The thought made my handstighten around the steering wheel. Gray wouldn’t be there. He probablywouldn’t come if I texted him, either.
I’d screwed up. I could seenow that he’d been trying to help me. Thefeelingof waking upalone had scared me, made me imagine him leaving for good, and once I’d seen it Icouldn’t get it out of my head.
But that wasn’t Gray’s fault.He’d been doing the right thing.
And I’d pushed himaway. I’d pushed him away because he was right—I was scared he’d leave, like mymom had, like everyone did.
I’d been right. He’d left me.
Right after I told him to.
I was my own worst enemy,and I had no idea how to put it right.
Tears finally came as Istopped at a red light a block from my apartment. Stinging, burning tears thatleft me sobbing and gasping as they ran down my face, all my walls crumbling atonce.
My whole life had beenripped out from under me today, and it was my own stupid fault. Worse, it wasmy own stupid fault that I didn’t have anyone to hold me and tell me it was allgoing to be okay. I’d alienated both Gray and my dad in the space of a fewhours.
I was all alone. Like I’d always beenafraid I’d end up.
And there was no one toblame for it but myself.
TWENTY-EIGHT
GRAY
“GO TO HIM,” Fox said without evenlooking over at me. Without even looking away from the TV, where he wasapparently absorbed in yet another episode ofProject Runway.
I, on the other hand, had noidea what was happening on the show. Normally I’d have no trouble gettingabsorbed in trashy reality TV—it was a pleasure I didn’t even feel particularlyguilty over when I needed to switch my brain off for a couple of hours—but thatwasn’t happening tonight.
“You’ve been holding thatdumpling halfway to your mouth for the past three minutes, staring off into themiddle distance. It’s going cold. Go to him.”
Biting the end off thedumpling I was holding confirmed that it was, in fact, cold.
Fox was right. Ihadbeen thinking about Miles. Not even thinking anything in particular, just… thinking abouthim. What he was doing, how he was feeling, whether he felt safe or not. Whathe was going to do about everything that’d happened today, and if he was copingwith the stress of all of it.
I… might have been imagininggiving him the hug he desperately needed.
Because it didn’t matter that we’dfought. It didn’t matter that he’d kicked me out even though I was trying to dothe right thing.
My heart had picked him. Hecould yell at me from sunrise to sunset and I still would have wanted to hughim at the end.
Love was a strange thing. Iwasn’tsure I’d ever get used to it, but I couldn’t focus on anything but how badly Iwanted things to be okay with Miles.
Which wasn’t going tohappen unless Imadeit happen.
I set the other half of thedumpling down on a napkin and stood up. Miles’ place wasn’t much of awalk from here, and I could use the fifteen minutes or so to clear my head.
“You’re going?” Fox asked,finally looking away from the TV.
“You’re kicking me out,” Isaid, though I knew that wasn’t strictly accurate. Fox was just… prompting.Pushing me to do what he knew I wanted to do, at the bottom of my heart.
“You’ll always be welcomehere,” he replied seriously, holding my gaze. “But I could live with lessmoping, and if nothing else, you needclosure. Go to him.”
“Yeah.” I said. “Yeah, I… Ineed to.”
“Good man,” Fox said,settling back into the couch and turning his attention—or at least, hiseyes—back to the TV. “Don’t worry about being in late tomorrow.”
Snorting, I grabbed myjacket and headed for the door. “You say that like I worry about it any other day.”
