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“Yeah, me too.”
My stomach did a flip. I couldn’t believe this conversation was happening right now. I knew I felt something deep with her, but did she feel it with me, too? Was it corny of me to ask? Before I had time to consider it, Grace came around to my side of the booth and slid in next to me. She placed a hand on my cheek and pressed her lips to mine. Her kiss was gentle and reassuring, but in the back of my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about how Ella would react if she saw us right now.
11
GRACE
Ipulled away from Dylan and when I saw his face, I knew something had changed, and it was not a positive change.
“What’s wrong?”
“Grace…”
“What is it? You can tell me.”
“We can’t do this anymore.”
I felt my heart drop into my stomach. I had a feeling this was coming, but I didn’t realize it would be here and now.
“Wh—what do you mean?” I asked, trying not to sound like a pathetic, whimpering girl.
Dylan sighed and looked away from me. He put his elbow on the table and rested his forehead in his palm. I wasn’t sure if I should stay this close to him, or if I should move back around to the other side of the table.
“I made a promise,” he finally said.
“Okay…”
“I swore to Ella a long time ago that I would never touch one of her friends. I also promised my mom that I would do everything in my power to make Ella happy. And I promised myself that I would never break a promise to either of them.”
“That’s a lot of promises,” I said quietly.
“Yeah.”
We were silent for a moment. Neither one of us looking at each other. I wanted to wrap him in a hug, but given the circumstances, I didn’t think it would be appropriate.
“I guess I’ll go get a taxi, then.”
I started to stand from the table, but Dylan grabbed my wrist before I could get too far.
“Grace, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do this. I wasn’t planning on doing this. But…”
“But what?”
“But I have real feelings for you. Feelings that I’ve never had for anyone else. And I don’t want to lose you, but I also can’t hurt my sister.”
“I understand.”
“Take my car home. I’ll get a cab.”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll be fine. Bye, Dylan.”
I walked out of the bar and made a concerted effort not to look back at him, as much as I wanted to. Somehow I managed to hold in the tears until I got into the taxi. As I wiped them away, the driver eyed me suspiciously in the mirror, but didn’t say a word.
When I arrived home,I went straight to bed and didn’t move for several hours. I don’t know how I had been so stupid to let myself fall so hard for him when I knew that we couldn’t really be together.
There’s no way Ella would ever be happy with us being together, and she was far too important to me to ever jeopardize my friendship with her. Especially over a man. A man who I hated the first time I met him.
In the morning, I took a cold shower and several deep breaths. I wasn’t going to let Dylan ruin my life or turn me into a sob story. I was stronger than that. I hadn’t needed a man my entire life, and I certainly didn’t need one now.
