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“I’ve spent time around people with panic attacks. Sometimes there’s a trigger. Sometimes, but not always.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded, and hope quirked its eyebrow in my brain. Could Sam… could he even be real? It was too good to be true. If he stayed with me during a panic attack, comforted me, and knew the anxiety wasn’tactuallyme, maybe there was hope after all.
“It was something so benign—I don’t even want to mention it,” I said with a wave of my hand.
“It wasn’t benign to your senses,” Sam insisted. “And if it was something I did, something I said, a gesture or a touch, I want to make sure I don’t do it again.”
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. “It wasn’t you, I promise. It was totally harmless, just a gray—”
I felt him before I saw him. Thepresence.The chattering of the surrounding crowd died down like canaries in a coal mine. In slow motion, my gaze drifted over Sam’s shoulder and landed on Grayson.
8
Grace
Grayson still looked the same: the spitting image of Superman, but leaner; sharper.
Sharp enough to slice through any opponent in the courtroom.
Sharp enough to stab me through the heart and stake me to the ground.
Grayson’s thick arm was wrapped around the flawless beauty I’d seen on Instagram.
His arm didn’t belong around her; it belonged aroundme.
I felt like throwing up.
“Grace, are you alright?” Sam asked.
I looked up at him, overwhelmed with guilt. What if Grayson saw me with this guy? That would hurt him. He’d think I’d moved on. If he had any lingering feelings for me, seeing me with Sam would extinguish them.
Then he could live happily ever after with hisreplacement.
No—I needed to look single, alone. Available. Because all my heart longed for was Grayson next to me, holding me like that. And he couldn’t do it if the dotted, man-shaped outline at my side was already filled by someone else.
I pulled my elbow from Sam’s grasp and the facade crumbled at my feet. “I need… I just need some space.”
That deep, eternal sadness in his eyes made a reappearance. “I see. Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Grace.”
He’d heard the robotic tone of my voice. He knew I wouldn’t give him my number.
The path to Grayson was solid; paved.
Pursuing things with someone new—someone quirky and clever like Sam—had too many unknowns lurking between the lines. It would be like having to cut through thick, Amazonian underbrush. I didn’t want to risk cuts and bruises.
I knew what I wanted. Those lists Dr. Silk assigned me? What a waste of time. I already knew who my dream guy was, and he was standing just a few feet away, shimmering like a mirage.
Fingers curled around my arm and yanked me.
“Hey—!”
“What do you think you’redoing?!”Effie hissed, pulling me through a thick curtain of wisteria. The long floral cones dripped from the trellis like stalactites.
“What did itlooklike I was doing?” I hissed back. “Trying to talk to Grayson!”
“No, Grace! You can’t do that.”
“Why not?!”
