CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
LINA
F or it being a random midnight at Sal’s Diner, it’s oddly busy. And somehow, it still contains mostly football players.
Grant has been talking with different members of the team almost all evening, and while his attention constantly returns to me in between conversations, I see the guilty look on his face every time we make eye contact.
He can’t help it. No matter how many times he tells his teammates to fuck off or that he’s here with his girlfriend, they keep dragging him into conversations, not caring much what he has to say about it.
Personally, I don’t mind. It’s not like Grant is purposefully trying to ignore me. With my newfound interest in proving to myself that I am not dependent on Grant, I’m somewhat grateful for the interruption.
It’s the main reason why I hate the fact that he feels guilty every time he remembers I’m sitting next to him. It makes me wonder if he thinks I expect his undivided attention one hundred percent of the time.
I bring it up the next time he glances over at me. “You know, you don’t have to feel bad for having a conversation with your friends.”
He doesn’t seem shocked by it, which makes me feel better. Then again, I’m not the best at picking up whether the face he’s putting on is a facade or not. That’s part of my emotional literacy manual that is missing, along with anything else involving emotional intuition.
“I know that,” he tells me, sounding honest from what I can decipher. “I just feel bad that I brought you here, and now I’m barely able to talk to you.”
I wave him off. “We have all night to talk, and no offense, but I came here to eat.”
“I’m taking full offense to that,” he teases back playfully, his smile growing as he chews his gum.
“Seriously though,” I say. “I’m not going to be angry at you for talking to your friends, so stop looking over at me like I’m some sort of wounded animal.”
He knows this about me. He knows I’m strong-willed and a little too independent for my own good. It’s one of the reasons he had to work so hard to worm his way into my life.
But just because I’ve given him a spot closest to my heart doesn’t mean I have to give up those parts of myself. I’m not suddenly going to become all soft and mushy just because I’m dating Grant.
I can be held without being hollowed. Just because I’m his doesn’t mean I’ve stopped being mine.
It’s similar to what Savannah had told me last week after my birthday party. My concern about becoming too attached to Grant has really been showing, and I was projecting it onto the situation with Kara.
I didn’t want to feel like I was abandoning my friends for a boyfriend. I also didn’t want to feel like I was abandoning myself for a boyfriend.
She said, “You’re very used to being hyper-independent, which isn’t a bad thing. But just because you’re giving up the tiniest amount of independence to let Grant into your life doesn’t mean you suddenly become dependent on him. He wouldn’t want you to.”
And that’s true. But it’s also true that I haven’t slept a full night without him.
And not because I miss him in some vague, romantic way, but because I physically can’t.
My mind won’t settle. My body won’t rest. It’s like he flipped some invisible switch inside me, and now his presence is the only thing that quiets the static.
So maybe I do need him, at least in that way. And maybe that doesn’t make me any less mine.
“What are you thinking?” Grant asks, noticing the way I’ve been staring at the menu a bit too long.
“Definitely crinkle fries.” I nod strongly, closing the menu.
He gives me a look, because I know that’s not what he was really asking. “Should I just go ahead and order two of my burgers now?”
I roll my eyes at him. So it may have become a bad habit of mine to not order my own burger and instead take a bite of Grant’s. Only for me to then realize I want more. The past couple of times, I’ve eaten the rest of his burger with his approval while he’s gone and ordered another one.
“I don’t want a burger.”
He stands from the booth. “We’ll see about that.”
“I’m serious!” I call as he walks toward the front counter.
A lot of the times when it gets super busy in here, waiters stop making their rounds and instead have you go straight to the counter to order.
On his way back from ordering our food, he gets stopped by a table full of guys. I don’t recognize them, but I assume they’re talking about football.
I don’t mind talking about football. In fact, I’ve made a great attempt to do so because I know how important it is to him. A lot of his teammates, however, automatically assume that girlfriends don’t like talking about that stuff.
They single me out just like that. Honestly, that bothers me more than not having all of Grant’s attention.
When he returns to the booth, sliding into the bench across from me, the smile on my face tells me he’s still trying to make up for everything he believes he’s doing wrong.
“Stop.” I point a finger at him.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.” I narrow my eyes on him. “I know you’re a softie, but don’t paint me to be some clingy girlfriend.”
He lifts his hands in mock surrender. “Sue me for inviting my girlfriend to dinner and actually wanting to talk to her.”
The way Grant speaks to me is like I’m the chorus and he’s the verse. I’m well aware that he tries to make me the center of it all, but I’m a firm believer that the verse is usually the best part of a song.
“Really? You actually want to talk to me?” I press a hand to my cheek in jest. “I thought you were just pretending to like me.”
“I would have only ordered one burger if I was only pretending to like you.”
My face heats the slightest bit. I told him not to order an extra, but he understands me well enough to know when I’m being stubborn and prideful.
Our drinks are dropped off at the edge of the table by a server who’s clearly overwhelmed and already walking away. I snag the two glasses before they spill and pass Grant his root beer.
“I have something to give you,” he then says, digging into the back pocket of his jeans.
Right then, another guy on the team approaches our booth, slapping Grant on the shoulder and greeting him with, “Vandenberg!”
His eyes narrow in a scold. I can see it the second he looks over his shoulder to see who has a hold on him.
“Man, I’m here with my girlfriend,” he says in a tense voice. “Can’t I have five minutes to talk to her?”
The guy—someone from the starting roster, whose name I don’t know—laughs as if he’s joking. “C’mon, bro, we’re all going to the bar after this. You in?”
Grant’s jaw ticks. He glances at me, then back at the guy. “I’ll let you know. Seriously though, give me a minute, alright?”
He scoffs, finally getting the hint and backing off, but not without muttering something about Grant being whipped under his breath.
Neither of us reacts to it.
“What do you have to give me?” I ask before adding, “My birthday was last week.”
He already got me a gift. On top of the party he threw, he also got me a two-sided locket.
It looked expensive. One side of the locket has a sword engraved in it, while the other looks more like a traditional heart-shaped locket.
When I opened it, he told me it was inspired by the Greek goddess, Athena.
I talk of Greek mythology quite a bit, and he picked up on how I like Athena, in the same way he does everything else.
I’m not sure there’s anything less beautiful than the goddess of war and battle also being the goddess of weaving beautiful tapestries.
She embodies the duality of women, and it’s exactly what Grant likes to encourage within me.
As he put it on me, he said, “You don’t ever have to choose between the sword and the heart. You can choose both.”
He understands me like no other, and there’s no other gift that would quite suffice.
Now, in Sal’s Diner, Grant holds his hand out as if what he’s handing me is as simple as a chocolate bar.
“What is this?” I ask, taking the metal in my hand.
“You know what it is.”
“Of course I know it’s a key. But why are you giving it to me?”
“It’s a key to my apartment, Eva.”
I bite on my bottom lip, and if it weren’t for Grant reaching across the table to pull it free, I likely would have drawn blood.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I say, looking back up at him.
I’m not sure what’s normal for this stage of our relationship. I’m not sure what’s considered too fast or too slow.
“I’m giving you a key for the same reason anyone else gives someone a key,” he says, as if it’s that simple.
“So I can break in and watch you sleep?” I try to joke, but my voice doesn’t back it. I sound more afraid than anything.
“You’re always next to me when I sleep,” he deadpans.
“Grant, I don’t need this.”
“Why do you say that?”
Again, trying to lighten the mood, I say, “Because you never lock your door anyway.”
Grant doesn’t laugh. He just watches me. Really watches me. I know he can see past all the sarcasm and the jokes I try to deflect with.
“That’s not why you said it.”
I purse my lips, thrown for a second. “What?”
“You said you don’t need the key, but that’s not what you meant by it,” he rephrases. “You’re not worried about not using it. You’re scared of taking it.”
Suddenly, I’m really hoping our food shows up soon. The key is still in my hand, but it feels much heavier now.
“I’m not an overthinker,” I remind him. “But I also don’t want to take this step without thinking about it at all.”
Because what does a key mean? That he wants me to move in? Invade all his personal space? Be at his place more than mine?
It’s what’s been gnawing at me for weeks now. “I don’t want to look up one day and realize I’ve been living in your life and not mine.” Or vice versa.
And while I know Grant has been subtly trying to assure me that that is not the case, this is the first time I’ve said anything about the matter out loud.
Our relationship is moving faster than any other I’ve had before, and I know it’s because I care about Grant more than I ever did about Gage.
We’re moving forward because I’m pedaling the bike that is our relationship just as hard as he is.
Nobody’s dragging the other forward, or begging the other to keep going.
I’m not trying to keep up or slow down, and it’s a position I’ve never been in before, so I’m scared.
His expression softens in that way that tells me he’s listening—not just waiting for his turn to talk.
“You’re not taking over my life,” he tells me strongly. “You’re a part of it. This key isn’t meant to pressure you—it’s giving you access. It’s a door you can open whenever you want. Or not.”
I glance back down at the key, and when I look back up at him, my eyes are filling with tears. “I love you,” the words fall from my mouth.
It’s a key. A quiet gesture.
But Grant has proven that the only thing he’s ever wanted is for me to live my life like I want to. Not what I assume is normal , but what feels true.
He’s shown me that love doesn’t have to swallow you whole to mean something. It doesn’t have to ruin you or take away parts of you.
It was something I believed about intimacy—about love. That in order to feel it fully, it meant sacrificing something of myself.
I’m not sacrificing anything with Grant. I’m only becoming more of who I already was.
And I love him.
I know I love him because he’s the only one who has enough of me to break my heart without ever laying a cruel hand on it.
The only one who could ruin me without ever meaning to, without ever doing anything unforgivable.
Because he has me—has had me—in all the quiet, unseen ways that matter. The spaces no one else bothered to look for.
The pieces of me I didn’t even realize I was offering until it was too late. He doesn’t have to lie or cheat to wreck me in the same way Gage did.
All he has to do is leave.
All he has to do is not choose me , and it would feel like the end of the world.
“I love you too,” Grant says easily, as if he’s been waiting for the moment where he’s able to. “I don’t love you despite anything. I love you because of everything. All the sharp, brilliant, documentary, and Greek-mythology-loving parts of you—they’re ones I’ll never let go of.”
He pauses, letting the truth in his words settle like how the lake house settles early in the morning. The same way he settles beside me every night and into the day with me.
“This key?” he adds, nodding toward my hand. “It’s just the start. I’d give you everything if you asked. That’s how much I love you.”
It doesn’t feel like the end of the world. It feels like a breath of fresh air. Here in this diner, I finally feel myself again.
And I’m sure some people would say that I love him to death.
But in reality, I think he’s loved me back to life.