Chapter 36
Grayson
I feel like a ghost in my own house.
I’m just passing through it, room to room, task to task, breathing, eating, working, sleeping — if you can call it that, day after day after day. I’m existing in a way that technically counts but doesn’t feel much like living.
The days blur together. Weeks, I think, have passed, but I can’t for certain point to how long it’s been without looking at a calendar and forcing my brain to do math through the sludge that plagues it.
My office downstairs has become command central for a life I no longer want to participate in.
I take meetings there with the camera off.
I approve designs there. I review numbers there.
I ignore calls there. Another designer has taken over Carly’s portion of the NFL line, and I signed off on it with two clicks and no opinion.
Everyone at work has figured out not to ask me questions.
I haven’t shaved in long enough that my jaw feels permanently rough. I haven’t been into my home gym. I haven’t swum laps. I haven’t done much of anything except put one foot in front of the other and make sure Penelope is taken care of.
Even that hasn’t fully been me.
Dana has been helping. More than helping, if I’m being honest.
She’s picked Penelope up from school more afternoons than I have these last few weeks, kept her at the house with Drew and Lucy when I’ve had calls run long, fed her dinner twice, helped me with reinforcing the redirect when Penny starts to get upset about Carly.
It’s more than I deserve, really, considering how I’m doing nothing for Cole and Dana in return.
I’m in my office trying to read an email for the fourth time when I hear the front door open downstairs and Penelope’s voice float down the hall.
“Daddy?”
“He’s in his office, sweetie,” Dana chirps.
I close my laptop and scrub a hand over my face before I stand.
Penelope barrels into the room a second later, ditching her backpack in front of my desk. “Hi,” she grins, climbing straight into my lap and wrapping her arms around my neck.
“Hey, bug.” I kiss the top of her head, wrapping my arm around her tiny body and holding her tight. “You have a good day?”
“Mhm. Mrs. Jensen let us play with clay today.”
“Yeah? What’d you make?”
She grins up at me. “I can show you. It’s in my backpack.”
“You got to bring it home?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’d love to see it.”
Dana appears in the doorway, leans against it with her hip. She takes one look at me and her mouth tightens almost invisibly.
She’s too polite to say you look like hell in front of my daughter. But I can tell she’s thinking it.
“I put the rest of her stuff on the counter,” she says. “She’s got a project due on Monday. There’s a binder with a sheet explaining it, it’s easy.”
“Okay. Thanks, Dana.”
Penelope slides off my lap. “Can I watch Bluey?”
“Sure. I've got a few more emails to respond to, and then I’m all yours.”
She beams and grabs her bag before zooming straight past Dana to the living room. Dana doesn’t move. I already know what that means.
“No,” I say.
One brow lifts. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She sighs exasperatedly. “Grayson.”
“Penelope’s here.” I point through the wall toward the living room. “She’s what matters. I don’t want her overhearing my life shit and spiraling.”
“She’s about to watch Bluey. She’s not paying attention.” Dana crosses her arms over her chest, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. “Talk to me. Please.”
I almost laugh, but instead, I sink back into my chair and look at the half-dead plant on the windowsill. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“That’s bullshit.”
My jaw tenses. “Probably.”
She studies me for a second. “Do you remember what Cole was like when he was drinking?”
That pulls my eyes back to hers. My spine stiffens instantly. “Of course I do.”
Her expression stays calm, too calm. “Okay.”
“I’m not drinking.” The words come out harder than I intend. “If that’s what you think this is, stop. I’m not doing that. Not with Penelope here.”
Dana’s face softens a fraction. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” She steps into the room now, sinking into the chair opposite my desk like she lives here. At this point, she basically does. “I know you’re not getting drunk around your daughter. But I also know there’s more than one way to disappear from your own life.”
That lands. Hard.
From the living room, I can hear Penelope singing the Bluey theme song to herself as it plays in the background, and I try to focus on that to soften the blow.
Dana lowers her voice. “You remember how withdrawn Cole got? How everything narrowed down to the addiction and the shame and the idea that nothing was ever going to get better? He stopped taking care of himself. Stopped showing up. Stopped believing he was worth the effort it took to be better.”
“I remember,” I say quietly. I do. I remember refusing to let him drown. I remember how he broke down on that stupid fishing trip that wasn't ever really about fishing.
Dana folds her arms. “You didn’t give up on him.”
I rub my thumb over the edge of my desk. “That’s different.”
“Why?”
Because it isn’t alcohol that made me feel like a fool. Because it isn’t alcohol that got under my skin and into my home and then vanished, taking the shape of my future with it. Because when Cole lashed out, I knew the enemy was the bottle.
I don’t say any of that, but Dana seems to read half of it anyway.
“You don’t get to stop taking care of yourself because you’re hurt,” she says. “And you don’t get to bury yourself in work and call it coping. Cole had to learn that the hard way.”
I lean back and stare at the ceiling for a second. “I am doing what I can. I have to focus on Penelope and my company and literally anything else because if I don’t, I will focus on Carly, and I learned pretty quickly after Halsey that someone who uses you does not deserve your focus.”
“I don’t think Carly is the type to use someone.”
My jaw tightens. “Dana.”
“What?”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“No,” she says evenly. “But I know you. I know the version of you that helped drag my husband back to himself when everyone else was ready to write him off. And I know you don’t usually get things this wrong, but I think you have, Gray.”
“I can’t risk considering if I’m wrong when Penelope is a part of this,” I mutter.
“I know.” Dana’s voice gentles. “But being hurt doesn’t automatically make you right. You don’t know what was going on behind the scenes.”
I close my eyes. Everybody keeps saying some version of that. Cole. Maddox. Now Dana.
And yet the wound still sits where it sat the night I saw that text.
“She planned to leave,” I say. “I don’t think I got it wrong.”
Dana exhales. “You don’t have to forgive anybody today. You don’t have to fix it today. But… whatever this is, it isn’t you. I know I wasn’t around when you and Halsey split, but Cole was, and he’s never seen you like this.”
My throat works.
I want to tell her I’m fine, that I’m functioning, that Penelope is fed and clothed and safe and loved, and that should count for something.
“I’m tired,” I murmur instead. “I’m tired and I’m trying my fucking best, Dana.”
“I know.”
“I don’t have anything else to give right now.”