Page 162 of The Ampersand Effect

Grier came to with the emotional free-fall sensation of visceral displacement, like her consciousness had been slammedback into her body by a rollercoaster loop. She was shaking—or no, not shaking.Beingshaken.

A hand was tapping her face. Her name echoed through a tunnel, distant and panicked.

It took her a few moments, but she slowly began to focus. Tobin was calling to her, slapping her cheeks, rubbing her sternum uncomfortably, trying desperately to bring her back.

Back to Aetheridge.

Back to a world without Jonah. Back to her.

Grier’s eyes flew open, and she gasped—opened her throat wide as cold, vital air rushed in.

A sob tore loose from Tobin’s throat the same moment Grier felt her body being lifted into Tobin’s arms. Tobin collapsed backward onto the floor, cradling Grier’s torso as she rocked them both, wailing bone-shattering sobs of relief into Grier’s hair.

Grier slowly came back into herself. Her consciousness sharpened, the edges of her vision growing clearer, more defined. She felt her limbs start to twitch as blood and oxygen returned to her nerves. The numbness slipped away, replaced by awareness—of Tobin’s tears, of the anxious tremors running through her body as she continued to rock them.

Cautiously, Grier experimented with her body: she wiggled her fingers and toes, then took long, slow breaths, trying to steady the frantic rhythm of her heart. The moment when she felt the faintest semblance of control, she reached up and fisted her hands into Tobin’s shirt.

“Grier!” Tobin choked through her sobs. Her voice was pitched and guttural. She was wrecked.

Grier felt Tobin’s hands clamp around her shoulders, steady and strong, and then push them apart just enough to look at her. “Wh—” the words snagged in Tobin’s throat. Grier saw thedevastation on her face, and her heart clenched with the shame of knowing it was her actions that caused Tobin this distress.

“What was that?” Tobin demanded, her voice cracking with fear and fury.

Tobin’s green eyes were wide, the whites stark and bright, emphasizing her panic. In that moment, Grier saw everything she feared—everything she knew Tobin wasn’t saying. She saw her brokenness, her fear, her withholding. She watched as Tobin’s eyes stared back at her, swirls of gray and brown mingling with the green she loved to lose herself in. She watched as they morphed into something she didn’t recognize.

Grier saw the colors mix and harden. She watched Tobin’s eyes go cold.

She watched, helpless, as the woman she loved rebuilt her walls and locked her out.

Grier unfisted her hands, releasing Tobin’s shirt. She let them fall. Then, inch by inch, she slid herself away, feeling the immediate shift in the air between them. She curled her knees to her chest, drawing inward, making herself small—retreating to the security of her singularity. Her body instantly recognized the same in Tobin.

She looked at Tobin, already feeling the prick of tears stinging at her eyelids. Her stomach roiled—the acidic remnants of her soup now mixing with the last bitter dregs of trust. It made her nauseous.

Tragedy had found them. And the inescapable notion that it might destroy them hung heavily between them.

Tobin rose to her feet, wiping tears from her cheeks, a shuddering breath betraying the emotion she was fighting. Grier looked up at her, the pain of the pending words already making her tears return. She reached out toward Tobin, a quiet question in the gesture. But when Tobin turned her back, Grier let it fall.

Answered.

“I…” Tobin started and stopped. Her shoulders hunched forward. Defeat was emanating from her, and Grier couldn’t look away. She could still see her beauty, even like this. She was so vulnerable, so broken. Distracting and disarming and… wholly devastating.

“I can’t do this,” Tobin said at last, her voice low. “You—you’re… so full of love. You love sowholly. I can’t take that from you…” Her head bowed. “The world needs your love, Grier.”

Grier blinked.

She was afraid totakeher love?

As if there wouldn’t be enough? As if lovinghermeant Grier couldn’t love anything—or anyone—else?

No. That wasn’t how love worked.

Grier stood up.

She took two tentative steps towards Tobin, lifted a hand, and—after only the briefest hesitation—placed it tenderly on Tobin’s shoulder. She pulled, spinning Tobin to face her.

Tobin’s mouth was pulled into a tight grimace, her eyes clenched shut. She refused to make eye contact.

Grier wasnothaving it.