from it, Gen, and I’m so sorry I ever tried.

I’m so sorry I didn’t dive head first into this with you.

I promise you. I promise you that I will never lose it.

That nothing and no one will ever keep me from you again, especially myself.

I love you, Gen. It’s all I can think about, all I can see.

I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you.

Need you. You’re everything. You’re it for me. ”

I watch the love well in her eyes, the emotion I’d been missing since I pushed her away.

Her hand gently pushes my tears back, ones I didn’t realize I let fall.

With quivering lips she says the words I’ve dreamt about hearing, the ones I told myself couldn’t be true for so long, but this time I believe them.

“I love you too, Grant. So much. I love you so, so much and I’ll always choose you. Forever. You're it for me, too.” Her eyes gleam, happy and full of everything I’d ever hoped for.

I swallow unable to keep any of my emotions at bay because with just those words she’s stitched me back together, shrinking and morphing the time we spent apart and all the feelings I’ve had over the past few weeks, past few years.

Until those empty moments are singing the sound of our love.

Her lips part and crash into mine, my hands tangling in her hair as every promise lain between us twines together, until the fragments of what we were evolve into what we are.