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Gracie
I shoot up in bed with a sheen of sweat coating my entire body. I place a hand on my chest and attempt to focus on steadying my racing heart. The nightmares haven’t left me alone since I left the hospital, my fear of losing Mom clutching them in a strong fist, keeping them locked inside my head. My cheeks are damp, and when I lift my hand to wipe away the sweat on them, I find fresh tears and the lines they left behind instead.
I’m eager to check my phone to see if Oakley has texted me to give me an update on Ma, but an unnerving feeling of worry keeps me from reaching over and looking. I’m too terrified of what I might see.
As soon as I left the hospital, I knew I shouldn’t have. Yeah, Oakley and I have already lost one parent, but it hit him differently than it did me. I barely had a chance to know what it felt like to have more than one parent. To have a dad. Oakley felt the loss of Dad deeper. It changed him. And I’m terrified of what losing Mom will do to him. I guess he’s older now and has seen more of the darkness the world holds, but losing someone you love never gets any easier, and our mom is everything to the both of us. We would be lost without her.
The doctors say that we should keep a middle ground and not get our hopes up to high or too low either. There’s a chance they can kill the infection and that Mom will be able to recover. But it’s not looking good. I can tell by the way her smile doesn’t make it to her eyes anymore, and her eyes—the ones she gave me—are dull, the once subtle hint of grey now washing away the ocean blue that I love so much. Her hugs are weak too. The strong medication sucks her strength faster than the infection itself. I want to comfort her, to heal her. And knowing that I can’t is killing me a bit more every day that my hands remain tied behind my back.
Reaching to the side of the bed, I prepare myself to feel Tyler’s warm body but instead feel the spot beside me cold, with only a hint of his warmth left radiating there. Knowing that he couldn’t have been up for long, I swing my legs out of bed, snatch the comforter and wrap it around me before opening the bedroom door. Tyler’s strong voice flows from the kitchen and I tighten my grip on the blanket before heading towards him. I can tell that he’s on the phone but by the harsh words being spit towards the person on the receiving end, I know he doesn’t want to be.
“We both know that you don’t want Gracie to be fine. You want her to leave me so I’ll come running to you and it won’t happen. So in the worst way possible, Jessica, fuck off.”
My face drains of colour and my breath catches halfway up my throat. My airway has become so small that it hurts to breathe. My legs itch to move, but I don’t. I can’t. I stand frozen in the dark of the hallway, staring with wide eyes as Tyler reaches into his dark hair and yanks on the strands that have been stuck up from how he slept.
I can’t hear anything over the pulsing in my eardrums and when he notices that I’m there he lifts his head. Tyler watches me with wide eyes the colour of coffee grounds for a few raced heartbeats. Then he pushes off the chair and steps towards me. I can see his lips moving, what looks like my name forming on them, but I just shake my head and lift my hands in front of me, silencing him.
There are only a handful of reasons why Jessica should be calling Tyler. None of them involve me leaving him. None. The brutally quick realization of what’s going on has the fracture in my heart spreading through whatever parts of it were left untouched by the events of the past few days. My throat keeps tightening to the point I’m not sure how I’m still managing to breathe as I gulp for air, desperate to fill my burning lungs.
“What’s going on? What won’t you tell me?” I croak. I don’t know why I bother asking, although I’m sure it’s because a big chunk of me hopes this is just a big misunderstanding. My eyesight is blurring from another round of unwanted tears waiting to be shed. I blink them back this time. I refuse to cry over this.
“Gray, baby. Calm down,” Tyler begs in a hushed voice. He reaches where I stand and places his hands on my shoulders in an attempt to pull me to his chest. His grip tightens, but I keep my arms by my side and chew on my quivering lip.
“You slept with her.” It isn’t a question because I already know the answer. Every petty dig, all of the unsupportive pieces of advice and angry looks make sense now. Jessica was jealous. She was jealous because she wanted what I had—what she already had. I push at his chest and step away from him when I feel vomit burn my throat.
“It was way before we ever—”
“Before or after Mexico?” I meet his desperate gaze and shudder at the deep-rooted regret looking back at me. I don’t know what I want to accomplish from asking him that. I don’t even know which answer I’m hoping for. Either way the result is still the same. Tyler slept with my best friend. My best friend slept with Tyler. They slept together knowing how I felt.
They both knew.
They both didn’t care.
“Before,” he replies without hesitation, as if sleeping with her before somehow makes it better–makes it hurt less. Maybe it would have been better had he not known about my crush on him since the moment he met me. But he knew. Jessica knew. Everybody knew. They just decided to do it anyway. Damn me and my feelings, right?
Tyler drags a frantic hand through his air and pulls. “Fuck, I never knew that I would feel this way about you back then. If I did, I wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of Jessica. Shit, Gracie. I know it’s not an excuse, but I was so drunk off my ass when it happened and as soon as I sobered up I knew it wouldn’t happen again. She has never, and will never mean anything to me.”
I offer him a simple nod in response but avert my eyes and play with the frayed edge of the blanket still wrapped around my shoulders. I do believe what he’s saying. He didn’t owe me anything back then. He had every right to sleep with whoever he wanted. But it feels like such a cruel twist of fate that it happened to be with her.
“Of any girl, it had to be her?” I ask, but don’t give him a chance to answer before I speak again. “I spent years pining after you, Tyler. I didn’t expect anything when we first met. I wasn’t looking to send you to jail for fucking a minor that was wasting her time with a different guy that she didn’t love. But after all of the time we spent together in Mexico, I thought you finally felt the same way that I did. But then we got back and you disregarded me like I was nothing. Again.”
He flinches. I stand up straighter. “Can I jus—”
“You told me you weren’t in the right place to give me what I deserved and I respected that even though it made me feel awful. Even after two years, I was still willing to wait for you. I’m not hurt that you didn’t think of me as anything but Oakley’s little sister when you fucked around with other girls. I’m hurt that you could have slept with anyone, but you chose to sleep with my best friend knowing full well how I felt about you. You didn’t respect me the same way that I respected you and that fucking hurts, Tyler.”
I exhale and let my shoulders sag. My head drops forward as I stare at my toes. Tyler swallows so loudly I can hear it, but I don’t look at him. I keep my head down, grip the blanket until my fingers turn white and walk to the bathroom as fast as possible, desperate to get out of the situation I literally walked into.
