Gracie & Gray

Chapter 37

G R A C I E

I knew I was the idiot who initiated this conversation.

I was actually doing okay in the beginning. When we were talking about Matty's death. About heaven and hell. About the fate of Lydia's soul. I had wanted to listen to his side of the story because I hoped that, by confronting the past, it might help us heal in the present.

I thought I felt ready to hear the truth, but, damn, thinking it was one thing. Hearing it in real time was another beast altogether. This shit was hurting me more than I ever imagined, and Gray and I weren't even close to being done.

Tears pricked my eyes at the thought of Gray touching Lydia. It made me sick, it made me angry, even though he hadn't been my boyfriend for more than a decade, our history together should've been enough to keep him away from my sister. He should've known better. He should've respected our love even when that love didn't last.

A wave of fury, unlike anything I had ever experienced, unleashed inside me. The force of it caught me by surprise. It felt as though everything that had been simmering, brewing, festering in me over the past few months had, suddenly, come to a boiling point.

My voice trembled with rage when I fired at him, "Why did you kiss her, Gray? Why? She's my fucking sister! My fucking twin! Why did it have to be her?"

Gray gave me a look of utter helplessness as he stammered like a broken record, "I know, I know, I know. I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, Gracie. I fucked up. I know I fucked up."

"Just answer the question," I snapped harshly, "you don't have to apologize anymore. You guys already fucked. Lydia is dead. There's nothing you can say, now, to fix what has already been done."

His face crumbled before me. I felt bad for yelling at him, but I couldn't seem to hold my anger in check.

Gray gave a long, somber pause before answering in a whisper, "I-I think I kissed her because she was your twin. I was pretending she was... you."

It took a second for his admission to sink in.

My head turned towards Gray slowly. "What... the fuck? What kind of fucked up excuse is that?"

I didn't know if this new turn made things better. Or worse.

If Gray had slept with Lydia for Lydia, I could cut him from my heart without reservation. I could move on from all of my previous hang-ups about him without a backwards glance and just focus on our co-parenting relationship for Stevie. It would be a straightforward, black-and-white decision.

If he had slept with Lydia for me, though, the situation became all the more painful and complicated and hard to understand. My decision going forward on how to forgive him, how to handle our relationship as friends and co-parents, would become far more gray and muddled.

It would mean, in a toxic, terrible way, Gray had very well been missing me, loving me, in the same way I had been missing him and loving him. My mind reeled and my heart dropped as though my body was physically unable to accept the enormity of this realization.

"I'm not trying to make excuses," he sighed, "it's the goddamn truth. If I wanted to make myself look better, I wouldn't be honest right now. I would just lie and say that I had been too drunk to realize who I was kissing. But you deserve the truth, and I deserve your anger. That's why I'm telling you all of this shit, even though it's gutting you. And gutting me, too."

Wetness streamed down my face. "Fuck, Gray..."

"I told you, once I found out that Craig was out of your life, I started missing you like crazy. I started hating myself for ever letting you go. And Lydia was... there... and she looked just like you. So, my drunk ass kissed her... wishing... that I could kiss you instead."