Her expression stays calm, too calm. “Okay.”
“I’m not drinking.” The words come out harder than I intend. “If that’s what you think this is, stop. I’m not doing that. Not with Penelope here.”
Dana’s face softens a fraction. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” She steps into the room now, sinking into the chair opposite my desk like she lives here. At this point, she basically does. “I know you’re not getting drunk around your daughter. But I also know there’s more than one way to disappear from your own life.”
That lands. Hard.
From the living room, I can hear Penelope singing the Bluey theme song to herself as it plays in the background, and I try to focus on that to soften the blow.
Dana lowers her voice. “You remember how withdrawn Cole got? How everything narrowed down to the addiction and the shame and the idea that nothing was ever going to get better? He stopped taking care of himself. Stopped showing up. Stopped believing he was worth the effort it took to be better.”
“I remember,” I say quietly. I do.I remember refusing to let him drown. I remember how he broke down on that stupid fishing trip that wasn't ever really about fishing.
Dana folds her arms. “You didn’t give up on him.”
I rub my thumb over the edge of my desk. “That’s different.”
“Why?”
Because it isn’t alcohol that made me feel like a fool.Because it isn’t alcohol that got under my skin and into my home and then vanished, taking the shape of my future with it.Because when Cole lashed out, I knew the enemy was the bottle.
I don’t say any of that, butDana seems to read half of it anyway.
“You don’t get to stop taking care of yourself because you’re hurt,” she says. “And you don’t get to bury yourself in work and call it coping. Cole had to learn that the hard way.”
I lean back and stare at the ceiling for a second. “I am doing what I can. I have to focus on Penelope and my company and literally anything else because if I don’t, I will focus on Carly, and I learned pretty quickly after Halsey that someone who uses you does not deserve your focus.”
“I don’t think Carly is the type to use someone.”
My jaw tightens. “Dana.”
“What?”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“No,” she says evenly. “But I know you. I know the version of you that helped drag my husband back to himself when everyone else was ready to write him off. And I know you don’t usually get things this wrong, but I think you have, Gray.”
“I can’t risk considering if I’m wrong when Penelope is a part of this,” I mutter.
“I know.”Dana’s voice gentles. “But being hurt doesn’t automatically make you right. You don’t know what was going on behind the scenes.”
I close my eyes.Everybody keeps saying some version of that.Cole. Maddox. Now Dana.
And yet the wound still sits where it sat the night I saw that text.
“She planned to leave,” I say.“I don’t think I got it wrong.”
Dana exhales. “You don’t have to forgive anybody today. You don’t have to fix it today. But… whatever this is, it isn’t you. I know I wasn’t around when you and Halsey split, but Cole was, and he’s never seen you like this.”
My throat works.
I want to tell her I’m fine, that I’m functioning, that Penelope is fed and clothed and safe and loved, and that should count for something.
“I’m tired,” I murmur instead.“I’m tired and I’m trying my fucking best, Dana.”
