Page 72 of Return To You

“That what?”

I take a deep breath. I don’t know how Grace is going to take this. For the little that I know the new Grace, I’ve noticed she can be very strong, like when she’s running her business, but she can also be so fragile. And my inkling is, when it comes to our past, I’m dealing with fragile Grace.

I also don’t know what her recollections are. Memory is a strange thing. Constantly alive, evolving. We reconstruct events that did or didn’t happen in a way that suits our present needs.

“That I never had real feelings for her.” I’d always wondered, to this day, if those were the words that sent her over the edge. If I’d said something different, would she have reacted better? Stayed at the party? “Before you and I were together, before… we started being together…”

“Just spit it out, Ethan. There were other girls,” she says, and the way she says it nearly kills me. The defeat in her tone? I hate myself for that.

Reminding myself she was fourteen—a child—when I left for college, I feel a little better. “Ashley… was one of them. But. I hadn’t been with her, or anyone, since you and I… opened up to each other about our feelings.”

She gives me a sad smile, but I know she believes me. “I thought—I thought you were doing me… a favor.”

A favor? “What the fuck, Grace? How could you think that?”

Her mouth distorts and she looks away, pulling her arms tighter against her chest.

“Grace, talk to me.”

“No,” she whispers. “You talk to me. You tell me the whole truth, Ethan. About how you felt back then. Don’t sugar coat it.” She wipes her face and looks at me. “I’ll feel better once I know I wasn’t making it up. That we had something good back then. It would really help me feel better about myself. Not as crazy.”

“What do you mean, crazy?”

“After you left, I thought… I’d sort of made you up. I mean, made up who you really were. Fantasized something—someone that wasn’t real.”

I don’t know where we’re going with this. I need to set the past straight, but I don’t know what the future holds for us. Grace is so special and so beautiful and so fragile emotionally. I see now I’ve wounded her badly.

“I was shattered when you broke up with me. That’s who I was. I didn’t understand it—I do now. And with Justin’s accident—and the part I indirectly played in it—I just needed to get the hell away from it all and stay away.

“I wish I’d come back sooner to Emerald Creek. I wish you and I would’ve talked. But with Justin in the hospital… my life seemed on hold. I should’ve talked to you before leaving. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

Tears are streaming freely down her cheeks. “I ruined everything, didn’t I?”

“How can you say that?” I run the back of my hand against her cheek, and this time she lets me. “You’ve always been the best part of me, Grace. Always will be.”

She widens her eyes. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying a part of me is still that boy on this very bridge hoping you still want him. Another part if me is this grown-ass man wondering how the hell life passed him by and he let the best woman on Earth get away.”

“Ethan,” she breathes.

“And another part of me is wondering how the hell he got lucky enough to be standing right here again, with this very woman just inches from him, her beautiful eyes on me.”

“Ethan.” Her voice is barely audible. “What are you saying.”

“I’m saying things are different and yet they’re the same. I’m saying I’m angry we were too young to see our errors and fix them. I’m saying it’s too late for us to have the life we thought we’d have, but fuck me if I’m going to stand here and not tell you how hard I’m falling for you all over again.

“Now before you say it’s just the memories this bridge brings about, or the way that the moon lights your beautiful eyes, or whatever other BS excuse you’re gonna find to push me away, hear this. If I were to meet you right now for the first time, never seen you before, you’d catch my eye. First time we speak, you have my attention. All of it. Ten minutes with you—I’d be falling for you. Not kidding, Grace.”

Her breath stutters, she crosses her arms, her gaze darts right and left like she doesn’t know what this is all about.

“What I’m really trying to say is, I want to kiss you.”

She shuts her eyes softly, her throat bobbing when she swallows. “Then kiss me. What are you waiting for?”

I cup her face with both my hands and feel her melt under my touch. She opens her eyes and twines her fingers on my nape, pulling herself up to meet my lips. Eyes half closed, we stay like that, suspended in time, our breaths mingling, our mouths not quite touching. I can’t believe this moment is real. I’m half expecting it to end here. She’s going to change her mind. Someone will drive by, breaking the magic. A phone is going to ring. The bridge is going to collapse.

“What happens after we kiss?” Grace asks, and I feel her retreating already. It’s like I can see all the blocks she’s coming up with as to why this is not a good idea. The painful past. The future with no place for us.

---