I clenched my fingers to stop the impulse to take the phone right back. To hand over the words that had haunted me for the last two years to the man whose admiration and affection I most craved seemed like insanity. It was like personally delivering evidence of why he should rethink whatever he felt for me.
But there was no going back now.
His brows slowly bunched together. “Chase. Is that your ex?”
I couldn’t form words, even one as simple asyes, so I just nodded.I was the CEO of a tech app, and Grant was the person I most needed to believe me confident and capable, but my entire body was starting to shake.
“And this is what you’re always looking at?” He still didn’t look at me. Of course he didn’t. He must be disgusted.
“Whenever I need the reminder.”
“What reminder?” His head came up.
It took me a few seconds to answer. I tried for a light tone when I responded. “That I’m too much. Or not enough. I don’t know. That I’m just not built for relationships.”
The corners of his mouth turned down, and he looked at the phone screen again, that bright white banner assuring him that his feelings for me would change, like Chase’s had.
“When I got my first scathing review, I threw up,” he said. “And then I reread it. Over and over. Probably fifty times. I can still quote some of the lines, all these years later.Grant Wilder is as much a journalist as the person writing a Play-Doh instruction manual.” He smiled wryly, head still lowered so I couldn’t see his eyes. “Sometimes when I’m writing an article and it’s not coming together like I want, those phrases will pop to the forefront of my brain.” His head came up, and his eyes rested on me.
“This wasn’t a review from some stranger, Grant. This was someone I was in a relationship with. Someone who once said he loved me.”
He nodded, reaching up a hand to the piece of hair he’d tucked behind my ear. “I know. I’ve had someone stop loving me too, Vivian. Getting left behind like that hurts in a way nothingelse does. My point is that it’s painfully easy to believe the people who confirm our worst fears about ourselves.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. My eyes were full and my lungs in the grip of some emotional vice.
Grant’s hand dropped slowly, returning to my phone. He tapped out of the message, then swiped left on the thread with Chase. The garbage can icon appeared.
He handed the phone to me.
I stared at Chase’s name and the trash icon for what felt like hours. I wanted to delete it. Ishoulddelete it.
But my finger hovered. If I put that message in the trash, there’d be nothing tethering me to the caution that had been keeping me safe. There’d be no reminder not to fall. No warning. No safety net.
Chase’s words might be emblazoned on my mind, but memories faded and failed, and with Grant, it had become more obvious than ever how easy it would be to ignore something less solid than this text.
Grant took my face in his hands. “Vivian.”
I raised my gaze to his.
“Don’t let a man who didn’t have the capacity to appreciate one of the best things about you pull you down even a second longer.”
I blinked quickly, struggling to maintain eye contact as salty tears burned and pooled in mine.
Grant leaned in and pressed a light, deliberate kiss to my right cheek.
I shut my eyes and inhaled slowly, focusing on the feel of his lips against my skin and the smell of his cologne.
He pulled back, looked at me for a second, then turned and left.
I let out a rickety breath and stared at the message from Chase again.
It felt different now looking at it. Less stark, like letting Grant see my secret shame had sapped it of its potency.
Maybe it had.
Maybe the type of pain Grant talked about—the kind you felt when someone confirmed your fears—thrived in secret.
My thumb hovered over the trash can icon, and finally, I tapped it.
