Page 37 of Her Pretty Words

“There’s some in the cabinet.” I gesture to the one directly beside my head. He reaches his arm past me, causing my face to be within an inch of his exposed chest. His woodsy scent wafts around me.

He pulls back and opens the package, and then places the bandage on my temple. “There,” he says in a low, raspy voice.

I had no idea there was even a cut there. The glass must’ve pierced my skin when I curled onto the floor. “Thank you.”

He gives me a tight-lipped smile and turns like he’s going to leave. I don’t know what compels me to, but I say quickly, “Stay.”

His spine goes straight, and the muscles in his back flex before they relax. He slowly turns to me. The night is draping over us like a cloak. Like we’re in a dream, an alternate dimension. “Have you ever lost someone?”

His jaw sets and his eyes fill with a world of pain. He doesn’t elaborate once he says, “Yes.”

“Recently, or?”

His gaze is faraway. “A long time ago.”

I want to ask a million questions. I want to look at the mystery before me and understand everything there is to know about him. The thought alone frightens me. “Does it ever stop hurting?”

His eyes rake over me. “No.”

I glance at the ruins of my grandparent’s collection. My eyebrows pinch together, and an overwhelming sensation takes over at the thought of cleaning it. At throwing away the broken bits of what once was invaluable to two people. Items they spent their marriage collecting. He follows my line of sight. “Come to my house,” he says, as if he knows I can’t deal with the mess right now.

Thankful, I simply nod and hop down from the counter. He freezes at the sight of my treadmill. He doesn’t say anything about it when we walk in silence to his front door, which is ajar, like he was in such a rush he didn’t bother shutting it. He switches on the kitchen light and leads me to his couch. I sit down, and he disappears for a moment, only to return wearing a shirt.

He sits down on the opposite end of the sofa and drapes an arm over the back. I lift my knees to my chest to get comfortable. Silence stretches between us before he says, “It doesn’t stop hurting.” He repeats what he said in my kitchen, looking thoughtful for a moment. “But I have this theory that if you fill your life with things that bring you joy, eventually happiness becomes bigger than the grief.”

“And what brings you joy, Grayson?”

Shadows are covering him, but the light from the kitchen paints the edge of his face. I feel his gaze over my entire body. “I’m still figuring that out.”

“Hence why it’s only a theory,” I surmise.

His head dips ever so slightly.

I take in his living room, the minimalism. Pictures of friends or family are nowhere in sight. The wooden coffee table rests only one coaster.

“What are you thinking?” he asks in a voice that borders on pleading.

Between what Sarah told me and the lonely nature of his house, I wonder if he’s as wounded as I am after losing my grandparents. His isolation is telling, so perhaps more. “I’m thinking that this life doesn’t let a single person pass without pressing in on them.” The idea leaves me hopeless, but then I look at Grayson. Likereallylook at him. In defiance of the darkness that I assume once colored him, he’s still standing. “We don’t break, but bits and pieces of ourselves cave in. Our souls crack. Some more than others, but we’re all marked with the fractures of this world.”

His eyebrows are pulling together in concentration of my words.

“And I think—” My heart cracks and I will away tears that threaten to fill my eyes. “I think the biggest challenge is learning to smile with holes in our souls.”

Grayson looks away for a moment, seeming like he’s digesting every word. He scoots closer to me, blue eyes shining like a sea reflecting the sun. “Your mind is marvelous.” His serious demeanor crumbles as his eyes soften and wrinkle at the sides. “You should put that in a book.” He grins.

I laugh easily, and Grayson’s answering smile is a rainbow in a gray sky. It’s my turn to ask. “What areyouthinking?”

His head dips and his eyes lift to mine. “That everyone has a story. We’re all trying our best, but the world doesn’t seem to let up.”

“But we can be kinder to one another.” The moment I say it, my heart sinks. I look at the man sitting across from me with a new understanding.

“Why so grim?” he asks quietly, no longer smiling.

I remember the look on his face after I snapped at him. How he looked gutted. “I was so mean,” I whisper into the night.

“It’s nothing I didn’t deserve.”

I shake my head immediately. “You didn’t deserve it.”

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