Page 77 of Falling for Grace

“Gracie, you don’t truly believe that?” he asks from his spot by the door.

I can barely see him as tears blind me.

“You didn’t kill our baby.” He comes over to the bed, his arms wrapping round me in a protective blanket as he navigates my head to his chest. My arm grip his shirt as gut-wrenching pain carries me under again. “No, no, no, Gracie, you didn’t kill her. Please Gra…” His voice breaks and we cling to each other.

“I’m going to go get some water.”

I’m exhausted. I can never work out how I could feel so much pain without physical harm.

I pull my tired bones from the floor and crawl back into the bed. It’s well past midnight. Time seemed to stand still in this bedroom as we went through the past. Brandon soon reappears with a bottle of water for me and passes it over, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“What you went through…” He looks at me and shakes his head, taking a huge shuddering breath. “It’s late. I want you to stay here tonight. We’ll talk again.”

I nod, numb to anything that’s happening. I’m back reliving something that happened three years and I feel like I’m losing myself all over again. I have told him the truth but I have never felt so alone with my grief.

I watch on helplessly as Brandon retreats back across the room. He stops, looking at the damaged wall and glances over his shoulder at me. “I’m glad Danny was with you,” he says, nodding. “I’m glad that you weren’t alone when you went through that.”

“I’m afraid, Brandon,” I admit before he leaves the room. “I’ve been alone with this for years. I’m not sure I can do this again, not alone.” I’m being selfish, I know I am. I had no right to say that to him, but I’m scared, no, terrified that he’s going to leave…again.

Even though, the little voice is telling me I’d deserve it.He hesitates a moment and walks back to me, placing a soft kiss on my forehead.

“You’re not on your own, Gracie, you’ve never been alone. But you’ve chosen to be. I’ll be back soon.” He leaves me with one last kiss on my forehead and then I watch, utterly helpless, as he leaves the room of our childhood, the door closing.

When I wake up the following morning the room is empty, and the bed is cold. The house around me is silent. The only noise is the clicking pipes of the heating, now that the preparation for the funeral and wake has died down. Relatives have returned to their own families, to grieve and remember Danny in their own ways with their loved ones.

Ileave the warmth of the bed and pad over to the window, opening the curtains and letting the sun shine in and warm me. As heart breaking as my journey has been, there is something about being back here that is healing.

There’s a knock at the door and I spin round. I can’t hide my disappointment at seeing Sue instead. Her brown hair is pulled into a bun, showing her sparkly blue eyes and kind face.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so disappointed at seeing me.” She smiles kindly at me, but I know Sue enough to realise it’s a forced smile, she’s so angry with me.

“I’m sorry, I just…”

“Hoped I was Brandon.” She comes into the room with a handful of towels. “I know you haven’t got any clean clothes here, but I thought you may like a shower. Wash away some of what you’re feeling.”

“I think I need a chemical bath to help with that.” I plop myself back onto the bed and rub my face. I must look an absolute state. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

She shakes her head, and her expression fills me with dread.

“Sue?” I ask, unease thickening my throat.

She shakes her head again. “I guess it all got a bit too much for him.”

“What do you mean?” I whisper.

“He’s gone, Grace. He went back to L.A. this morning.”

His last words were that I wouldn’t have to do this alone, and he’s just upped and left me.

“But he said…”

“I know you’re upset, we all are to be fair dear,” she says, squeezing my hand. “I think he needs time to process this. I’m not trying to defend his choice because he shouldn’t have left you, you should be together. But, Grace, it was his choice.”

I nod, trying to hold my emotions in place, confused. He was going to stay; he had asked me to stay.

“He’ll reach out when he’s ready. You know he’s a reflector, and like I said before, he needs you just as much as you need him. He’ll just take some time to realise that, and this time around he hasn’t got Danny to whack some sense into him.”

“So I guess that’s it then,” I say sadly, not really knowing where I go from here. “I’ve lost Danny, and now I’ve lost Brandon.”

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