Page 47 of Falling for Grace

And I freeze by the door.

I am small, and intimidated, and terrified.

He drops his arms and looks at me with a broken expression that I have never seen on him. “We’re out the car, now what the hell happened to you?”

I flinch because he says it so calmly.

“Brandon,” I plead.

“Three years, Grace. Then two weeks ago you call me out of the blue, scare the absolute shit out of me, by the way, and then you ignore me...again. So I ask you, what the fuck happened? I get why you stopped talking to me, it hurt, but I understood, and I expected it, but Danny?”

I wince, the pain in my chest increasing. “Brandon.” I shake my head again. “I can’t.” My voice is small, but it’s strong.

“Can’t or won’t?”

I can’t show weakness right now because I also know that he will grab hold of that just like I do with the anger, and he will see the opportunity to beat my walls down.

“I will explain everything, I swear to you. But I can’t...not until….” I don’t finish my sentence because saying it out loud would make it real. “It’s not about us, yet. It’s about Danny. The other week for the record, I didn’t mean to call you, I’m sorry that I made you worry, and I really don’t want to argue.” I blurt out without thinking.

“I don’t need to be a genius to know that, Grace. I had no idea you were living in America until six months ago. The grapevine doesn’t work as well as it used to, I had no idea you followed your mum over to her sisters.” He smiles sadly and sits on the bed.

“Temporary truce?” He puts his hand out and I grin, this is something Danny and I used to do. I walk forward and take his hand in mine and we shake.

“Temporary Truce.” I repeat, and he smiles but continues to watch me fidget, it feels so awkward between us, so tense and forced, there is so much to say and he’s just watching me.

“This hotel room is shitty, by the way. You should have just stayed with us.”

Yeah, Brandon and me under the same roof, regardless of the circumstances, is not the best idea. “It’s just somewhere to crash, Brandon. I’m mainly going to be at yours.”

“See, it would have made more sense for you stay there, then.” He flops back on the bed and I tentatively approach closer.

He’s right; the room is shitty.

It’s old, the decor well worn, but the bed looks comfy.

“I’m tired,” he announces. “I’m so tired. My head’s all over the place, Grace.” I can relate to that.

“Why do you think he did it?” I ask, taking a seat next to Brandon on the bed as my own body announces that it, too, is feeling exhausted and flop back. “Depression?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. I never got that sense when I spoke to him.” He opens his eyes and glances at me. I look up at the cream ceiling.

“When did you last talk to him?” I need information.

Brandon sighs. “Like, three days ago. He was fine, we talked about, well, anything and everything. But you know Danny, if something was wrong, he hid it well.” He turns his head to me, his face on his arm.

“When I first found out I thought he was selfish,” I admit, the words making me feel guilty. “But on the flight over I decided that was ignorant of me and insults Danny. He wasn’t selfish, Brandon, anything but selfish.”

“If it was depression, I don’t get it. Everyone gets depressed, Grace, we don’t all kill ourselves.”

“You're dismissing it,” I snap angrily, sitting up. A comment like that comes from someone who has never been depressed, who doesn’t understand what it’s like. “You're dismissing depression on the grounds that people get a bit miserable, and they get over it. But depression, it’s so much more than that, it’s a horrible debilitating illness that doesn’t discriminate. It isn’t being a bit unhappy or in a funk. It’s fucking awful. It’s like being colourblind and constantly being told how colourful the world around you is, but all you can see is black and white and grey. And you’re so fucking desperate to see the colours, no matter how hard you try, there’s no light, only shadows.”

My own experience with depression is fighting its way to the surface. I feel completely gutted for Danny at the thought that is why he did it.

I hid all my inner demons and scars behind an “I’m fine.” But I was anything but fine. I would go through the motions, I would laugh at jokes, smile when I had to. But when I was alone at night, I forgot how to feel anything, while feeling everything.

“And we are making the assumption that it was depression,” he snaps back. “But the fact of the matter is, Grace, we don’t know why he did it and may never know why.”

Silence fills the small space between us.

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