Page 70 of The Absence of You
“I want to say thank you properly. For what you did at Harry’s. I should have made it clearer yesterday before you left the hospital that I’m grateful. I truly am. You saved my life, so thank you. And thank you for staying with me to make sure I was okay. You didn’t need to do that.”
“You’re welcome.” Grayson chews his bottom lip like he’s warring with himself about something. “But I owe you an apology. I don’t know if you remember much of what happened at the party before your accident, but I was acting like a dick. You never would have ended up outside by the pool if it weren’t for that.”
“I don’t really remember much. I just know I had way too much to drink.” I admit. “What do you mean you were acting like a dick?”
“You were just sitting with Harry, and next thing he was helping you upstairs and I thought he was…I thought you and he…I jumped to conclusions, lost my temper and hit him.” He hit his friend? I silently curse Callie for failing to mention this when she was singing Grayson’s praises this morning.
“Seriously? What conclusions did you jump to?”
“I thought he was taking you upstairs. I mean he was, but he was taking you to his sister’s room so you could sleep off the drink. But… I thought he was taking you up there to… fuck, and I saw red.” Grayson hangs his head.
“And you hit him?” Jesus, Grayson really does have a saviour complex lately. I wonder if he’s always gone round performing random acts of chivalry like rescuing girls from drug spiking, stupid drunken decisions and pool drownings, or is it just since I came back to town? I push the thought from my mind. Of course, it’s not about me. He’s just being a good guy.
“I lost it with him, and by the time I realised he was just trying to help you, you’d disappeared. Callie and I searched the house not realising you’d gone outside. If I hadn’t acted like a jealous prick, you’d have been safe upstairs and none of this would have happened.”
“Stop beating yourself up. I fell in the pool because I had one too many Fireballs. Not because you were acting like a-” Wait. Did Grayson say he was acting like a jealous prick? Is he saying he hit his friend because he was jealous?
My cheeks instantly flush, and my heart rate quickens at the thought of Grayson losing control at the sight of me with another guy. For a moment I allow myself to imagine him ripping me from Harry’s arms, replacing them with his own. Taking some kind of sick pleasure from him acting like a caveman over me, is wrong on all sorts of levels, but shit, it’s making me feel hot and bothered. But the image is quickly replaced with one of Grayson doing the same with Charlotte, and now all I feel is indignation.
“You have no right.” I hiss. “You don’t get to be jealous at the thought of me and Harry. Not when I have to see you with Charlotte.”
“There is no you and Harry!” He grabs my knees in his large hands and practically growls the words. “And there is no me and Charlotte either.” Here we go again. I sigh.
“This is all beginning to sound a little familiar.” I pull my knees out of his grasp and stand up. I knew this conversation would be pointless. I’m tired of him telling me he and Charlotte aren’t together only for him to change his mind the following week.
“I mean it. All of that shit with Harry and Charlotte is just…noise. I want to talk about us.”
I snort ungracefully.
“There is no us. You and I are nothing. You said it yourself. Remember?”
Grayson stands so abruptly, my chair shoots out from under him and slams into my desk with a bang. His hands tear at his hair as he paces across my room towards me. I back up until my body is pressed against my door and there are only inches between us.
“We are not nothing! We could never be nothing. You are everything.” As he says the words he slaps his hand against the door above my head, and I flinch. He backs off immediately and softens his voice. “Fuck. I’m messing this up. I’m sorry. I-I wish I could undo the last few months. I’d do everything differently. I hate that you have no idea how I really feel about you.” His eyes drop to my hand, and he gently takes it and places it on his chest. His chest is heaving, he’s so worked up. My palm sits directly over his heart, and I can feel it pounding, hard and rhythmically. “Do you feel that Lia?”
Nodding, my mouth dries and my skin heats at the contact.
“My heart is beating for you. Just you.” The steady thumping is completely at odds with my own as I feel it jump erratically at his words. What is he saying? He is contradicting everything he’s said, all of his actions from the last couple of weeks, and it’s giving me whiplash. I shake my head,
“But-” He touches his finger to my lips, silencing me.
“Please, let me say what I need to say. After that, you can tell me to leave. You can never speak to me again if that’s what you want. But I’m not leaving here tonight until you know exactly how I feel about you. There is so much I’ve kept from you. You have been lied to far too many times and I promise, you’ll never hear a lie from me ever again.” I frown at his words because they are only adding to my confusion, but I don’t interrupt him. “You have to understand that when you left, I was fucking broken, Lia. Our friendship was the one thing in my life that gave me hope for the future. You felt that too, right?”
His eyes plead with mine. And he’s right. That’s exactly how it felt. When we were together, we shared our dreams, and it felt like we could achieve whatever we wanted. We drew some kind of strength from each other that I suppose neither of us found anywhere else. I swallow and nod. “When you stopped visiting, I lost that. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not putting any blame on you, but accepting you weren’t coming back was a catalyst for me. I stopped trying to be a good person because really, who would care either way? I had no one to answer to anymore. I stopped resisting the pressure from my dad to work with him.” He takes my hand and gently leads me back to the bed. He sits and tugs me down next to him.
“Growing up, I watched my own mother get bored of me Lia. I became an inconvenience to her. When you stopped coming, I thought it was the same thing happening again. I assumed our friendship stopped meaning anything to you.”
His words feel like lead in my veins as I imagine Grayson at fourteen thinking I just grew bored of him, and if I didn’t already regret the way I left things back then, I would now, hearing how much I clearly hurt him. Before I can say anything, he continues. “Obviously, I know that wasn’t the reason you cut off contact now, but at the time, it felt like another abandonment. I wasn’t prepared to make real connections with anyone else, only to have them check out and leave me behind. My relationship with Charlotte was superficial at best, and it was down to me. I had no intention of giving it a chance to become anything more. I never loved her, I need you to know that.” Selfishly, hearing him say that is like a huge weight is lifted, but the thought that I’m partially responsible for his lack of a loving relationship doesn’t exactly feel good.
“Grayson, I-”
“Please, there’s more I need to explain. I started working for my father. Doing jobs for him that were illegal and immoral. The things I’ve done for him are awful, Dahlia.” His words sink in. I knew he wasn’t the same boy I left behind, but working for his father? It’s so far away from what we both wanted for him.
“But he made you, right?”
“At first.” He turns to look at me. “But I want to be totally honest with you. A year in, I’d stopped feeling guilty for it. I never enjoyed it, but I’d become numb to it. It wasn’t until you came back, and we started spending time together again that my conscience suddenly woke up. I know it’s a fucking cliché, but it’s true. You make me want to do better. To be better. When I’m around you, it’s like stepping into a fucking time machine or something. It reminds me of everything I could have been. And I want to try and find that potential again.” His words run together, and he looks frustrated with himself. “Shit, I’m not explaining it properly.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for my part in where we’ve ended up. You’re not the only one with regrets.”
