CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
She inhales sharply, sounding annoyed with me, and it makes me stiffen. In the same way I’m not good at reading people’s emotions, I’m not good at handling conflict either.
Not when it’s not my decision. Not when I’m to blame.
“I get that you guys are still upset with me over not calling you in the hospital. It’s fair?—”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Kara stands from my bed. “It has never been about you not calling us in the hospital, Lina.”
My brows furrow. “What?”
“You’ve never told us fully what happened when your mom died.
You didn’t even tell us that Gage cheated on you.
We only figured it out when he showed up here, begging for you to talk to him while he knocked relentlessly.
” She throws her hands up. “I get it, you don’t want to talk about that stuff, but not sleeping?
Waking up and going on runs without telling anyone?
Do you know how dangerous that is? And you didn’t tell any of us that you were even struggling. It completely blindsided us.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” I tell her honestly. “I was so desperate to get back to normal when I came back. It was bad enough that I had to take a whole year off because of how unstable I was. I didn’t need you guys thinking you had to worry about me when I came back.”
“We were going to worry about you regardless!” she shouts, lowering her voice when she realizes how fired up she’s gotten.
“You went through the hardest time of your life, Lina. Of course we were going to worry about you. It was never anything more than friendly concern, but now you’ve turned it into more than that. All of us are scared now.”
“Kara—”
“We’re scared of you leaving the apartment in the middle of the night to go running. We’re scared of something happening to you. We’re scared that we were so oblivious to all the ways you were struggling, and now it’s too hard to come back from.”
“You weren’t oblivious,” I tell her. “I didn’t want you guys to know.”
“We’ve been taking turns sleeping on the couch, you know? That’s why Grant is here tonight. He found out about it at lunch the other day and wanted to take a shift.”
I stare at her, my chest tightening as my stomach sinks. “You guys don’t need to do that.”
It hadn’t occurred to me until now that I’ve been pulling the three of them—my best friends—under with me. I thought I had it all under control. Perfectly contained. Seeing how that isn’t the case makes me feel sick.
Have I really been this selfish? Without even realizing?
“Your not wanting to do anything about things that are negatively impacting your life is no longer only negatively impacting your life, okay?” She pauses, taking a long breath before her blue eyes land on me with a newfound softness.
“I’m sorry if this feels like an intervention.
Mer, Eden, and I played rock paper sisters to see who was going to have to lay on the tough love. ”
“No,” I stop her from apologizing. “Thank you, Kar. Really. It’s what I needed to hear.”
“Okay, good.” She lets out a long, relieved noise before heading to the door, but as she reaches for the knob, she pauses and turns back toward me. “Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“I know that you had Grant built up as an enormous asshole in your head before all of this, and after your first interaction, I don’t exactly blame you.
But could you at least give him a fighting chance?
He’s been doing everything he can think of to try and help you.
And, honestly? I think he’s the only one out of all of us who has even the slightest idea of what you’re going through. ”
“I’ll think about it.” Because if it won’t be for Grant, it will be for my best friends.
Despite how much it may ruin my pride.
“Goodnight, Lina.”
“Goodnight, Kar.”
The door shuts behind her, and after another few minutes of staring at my ceiling in the dark, I have a moment of deja vu when there’s another knock on my bedroom door.
This time, though, the person on the other side waits for me to say, “Come in,” before entering.
I already knew it was going to be Grant based on that fact. Yet, seeing him standing in the doorway of my bedroom, the light of the living room illuminating him from behind, twists my stomach in a way I don’t expect.
And I would guess he feels the same, based on the way he awkwardly shifts his weight from one foot to the other and then runs his hand through his hair.
“Can I help you?” I jokingly ask, flicking on my bedside lamp once again.
He tilts his head, giving me a look like, shouldn’t I be asking you that?
“Well, either come in or don’t,” I add awkwardly. It’s usually easy for me to be snippy with Grant. Not right now, though.
Not when I’ve been given glimpses of all the ways he’s desperate to help me. My biggest concern is that he thinks there’s something in it for him, and until I can figure out what that possibly could be, I can’t fully trust him in the way he and everyone else wants me to.
“Are you going to sleep?” he asks, taking another step forward.
I sigh. “I’m trying to, but I keep getting interrupted.”
Grant gives me a skeptical look. He knows I’m lying.
“Listen.” He shuts the door behind him, closing off my friends, who are no doubt eavesdropping from the living room.
“I get it. You don’t trust me, but Lina, I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything.
If you want to keep being a bitch to me, go ahead.
It doesn’t bother me. All I care about is making sure nothing like what happened before happens again. ”
“What happened to you being an asshole?” I groan, sinking further into my pillow. “You can’t come in here telling me you don’t care if I continue to treat you like shit when you’ve all of a sudden become the nice guy.”
I feel absolutely awful that my gut reaction is to be mean to Grant. I hate that I assumed what kind of guy he was on first instinct all because I was still fucked up over what happened to me a year ago.
Yet, I can’t wrangle my emotions long enough to change the way I respond to him.
Because he knocks my brain off balance, tipping it every other way every time we talk.
Like some kind of emotional rollercoaster.
I can barely keep up with my emotions as it is, let alone when they’re tossing and turning all over the place.
And it’s all my fault. Because I can’t bear the idea of trusting people when I’m in these kinds of vulnerable positions. Because I’m so emotionally detached that I can’t truly determine whether someone means what they say.
It all makes it impossible for me to trust him, and I hate the fact that I’m punishing him for the wounds that someone else inflicted.
I read somewhere once about how octopuses have nine brains—one central and one for each tentacle.
Yet, when they’re stressed, each system can begin to individually shut down.
They stop exploring and start retreating.
It makes me wonder if that’s what I’ve been doing.
If I’ve been shutting down piece by piece every time someone gets too close.
“I’m not trying to become the nice guy here, Lina.” He looks pained, his expression desperately trying to work its way off his face. “I just—there’s something keeping me from letting this go.”
“Does it have to do with your mom?” I ask outright.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not trying to make this about me.”
“Alright,” I say. I’m not going to pressure him to talk about his mom when I’ve spent the better part of a year trying not to even think about mine. “So what did you really come in here for?”
“I just want you to know that I’m not trying to help you from a place of pressure or pity. This is serious to me, Lina, and I want to help.”
“Grant—”
“I’m not trying to sound dense. I know that my bed isn’t magical and all of that shit I might have been making it seem like.
I’m just saying, there are psychological studies that have proven sleeping next to someone can give you a better sense of security and can better your chance at getting the sleep you need.
I’ve caught onto your love of facts and logical explanations, so there’s one for you. ”
It’s also a known fact that you are at your most unguarded state when asleep—probably why people long for the feeling of safety.
Dolphins only let half of their brain sleep at a time so they can stay alert, avoiding that vulnerability. I think I’ve been attempting to do the same.
But I’ve also come to realize that Grant is more of a protector than Gage ever was. It’s in his wiring. Less of a choice and more of an instinct. Like keeping people safe—constantly running damage control—keeps him more at ease than doing nothing.
There has to be a reason why Grant is the first person I’ve been able to sleep next to since Gage.
Maybe it’s because even though I’m not sure whether I can fully trust him, something in my subconscious must recognize that Grant doesn’t just sit and watch from the other side of the glass. He steadies it before it shatters.
Which is why I say, “I’ll consider it. Again.”
“That’s all I ask.” Then, he paces a few times before reaching the door. “Try to get some rest.”
And then he’s gone, retreating back into the living room, where I know he’ll stay for the night.