Page 35 of Royal
“I can’t get it out of my head, Royal,” he said in a quaking voice that didn’t sound like him. He balled his hand into a fist and tapped it against the side of his head. “The shit I saw today. The shit I’ve seen over the past two weeks. I’m having nightmares. When I tried to sleep tonight, all I could see was that Jeffrey kid’s dead eyes staring up at the sky as he floated in the pool, his blood clouding the water around him.”
I knelt beside Gray, unsure what to do. In all the years I’d known him, I’dneverseen him like that. So vulnerable.
“I’m not some fucking pussy, okay?” Grayson looked away from me, but not before I saw the tears in his eyes. “I just never expected to see this shit. Not in Addersfield. I’ve seen car accident victims, a few people shot in gang related shit, and then the whole Trevon Mills thing with his dad, but this is a whole other level of fucked up.”
“Having a heart doesn’t make you a pussy, Gray.” I laid a hand on his shoulder. I wanted to pull him into my arms and take away the horrors in his mind, but our shitty past held me back. “It’s only human to care.”
“It’s not my job to care.” Grayson leaned away from me before standing back up. He walked over to the front door, checked the lock, and then stood in the middle of the entryway. His eyes had a dead look to them, almost like the ones he’d talked about. “It’s my job to find the guy who did it and lock him up. That’s it.”
I walked into the kitchen and pulled the bottle of rum from my freezer, not bothering to ask if he wanted a drink before I poured him one. When I returned to the living room and offered him the glass, he took it without question.
In one fluid motion, he tilted it back and drained the contents.
“Want another?” I asked, already reaching for the empty cup.
He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand before nodding. I went ahead and poured myself one, too, before handing him his and sitting in my favorite armchair.
Grayson was quiet as he drank his second glass, slower than the first. He stared at the floor, his brown eyes looking black in the dimly-lit room. He was contemplating. I knew it by the furrow of his brow. He needed the silence to build himself up to say something.
Crazy how eight years had passed, but I still knew him. Still knew his quirks, the way to handle his mood swings, and more importantly, how to be there for him without saying a word.
“I’m sorry,” Grayson whispered, his gaze flickering to mine. “I don’t think I ever told you that. I’m sorry for doing that to you. Sorry for all the shit that followed because of it.”
He didn’t need to specify for me to know what he was referring to.
“What were you thinking that night, Gray? I’ve beat myself up about it for years, wondering if I could’ve done something different. If maybe I was the one to push you away and didn’t know—”
“Stop.” He placed his near-empty glass on the coffee table. “It wasn’t your fault, and I don’t want you blaming yourself for my mistake.”
His mistake.My eyes watered. How long had he thought of it like that?
“Can you tell me why, then?” A tear fell from my eye, and I wiped it away before clearing the lump in my throat. “After all this time, I deserve to know.”
For a brief moment, Grayson’s expression was pained. Grief shone in his eyes. And then it was gone, and he dropped his gaze to the floor.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said, back to an indifferent tone. “It’s in the past.”
“It matters to me, dammit!”
Shocked eyes flashed to me.
“You broke me that night, Gray. I didn’t see it coming at all. One day we were lying in bed after mind-blowing sex, talking about our future, and then in the blink of an eye, you were letting some slutty twink grind on you while you made out with him right in front of me.”
As expected, he just stared at me, clenching his jaw.
I tore a page from his book and let myself be angry, instead of giving in to my sadness.
“After all the shit we went through to be together, how could you do that to me?” I placed my glass on the table. I was so pissed at him that I would’ve ended up chucking it at his face. “You were my best friend. Why didn’t you just fucking talk to me about what was bothering you?”
“Because I couldn’t,” he finally said. “Allyoutalked about was us getting married and buying a house by the lake. You talked about where you wanted us to honeymoon, where you wanted us to live. You chose where we went, what we did, and who we did it with. You were planning our damn future without me being part of the discussion. And I guess it freaked me the hell out, Royal.”
My anger subsided, and it felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
“So itwasmy fault,” I said, not taking my eyes off him.
“No,” he said, and his voice was a little softer than before. “I should’ve said something to you. But I was a coward. I didn’t want to upset you by saying I wasn’t comfortable with discussing all that shit.”
Grayson took a breath and sharply released it.
“I guess I felt like we didn’t want the same things,” he continued.
“You didn’t want to be with me?”
“No, I did.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, I can’t get the words out right. You were the only one I wanted. I was just scared. We were moving too fast, and I panicked.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.” I stood up. “All I wanted wasyou, Grayson. If you never wanted to get married, okay. Whatever. We didn’t have to. You should’ve said so, and I would’ve dropped it. The only thing I wanted for my future was you in it with me.” I looked at him through watery eyes. “But you didn’t feel the same.”
“Royal, I—”
“Lock the door on your way out.” I walked down the hall toward my bedroom, barely keeping myself together.
