With no more words left, Grace stands from her seat and walks toward the door. I stay in my spot, listening to the sluggish steps of her sneakers and the loud sniffle that rings through my small apartment. And the quiet returns.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Grace
By the timethe weekend passes, the weight in my heart feels as heavy as an anvil sitting on top of it, too heavy for me to carry out of bed. Teeny calls me a few times, sends some random text messages reminding me it’s been a while since I spoke with her. I ignore all of them, something completely out of character for myself and our friendship, but I have too little energy to worry or care.
I call in sick from work on Monday. Just another day to help bring my mental state to presentable rather than nearly infirm. Though I have plenty of vacation hours for probably another week off, this isn’t healthy for me. So, with the mindset to start tomorrow with a somewhat fresh start, I order myself a greasy burrito delivered right to my doorstep Monday night. I’ve been watching sappy romance movies—not the best remedy for a broken heart—and I’m a blubbering mess by the time the delivery person knocks on my door. But instead of the steamy hot burrito my mouth was salivating over through the picture in my online order, it’s Teeny who greets me when I open the door.
“Teeny, what are you doing here?”
“Making sure you’re still alive.” She takes me in. Alive, but barely. “By the looks of it, I’m thinking I did the right thing showing up unannounced.”
With perfect timing, my burrito arrives, and I welcome the interruption by taking it from the delivery person with a forced smile. I turn to walk inside, leaving the door open for Teeny to follow, and slump back into a weekend’s worth of used tissues and nonuniform food wrappers—from chocolate bars and chip bags and frozen popsicles—and throw blankets.
“Grace, what the hell happened?”
“Nothing,” I tell her, the rustle of plastic drowning out the morose tone of my voice. I gingerly peel my burrito open and hold it in my hands like Simba presented to my tribe (or just Buster), ready to drown my sorrows in food for the hundredth time since Friday night, when Teeny slaps her hand on my wrist.
She points a stern look at me, her grip tightening in an attempt to gain my attention. “This is not nothing.”
Too little of me cares about secrets. Secrets are what got me into this mess in the first place. It was never meant to be like this. Keeping Andrew and our impetuous hookup a secret should’ve been the extent of it all. Once I realized things were serious, I should’ve told people about us. I don’t know if we can get past this. Whether or not he’ll trust me when I tell him he means the world to me. I want to go back to how things were but with a few tweaks, so he knows how much he means to me. Maybe for now, I can start with the one person we’ve been keeping it all from.
I exhale a deep breath and set my burrito down. “I think you should sit down.”
She does as I suggest, her worried eyes trained on how I seem to be preparing her for a slew of bad news. “Is it work? Did something happen? Did you get fired or something?”
“No,” I tell her, shaking my head. “It’s…about someone I’ve been seeing.”
“Is it that Dr. Noah guy?” Her eyes widen, and the concern in her voice makes the guilt in my gut rumble to life.
“No.”
“Then who?” Her brow furrows together as if she’s making a mental calculation of all the potential men in my life who could’ve caused me this level of heartbreak.
I finally rip off the Band-Aid. “Andrew.”
“Andrew?” she asks, more confused than ever. “Is that someone new your mom set you up with?”
“Andrew Cohen.”
Her stumped expression turns to shock, and I swear I see a flash of anger pass through her glaring eyes. “My brother?”
I nod.
I watch her stand from her spot next to me. She paces my living room, her hands gripping the roots of her hair. She whips around to face me and repeats, “My brother?”
“Teeny, sit do?—”
“I don’t understand,” she cuts in, pacing all over again. “You and Andrew? When did this happen? I didn’t even—holy shit. How did you hide this from me?” She pauses, still attempting to grasp the situation, and she says, “Wait, so you guys are…”
“I don’t know.” It’s the truth. I don’t know what we are anymore. But regardless of official titles or statuses, there’s something that is—or was—between us that Teeny needs to know about.
“What do you mean, ‘You don’t know?’” With the way she surveys me and my apparent downward spiral, she realizes something happened. Whatever was going on between her best friend and her little brother, it’s not good. She sits back in her seat, bracing herself for the truth. And all of it. Not just parts of it, but the whole truth. From start to finish. “What happened?”
I tell her everything, leaving little out. How a botched blind date and Andrew’s work woes led to an aimless hookup, and how it did little to snuff anything from just one night. Instead, it made our curiosity grow deeper. By the time I get to the ultimate bombshell, Frankie being Andrew’s boss, I worry Teeny’s head is going to pop with all the new information I just stuffed into her brain.
“Teeny?” She’s been staring off into space, and the long pause of silence starts to worry me. “Are you okay?”
