Page 31 of The Two Halves of My Heart

“Sure.”

She stepped up towards me, and alarm bells began to flash in my mind, but the fog of tequila slowed all of my reactions. Her hand wrapped around my neck, and she pulled me towards her. My eyes slipped closed as her lips pressed to mine. She tasted of salt and lime, just like me, and the sensation cleared the fog for a moment. She deepened the kiss, plastering her body against mine, emitting a low moan as she did.

Those alarm bells screeched in my head, but at the same time, there was a war raging. This was what I’d moved away for. To find someone I liked and see where it could go. My tongue ran the seam of her lips, and I stroked inside her mouth. Every schoolboy fantasy about getting laid screamed to the front of my mind, and my body—despite the alcohol—jumped at the thought.

Fuck, I’m going to do this.

“Come to my room.” Amy grabbed my hand and pulled me up the last step and opened the door. But the spell broke. She wasn’t the girl I wanted to do this with. She wasn’t Grace.

Grace.

Just thinking her name sobered me up, and I pulled back on Amy’s hand. “Stop. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Her face deflated, and I felt like a complete jerk.

She rolled her eyes at me. “You’ll regret this, Oliver Ray. This is a one-time offer, and, for the record, I think we’d be pretty good together.”

She was right; we would have been. She was smart, funny, and sexy. But she wasn’t Grace.

“I’m sorry.”

“Does she even know?” Amy asked, a little whiny. “Would she even kiss you back?”

And I couldn’t answer her. Because I wasn’t sure of the answer.

Visiting home so often was worth it because Grace made me feel like a million pounds when she saw me. And it gave me hope, because how could a person be that happy to see someone, without feeling something? Amy’s words lingered in my thoughts for weeks, and I couldn’t shake them. Luckily, she had, and we’d gone back to being just friends.

But I dwelled. Grace transformed every time I visited. Sure, she was over the moon to start with. Her hair had grown even longer, and she’d taken to wearing it down all the time. My fingers begged to brush through their strands, but I kept them to myself. It was her smiles I noticed first. They were smaller, fewer. And sorrow had crept into her features when she thought I wasn’t looking. She was withdrawn and nothing like the carefree girl I’d fallen in love with.

She didn’t talk about friends or any of the books she’d read lately, and that made me worry for her, even more, when I wasn’t around.

“Hey, Mads.” He put down his phone and looked up at me expectantly.

“What? I haven’t got all day.”

“Is Grace okay? She seems… sad. Is she getting on all right at school?”

“Sure. She’s fine. She’s always been quiet, you know her. She’s not sad when I’m with her, at least.”

“And…” I worked up the confidence to ask, “how often is that?” The question hung in the air.

“Plenty. Are we done?” He tilted his head, dismissing me.

Typical Maddison. I didn’t know if he was bragging on purpose to stir things up, or if he and Grace did see each other all the time. They went to sixth form together, worked together. Was that all?

As the older brother, I shouldn’t have been competing with my younger brother all my life, but it was Maddison’s shadow that always pushed me to the background. With Grace, we’d somehow avoided that, and I know that my change of plans at Uni didn’t fit in with Maddison’s.

But Grace was my best friend, and if Maddison felt anything close to what I did, then he’d notice if something was wrong with her. We both had a connection to her, and I had to trust that he wouldn’t ruin Grace to spite me.

---