Page 12 of Shame

“I’m trying to help Grace here,” he grinds out.

Alex never gets mad. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him to cover for me. “Listen,” I say, my heart hammering as I lean in. “I appreciate that. I know I haven’t been as understanding as I could be about her art, but if I blew her off in the past, it was a mistake.”

One of many.

My friend shakes his head. “Well, that’s for you to make up to her. I can’t imagine it will be easy.”

He has no fucking idea.

I clear my throat. “Do you have the details about the show?”

He rolls his eyes and pulls a glossy booklet out of his bag. It has the name of a gallery on the front, then a set of dates, and three names.Grace Dunnis listed in the middle.

I’d barked at her that I didn’t want my name associated with her art. But it never had been. She always created under her maiden name. She didn’t use Preston for anything anymore. There had been a time when that had been her name, her identity. In the early days of this firm, she’d played the role of the corporate wife to perfection.

She’d hated it.

She’d already taken up art when our firm collapsed. When our assets were seized, she pivoted her hobby into a career, leveraging whatever connections she could to springboard her catalogue into online infamy.

Other people—my parents, for example—would have died of shame to have their work mocked by Buzzfeed. Graceorchestratedthat, and raked in enough private commissions of erotic sculpture from the visibility to buy our new home.

A loft where she brought my fuck-up of a brother to lick his wounds.

Alex leaves me alone with the booklet and a pile of regret he can’t even begin to understand.

I pack everything I might need to deal with an emergency from home and head out, not saying goodbye to anyone as I leave.

Echos of bad decisions chase me down the elevator and into my car.

I never thought I would have to look at my mistakes quite so squarely in the face. I never liked what I was doing—except when I did, briefly, because I’m a base animal inside. I lived with gross regret on a daily basis, but never did anything about it.

Even the inside of my car reminds me of driving to hotels, sending furtive texts on arrival. Ruining everything, over and over again.

The conversation I had with Grace about her show reverberates in my head. That was a day I’d gone out and fucked around on her. Got my hit of illicit feel good, feel bad vibes and took out my guilt on her excitement.

I need to talk to her about the show, too. And the weight of all the ways I’ve fucked up make it impossible to get out of my car. When I arrive at home, I sit in my parking spot for far too long.

I don’t want to go upstairs. I don’t want to see Grace’s sad face.

You can walk away.

She would be happier if I did, in the long run. Get out of her way and let her heal. Watch her move on.

I should leave her. But the thought of it fills me with terror. I need Grace for reasons I’ve never needed to spell out before, can’t even now as I sit in the underground garage and try to pull the words to my tongue.

I just need her. And I forgot, maybe, or lost sight of how much.

Taking a deep breath, I grab my bag. The elevator from the garage level that would take me to the back of the loft is out of order, so I take the stairs to the lobby, then take the main elevator up to our floor. There are four lofts per floor. One of them has a private elevator to the garage, although it’s been on the fritz for months. We are that loft on our floor.

Grace chose it for me. The loft is all her, but the private elevator that goes to the parking garage—that was a luxury she chose for me.

And I fucking hate that it doesn’t work. I hate that I share it with the other ten loft owners who stack above and below us.

I miss my Forest Hill mansion.

Ilostthat house, along with everything else.

Me. I. Me. My.

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