Page 78 of Her Pretty Words

“I know,” he says. “I remember.” His eyes twinkle with wet tears. “That was my uncle. He became my legal guardian after everything. I don’t know why he lied, perhaps he also couldn’t voice the truth.” He shakes his head. “What matters is that I hid when you came to my door because I was terrified to tell you what happened. I didn’t want to accept it myself.”

My eyes dart back and forth as I think. “But… I never saw you.”

“I stayed inside.” He shrugs.

I’m pelted with stones of what could have been. Would we still be friends if things were different? Would I fall in love with him regardless of the circumstances?

I’m hit over and over, until my body seems to go limp with exhaustion. Grayson must feel the same. We comfort each other like two dominos, leaning on one another to keep from falling.

“I’m so sorry I kept this from you. I tried to tell you, Mace, but I couldn’t find the words.”

I press a kiss to his cheek. “I get it. You don’t need to be sorry,” I promise. “And I never exactly made it easy for you. God, I’ve always given you such a hard time, I’msosorry for not being the safe space you needed to open up to me.”

“You’ve been perfect, Mace.” He brings his hand to the base of my head, gently grabbing my hair. “Does this change things?”

“Yes,” I say, which causes him to flinch. I quickly add, “Because now I need to figure out what the hell to call you.” I smile which seems to ease the tension in his body.

“When I moved back here years ago, I decided to go by Grayson. I didn’t want anyone to realize who I was. I couldn’t handle being treated like the boy who lost his entire family, it would be too painful of a reminder. But you can call me anything you want, Mace.”

I nod understandingly.

“I need to get off this floor,” he says. I stand, trying to be a strong force for him. I hold out my hand, which he takes. I pull him up, and once he’s towering over me, he scoops me into his arms and breathes in the scent of my hair. We hold each other for several minutes, until it hurts a little less, and then he whispers, “I really need a shower.”

I chuckle. “I was wondering what that smell was.” He pulls away and flicks my forehead, then kisses the exact spot.

I lay on his bed while he cleans up. My eyes are on the ceiling, but my mind is someplace else entirely. I’m experiencing pain for the man I love while simultaneously grieving my very first friend, and his parents who were always so kind.

I try to process Daniel being here this entire time, isolated in a world of pain I’ll never fully know. I hadn’t noticed I was crying until Grayson is suddenly above me, wiping away the tears. His hair is damp, and his towel is wrapped around his waist.

“I had a crush on you when we were kids,” I say. Seeing how he overheard my conversation with Sarah at The BARnacle, he already knows this.

“I’ve had a crush on you my entire life.”

I peel my back off the bed and sit up on my elbows, my head tilting back to meet his gaze.

“I saw you every summer. My window faces your house.” He gently rests his weight on me, using his arms to hold himselfup so he doesn’t crush me whole. “You were the sun, Mace.” I remember a conversation we had at the Inn.“What made you happy?”I asked, wanting to know what he was like as a kid. He answered,“The sun.”

My stomach warms like the star we speak of. “I wish I could’ve seen you grow up.”

“I wish I had let you,” he says, then looks away. “Do you remember my sister? Delilah?”

“Of course, I do. She was my best friend.”

He points to the framed note I spotted weeks ago on his bedside table. I remember when I first saw it. It was the night I broke my grandparent’s ocean treasures and grief swept me up. I thought I’d drown in it, but then Grayson came and took me to shore. I asked him if he ever lost someone, and he said yes. I remember the first shooting star he saw. He described it as,“Like I’m looking up at heaven and it’s looking right back, waving hello.”

I glance at the framed note, then back at him.

“I’ve seen you look at it a few times,” he says. “I wanted to tell you my sister wrote it, but then I’d have to tell you that I lost her. That—” He closes his eyes, and when they open again, they’re glistening with fresh tears. “The note was special because it was all I had left.”

My chest squeezes. I carefully push him off me and then gesture for him to sit against the headboard. When he does, I rest my head on his chest, inhaling the scent of his soap still potent on his skin.

“You want to know what she always said to me?” I ask, looking up to find him nodding. “She told me I had to marry you when we got older, so that her and I would become sisters.”

He laughs, the beautiful cadence filling the room and chasing away the heaviness. “She said that to me too.”

Then it’s silent for a while. I listen to his breath and the miraculous rhythm of his heart.He’s alive.“Where were you that day?”

He stiffens beneath me, then says in a gravelly voice. “With you.”

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