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18
GRIFF
“Jesus.”Gwen stops short when she sees me. “When Mom called and said you were staying here at the house for the week, I didn’t realize she actually meant you weren’t moving from your spot on the couch. When was the last time you showered?”
I shrug. I haven’t felt like doing much other than sitting on the couch in the pool house and playing video games for the past five days. There are empty soda cans and food containers piled up around me. My phone died four days ago, and I haven’t bothered charging it.
“Basic personal hygiene is not optional.”
“Why are you here?”
“Oooo,” she rips the blanket off my lap, “he’s cranky too. Get up.”
“I’m good here.”
“We have a media conglomerate to run. I need you to snap out of this.”
“I’ll be back Monday. I’m taking a mental health week.”
“We have a board meeting tomorrow afternoon. You have to be there.”
Fuck.
It goes to show how messed up I am that I completely forgot about our end of the quarter meeting. My body aches as I stand up from the couch. Chip crumbs falling from my chest to the floor. Gwen hands me a bottle of water and shoos me to the bathroom saying she’ll clean up my mess.
After a long hot shower of self-loathing, I emerge to see the pool house living room back to normal. All traces of my comatose state are gone. I’m wearing a pair of my brother-in-law’s khaki shorts and an old t-shirt from high school I found in the closet of my old bedroom. I don’t have a razor here, so I have the beginnings of a decently thick beard growing in.
“Did you take the chopper or drive up here?” I ask.
“I took the chopper, figured you might want company on the drive down to the city. Maybe talk about stuff.”
I nod in agreement. It would be good to talk through everything with Gwen. I grab my phone, seeing that Gwen plugged it in while I was in the shower. I have over eleven hundred emails, four hundred texts, and seventy-eight missed calls. I slide it in my pocket without looking at any of them. I have a feeling a majority of the texts and calls are from Lilith and Levi.
We go say goodbye to Mom and Dad. Mom makes us sandwiches for the road because Gwen has a bunch of food allergies, and there are no restaurants that can meet her dietary needs between Founder’s Ridge and New York City.
An hour later we’re on the highway, heading back to the city. Gwen keeps looking at me out the corner of her eye. After she finishes her sandwich, she turns to me.
“Okay, you’re going to have to spill everything. Leave no detail unspoken. I have talked more to Levi this week than I have cumulatively over the course of my lifetime. He’s insanely worried about you. Lilith showed up at the office yesterday.”
I tell her the story, holding nothing back now that I know Claire has told her family about her diagnosis and Gwen would never say anything to anyone either. I tell her about the memory Mom shared. She sits with all the information for a few minutes before offering her thoughts.
“So, what’s your plan going forward? I know you aren’t just going to let her walk out of your life, right?”
“I don’t really have a plan, to be honest. I’m just going to go home, keep to myself. I’ll obviously have to work through shit with Con.”
“Yeah, the fact that he let you walk away unscathed is a good sign.”
“You think I should get her back? I noticed none of my missed calls or texts were from her.”
“Griffin.” She gives me her condescending big sister look. “You still have her. I know it hurt to hear her say what she said, but I think she was trying to save you.”
“Save me from what?”
“I don’t know. Connor’s wrath? Having to deal with her illness? Especially when it seems like she’s yet to come to terms with it herself.”
She’s making a good point, one that I hadn’t thought of. Claire does handle things like Connor, and he spent a long time hiding his dark past from everyone. Could she be trying to hold everything back to shield us from her truth?
“You might actually be onto something there.”
