Page 135 of Tell Me It’s Right

Another text from Liam waits in my notifications, apologizing that he’s still too busy and he’ll call me tomorrow instead.

I change into one of his T-shirts that still smells like him and shuffle my way to the bed. Hugging a pillow to my chest, I curl into a ball on my side and look out at the city below. As the tears roll down my face, I don’t bother trying to stop them. I just let them flow on and on.

It’ll get better. Eventually, it will.

It has to.

Chapter Forty-Seven

GRACIE

Weeks pass, and my days start to feel more like a routine. The girls are nice in the office, but I decline the next time they invite me to happy hour, then they don’t ask again. The only people I’ve run into in my building so far have been much older than me. I’ll get an occasional smile in the elevator, but everyone for the most part minds their own business.

The check-in calls and texts from family and friends die down as the novelty wears off. All except Liam. Talking to him every day is one thing I can count on.

But other than driving up to see me the first weekend I was here, I haven’t seen him in person. He’s had a lot going on with his family, so it seemed even if I made the trip out there, it wouldn’t have been a good time.

But now as my third weekend in a row with no plans rolls around, I throw together an overnight bag, climb in the car, and drive.

“Oh my God, Gracie! What a surprise!”

“Hey, Mom.”

She opens the door wider and waves impatiently for me to come inside, her eyes on the duffel bag in my hand.

“I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

“Of course not! Your father is at the grocery store. I’m just baking some banana bread.”

“Sothat’swhat smells so good in here.”

She beams, and I follow her to the kitchen. The counter is covered in junk, as usual, and I grab a bar stool and start clearing myself a little area.

“So are you just back for the weekend?” she asks lightly.

My hands freeze around a pile of mail. I have no idea whythat’swhat tipped me over the edge. I thought I might cry it out on the drive over here, but the hour and a half passed in a daze, like my body was moving on autopilot and I was barely conscious the entire time. But now with my mother staring at me, surrounded by the house I grew up in and the comforting smell of my favorite treat, my lower lip trembles.

Mom turns when I don’t respond, her eyes going wide when she sees my face. “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?”

I laugh. I cover my face with my hands andlaugh, softly at first, then it turns into something of a sob, then it rises a few octaves and borders on hysterical.

Mom drifts toward me. “Gracie…”

“Everything,” I say around a gasp. “Absolutely everything is wrong, Mom.”

We end up at the kitchen table, and she makes me a hot chocolate to go with my banana bread, just like when I was a kid. A graveyard of used tissues surrounds us as I recount the pastfew weeks and talk in circles trying to explain what the hell is going on with me.

When I’m done, the concern has faded from her eyes, like she’s…relieved?

“You want my honest advice?” she says.

“Of course.”

She tilts her head back and forth like she’s arguing with herself over her next words. “I think you should break up with Liam.”

“I—what? Wh-why?”

She shows me her palms in awhat can I say?gesture. “I don’t think you’re giving this new chapter a fair chance. And I don’t see how you can like this. If you had been in a relationship before you’d gone off to college, I would’ve given the same advice. I think you need a truly clean slate. How can you really say you gave this a fair shot when you’re always wondering when you’ll talk to him next, or waiting for him to call, or coming home as much as you can to see him? You’re living your life with one foot in the past, one in the present. And Liam—I love him, I really do—but he is never going to leave this town. And I think deep down, you know that. So you feel like you can’t leave. Like you can’t find somewhere new to love, because if you do, there’s no way the two of you can work. Because he won’t follow you. He might wait around for you to come back, but he won’t move forward into this new phase of your life with you. So you feel like you can’t move into it either.”

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