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But just like it was my turn to deny, it was her turn to pry. “No, what?”
I busied myself with flipping the turkey bacon and French toast and walked to the sink for the sponge, trying to buy time.
“Sawyer.”
Never had I been one to pussy foot around something, so why I was this, I wasn’t entirely sure. Taking the sponge and starting to clean up the counter, I looked at my hands as I asked, “What happened with Jeremy?”
When she didn’t answer right away, I looked up and saw she had shut down a little. Fuck me and my mouth.
But, surprising me, she lifted her head and answered me. “The easy answer is it wasn’t going anywhere. My feelings weren’t growing, even though we spent a lot of time together.” She shrugged a shoulder in the dismissive way that she always did. “It wasn’t mutual, but so far he’s seemed to be ok with it. I haven’t heard from him.”
I nodded, hoping that it was really all that simple.
I flipped off the griddle and removed everything from the heat, placing it on one large plate, another question weighing on my mind.
It would be a shitty move of me to say something. It would throw Sydney under the bus and I really didn’t want to do that to my sister. Grace deserved to have a close friend and I would hate if my bringing up Sydney’s statement this morning would put the same wall that was between Grace and I, between Grace and Sydney.
“I promise—it’s fine,” Grace said, leaning on the counter with her arms crossed in front of her. “We were only together a few months. Really, there’s nothing to worry about there.”
Bracing my hands on the counter backward, my fingers curing back over the edge, I looked over Grace. Did I bring it up? Did I ask?
She held my gaze, not shifting under the scrutiny. “What’s up, Sawyer?”
I went for it.
“You closed the store front because you had a panic attack.”
The Grace yesterday would have fidgeted now, would have refused to meet my eyes, but the Grace right now? The one sitting in front of me?
She sat up straight, her chin coming out and elongating her neck. “I did.”
“It was bad.” It was a statement. I already got that much from Sydney.
“It was.”
“Fuck,” I mumbled under my breath, my eyes shut tight. I knew it, but hearing it from Grace made it all the more real. I opened my eyes and looked at her across the island, wanting to move over to hold her, but not quite sure that was appropriate right this moment. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, the question having been on my mind most of the early morning hours.
This time, Grace did shift. “It was around the time I first started seeing Jeremy and I didn’t think it was right to go to you with it, when I had him.” Her voice lowered with her sentence until it was almost impossible to hear at the end.
I didn’t want her to have to go through it again, but I was a needy bastard. “Can you tell me about it?”
She regarded me. I couldn’t read what was going on in her head but maybe that was because I had nothing to go off of. I had been around her in slight panic attacks in large groups of people, but she always pushed through them. For this one to take her out… I had nothing to go on, nothing to help figure out what she was thinking.
Finally, she nodded. “Sure.”
