Page 112 of When We Had Forever
“Shit,” he says. “I know that probably sounds so messed up. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think he meant it like you were an item to barter. It was more like he thought he deserved you more than I did, because I’d been about to let you go. He said if I actually loved you, I would’ve asked you to stay, and the fact thathehadn’t let you goproved you belonged in Seattle. I think, in his mind, you were going to save him from landing back in rehab, and after how much I’d hurt him, I owed him that. Theworldowed him that.”
“You should’ve told him to fuck off,” I scrape out, wishing I could unhear this story. And yet I can slot it right in among the strangeness of the day I met the man who would become my husband. Because it fits.
“Ididtell him to fuck off,” he says. “Multiple times. But right before he left the visiting room, he told me to check my email when I got out, because that would explain everything. So that’s exactly what I did. The officer kept telling me to clear out, and I remember standing there just staring at this message you’d sent, because it was the worst thing I’d ever read. It was my whole life ending, right there in black and white.” His eyes flick up and catch mine. I feel the impact down in my marrow. “I deleted it right then. I didn’t want it to exist. Which means I can’t prove any of this now. I can only tell you the truth and hope you’ll believe me.”
My vision blurs. A fourteen-year-old email. From me to him, just like Tanner said.
Really, Michael could have sent one so easily. I never set a password on my laptop, just left the thing lying all over the condo. “What did it say? The parts you remember, at least?”
“Oh, I remember every word.” He shivers and closes his eyes. His voice drops. “‘Dear Grayson. Forgive me for doing this by email, but I don’t want to see your face after you spent the last month impersonating your brother. Thankfully, the real Michael was kind enough to tell me the truth. He’s been kind about everything, actually. And after having a few weeks to think about it, I’ve decided to make a go at things with him. I shouldn’t have to tell you I deserve a man who’s honest from the beginning.’”
Grayson makes parentheses with his hands around that last line, and I recoil. I use parentheses in email all the time. Which Michael would have discovered if he’d gone snooping through my outbox.
“‘Our time together was nice,’” Grayson continues. “‘And I’ll always think of it fondly. But remember when I said you could go broke, gain a hundred pounds, and lose your home, and I wouldn’t stop loving you? Well, I should’ve qualified that with the one thing thatwouldmatter. Because it was you lying to me.’”
A broken sound slips out. I repeated that to Michael—the real Michael—the day I met him.
That fucking asshole.
The world tilts, the tapestry of my life coming unraveled in a hundred places at once. Even if I wanted to doubt Grayson’s truthfulness, the carven line between his brows and the wobble in his voice would convince me.
He scrapes in a breath and soldiers on. “‘If you care for me, you’ll stay away. This will be the last time we communicate, though I wish you the best. Hopefully you’ll treat the next girl better than you treated me. Take care of yourself. Mina.’”
Seconds crawl over my skin while I sit unmoving. “I didn’t write that.”
His eyes snap open. “No. But I thought you had. I mean, the part about me going broke and gaining a hundred pounds... I don’t even understand how Michael did that. But he made absolutely sure I believed that message had come from you.”
I make a pained sound. “So you left.”
“Yeah. You’daskedme to. I had no other choice. And I was so young and dumb that I thought maybe I could find another you somewhere. You’d ripped my heart out, but I tried anyway. I went all over the place. Looked for you in every backwater village and remote jungle I could find. I climbed mountains on the other side of the fucking world looking for you. And by the time I figured out that you were never, ever going to be there, three years had gone by, and you were getting married.”
A wretched whimper coalesces in my chest.
“And then I called you,” he says, hollow. “From Mongolia. I was in Ulaanbaatar, and I’d drunk way too much because of what day it was, and I couldn’t hold back anymore. I was going to beg, Mina. I had this whole speech mapped out, about how if Michael ever did anything to make you question his love, make you feel...kept, I’d be waiting. I’d swoop in and take care of you, even if I couldn’t buy you all the shit that he did. Except then he answered your phone. I asked if you knew who was calling, and he told me yes, you did, then I asked if I could talk to you, and he said no. And then you came on the line, and...”
I press a fist to my mouth. “Told you never to call again.” I nearly choke on the words. “I didn’t know. Ididn’t know. Michael told me you were a telemarketer.”
“I figured that out,” he says. “Like, last week. But at the time...you sounded happy. You sounded like you didn’t need me. Much less want me. So I spent another seven years stumbling around the world trying to find some reprieve. Then, one day from out of the blue, Michael called me about Hawaii. Which I know I shouldn’t have agreed to. But I’d spent the last decade pining away for this woman who wanted nothing to do with me, and things had never felt even remotely over. I just thought that if maybe I could see you one more time, I could finally be done with it. I could prove to myself that we’d both changed, that the magic was gone. I could put everything in the fucking ground where it belonged. But the second I saw you at Sea-Tac...” He presses his palms into his eyes. “I was fucked. Royally, completely fucked. It wasworsethan the first time I saw you. Like ten years apart had made me love you more, not less.”
“And then we had that incredible vacation together,” I say, partly to myself. “And somehow I never noticed you weren’t actually my husband.”
“Yeah. Michael made sure you didn’t. He got in shape before you left, then made me cut my hair and wear those stupid khakis.”
“That picture of me on the beach,” I murmur. “Youtook that. And sent it to yourself from Michael’s phone. While we were on the plane.”
“Yeah. I remember that right then, I was absolutely fucking dying inside. I knew how much that picture was going to hurt to look at later, but I sent it anyway. Because really, I just wanted to stay there with you forever. Except I couldn’t. You hated me, and I knew if I told you who I was, it would ruin the last moments we’d ever have together.”
“And the necklace?”
“I pretended to lose it. So I wouldn’t have to hand it over to Michael once we landed. I still had my first one, actually, but after that, I only cared about the one you’d given me. Not that I’ve been able to wear it since the whole Everest thing. I always worried that if you saw it on TV or someone took a picture of me with it on... Well. If you ever found out about Hawaii, I wanted it to be from me. Ineededit to be from me.”
I nod. Not that I forgive him—none of this is that easy. But I can’t ignore the desperation saturating his every word. And god, he could have slept with me so easily.
Like Michael did.
But Grayson didn’t even kiss me on that trip. Instead, he stayed up with me all night. Stared into my eyes and told me he loved me in a thousand different ways. Called me his one in seven billion.
“After Hawaii was when I really fell apart,” he says softly. “I got a bunch of tattoos, started drinking too much, crashed my bike in Tibet. Went to Everest, got caught in an avalanche, almost died. And even then, all I could think about was the fact that I was never going to see you again. Because for some reason, saying goodbye to you the second time was so much worse than the first. Maybe because I was old enough to realize you were it for me, forever. And I’d fucked it all up, and you hated me, and you were happy with my brother. And I had to respect your wishes by staying away.”
