Page 72 of Falling for Grace

Standing up, putting on my big girl pants, it’s time to do something I have been avoiding for three years.

It’s time to tell Brandon.

Chapter 26

He’s standing with his back to me, holding a piece of paper in his hand. Gripping it so tightly that it’s been scrunched into a ball.

“Can we talk?” I ask tentatively.

He turns around and looks at me. It’s a strange look, not an expression that I think I have seen him make before. But he nods and sits down on his parents’ sofa. The emotion is thick in the air, suffocating me.

“It’s time we talk about what happened between me and Danny.” I hesitate and sit opposite him on Ted’s reclining chair, swallowing down the nausea that threatens to overcome me. “Do you remember…at Ted’s birthday?”

His head whips up. “How, you decided to cut me out my life? Yes I remember.”

I ignore the blatant dig at me, he’s holding back his temper, the vein in his neck is protruding at the effort. “Well, that night in the bathroom…” I get all hot and sweaty just thinking about that night, I can feel the wood on my back, the memory so vivid.

“I remember,” he says, watching me.

“After you left I…erm…found out I was pregnant.”

“I know.”

“You know?” the question that I already know the answer too escapes.

“Well, now I fucking do!”

I slump down. This is what Danny has told him in his letter.

“You were pregnant with our baby Grace? And I have to hear about it three years later in my brother’s suicide letter!”

I close my eyes tightly shut.

“You’ve broken my fucking heart. Again,” he says, his anger replaced with sorrow. I’d prefer anger, anger is doable. I can cope with anger, I can’t cope with sadness.

“That was my baby, too, Gracie, and you took away the choice. It was our decision, not yours. What gave you the right?”

“I was trying to protect you,” I say pathetically.

“Protect me?” he asks. “Protect me from what, Grace?”

I look down, ashamed, because I wasn’t trying to protect him, I was scared and trying to protect myself from his potential rejection.

I’ve hidden the truth for three long years and now I’m finally facing all my demons head on and I can’t do it. I can’t. My legs are moving and I stumble past where he is sitting on the sofa, knowing that everything he is saying I deserve. But he senses my escape and is jumping up, blocking my path and the only way out of the living room.

“Oh, no, Gracie. You’re not running from me this time.” His hand circles my arm and I look down, thinking about how small my arm seems in his firm grip.

“I was, I was scared. And, can you just give me a minute?” I plead. But I know he isn’t listening. He’s a man desperate to understand my choices and I don’t blame him. Tears burn my eyes, the lump in my throat the size of a golf ball.

“A minute, you’ve had three years. Where was my say in this, Grace? That was my choice as much as it was yours. What gave you the right?”

I flinch again as he spits the words at me.

He drops my arm and grabs his neck and shouts, “FUCK. Do you know how much that hurts me?” He paces in front of me, throwing the piece of paper onto the floor in frustration. “Do you know what has been going through my head this whole time? Why? Just why? I just want to understand, Gracie. Why did you do it?”

“Just give me a minute Brandon. Please.” My heads jumbled, his furious with me, and I can’t help but stare at the balled-up piece of paper that is now laying on the floor between us.

I go to step past him again, but he grabs me, “No. NO! You don’t get to play the victim right now and run again. Always sodding running” He grips me harshly, holding me in front of him. It’s aggressive, his arms causing a bite of pain.

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