Page 71 of The Absence of You
He threads his fingers through mine and his shoulders drop as he lets out a long breath.
“That night in the summer house, I wanted to tell you everything, but I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you to find out the sort of person I’d become in your absence. I didn’t want to tell you that the last few months, my father has blackmailed me to stay in the relationship with Charlotte. He has some arrangement with Justin Sloan. Some fucked up agreement that says we have to marry to access her trust fund.” I gasp. Colin Banks is trying to force his son into a marriage for money? Before I can fully process Grayson’s words, he carries on. “I didn’t want you to know the shitty things I’d done for my father, or know that I was too weak to stand up to him. I didn’t want you to find out I wasn’t worthy of your friendship anymore.”
As he reveals each painful admission, some of his behaviours from the last few weeks begin to make more sense, and as a result, the cracks in my heart slowly start to heal.
“I thought I could just stay away from you, and I wouldn’t have to admit any of it. But I couldn’t do it. I got drawn back into your light, and I couldn’t stay away. You looked at me like you did when I was a kid, and all of those feelings I thought I’d never feel came back. I’d fucking missed feeling like that so badly. I felt alive again for the first time in a really long time.” He lets his vulnerability show in his pained expression, and I can relate to what he’s saying. I squeeze his hand as I single tear tracks down his cheek. I wipe it away and press a chaste kiss to his cheek. All those years caring for my mum, not having time to just be a teenager had left me feeling like I was only living a half-life. I’d missed those feelings from or childhood as much as he had. As I’m about to tell him as much, a smile ghosts his face.
“In the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that you being back here awakened something else in me.” Where is he going with this? A dimple appears in his cheek as he suppresses a grin.
“What do you mean?”
“You agree we have this undeniable physical chemistry too?” I blink. “Before you left, I was aware of it, but I never acted on it. Well, other than beating off every night that summer at the thought of you in those tiny denim shorts you used to wear-”
“Grayson! We were fourteen! You can’t tell me you were beating off at the thought of my shorts!”
“It wasn’t your shorts, it was those long fucking legs and that perfect arse hiding under them that had me beating off actually, and come on, I had all these hormones, and I said I was going to be honest, so yeah, every night that summer and maybe even the summer before, you were the last thing on my mind before bed and during every shower and-”
“I get it!”
“You are fucking hot Lia, and you were fucking hot back then too.” My face heats and I try to turn my head so he doesn’t see how much his words affect me, but he lets out a low chuckle letting me know he is fully aware. But then his tone turns more serious again. “After that night in the summer house, once you’d allowed me to touch you, I was helpless against the need to act on it again. The night we slept together, fuck Lia. It was the best night of my life. I had never experienced anything like that. Ever. Even before that night, I knew I was gone for you, but it just made it even clearer to me how perfect we are together.” He takes my hand again.
I want to believe his words, I really do, but I can’t help but think back. I thought we’d had the perfect weekend, only on the Monday morning to have him eviscerate my heart in the school car park. I try to pull my hand away, but he doesn’t let me. “Please let me finish. The night of the ball, when my father saw us together, he told me to stay away from you. I guess on some level he always knew you were the one person who was keeping me from being the son he really wanted me to be. I have no intention of marrying Charlotte, or staying under his thumb forever but I haven’t found a way to end this yet. Until I do, I have no choice but do has he asks.” Sorrow is etched into his features, and I hate his father for what he’s put my beautiful best friend through. “He threatened to ruin your life, and I couldn’t let him do it. I deliberately turned up to school with Charlotte that morning. I let you believe I’d spent the night with her. I hadn’t. Everything you saw between the two of us was fake. That day, and the night at the bar, it wasn’t real. I hadn’t been with her like that for months before you even moved back here.”
“You flaunted her in front of me like that, deliberately?” This time I snatch my hand away before he can stop me, and I stand up from the bed, taking a few steps away from him to put some much-needed space between us. “That’s why you said all those things?”
“Yes. It was all lies.” He said those horrible things to me because his father threatened me?
“You could have told me the truth, Grayson.”
“And what then? We still wouldn’t have been able to be together. I couldn’t take the risk you would go to him and give him a piece of your mind Lia. I know you. He would have had you kicked out of school, and there was no way I could let that happen.” He clearly senses my apprehension because he walks slowly towards me, almost like you’d approach a wounded animal.
“I didn’t feel like I had a choice. You don’t know what he’s capable of Lia. If I didn’t do what he asked, he would have followed through with his threat. I was telling the truth when I said you made me want to be a better person, Lia. I planned to stop working for him and turn him in to the police. I searched his safe for something I could use as evidence of his illegal activities, and that’s when I found your file. He had some fucking P.I following you. I don’t know if this was what he intended to use to ruin you, but this is what he does. He fucks up people’s lives for sport. I couldn’t let him hurt you.”
“So instead, you hurt me.” I swallow the lump that has suddenly appeared in my throat. Grayson rubs at his chest.
“It was never my intention, but yes. I know I fucking hurt you. I fucking hate myself for it.” His voice breaks.
I turn to my window that overlooks his house. I don’t know anything about the illegal activity Grayson is talking about, but he’s wrong when he says I don’t know what Colin Banks is capable of. I recall the way my childhood best friend would tremble when he thought he was in trouble with his father. I think back to the bruises I saw on his innocent face and on his small body when we were growing up. Anyone who can use their fists on their own child, on any child, is capable of pretty much anything. I feel a rush of sadness and I turn back to Grayson.
Our eyes lock. In an instant, I know everything he has told me tonight is the truth. I know it in my bones, because I know him. Better than I’ve ever known another person. And I forgive him. Hell, I would probably forgive him anything. We move towards each other until we are standing toe to toe in the centre of my room. He stoops so his forehead is touching mine, and I lace my fingers in his.
“Is that everything?” I whisper.
“Almost.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Of course there’s more. There’s always more. “I told you earlier my heart was beating for you, and I meant it. But in case I wasn’t clear enough, I’m going to spell it out to you, so you have no doubt what I was trying to say.
“I love you, Lia. I am in love with you. I have been falling in love with you since the moment we met on my doorstep ten years ago. I’m just sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
He rubs the back of my knuckles with his thumb. It would be so easy to fall into his arms, but something holds me back. A couple of weeks ago, I’d have done just about anything to hear him say those words to me, but I just feel so fucking tired, emotionally, physically, in every way. He pulls back from me and his eyes search for my reaction too, and when they meet mine, there is no denying the electricity that bounces between us. He leans in and I meet him halfway. He tenderly runs his finger along my chin and gently tugs my jaw so we’re breathing each other’s air for a moment before he tenderly places his lips onto mine. We stay like that for a few seconds, but this isn’t a kiss to signify the start of something new, and when we pull apart, I see the moment he realises.
“I’m sorry too,” I whisper. “But I can’t do this.” His face falls, and it makes my stomach lurch, but I can’t stop the words that tumble out. “The last few days have been…a lot. I don’t think I’m in the right frame of mind to process this. I need time. I need to get my head straight.”
GRAYSON
It shouldn’t be a surprise to me. When I walked into her bedroom earlier, I told her I was going to say what I needed to say and then it would be up to her if she never wanted to see me again. I knew there was a chance she wouldn’t forgive me. But for a few seconds after I told her I loved her, I thought, no I hoped, she was going to say it back.
But of course, she doesn’t love me. I just admitted I have been doing illegal jobs for my father, and I lied to her, and I hurt her so fucking badly. I’m not worthy of her love, or anyone else’s for that matter.
But still. It fucking hurts. I don’t trust myself to speak, so I clamp my jaw down and stride to the door, not looking back. As my hand grips the door handle, she speaks, so softly, it barely registers at first.
