Chapter Ten

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The diner erupts with applause, even the waitresses too stunned with Grayson's performance to focus on the fact there's food and drink waiting to be served from the kitchen

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The diner erupts with applause, even the waitresses too stunned with Grayson's performance to focus on the fact there's food and drink waiting to be served from the kitchen.

I sit in the booth too numb to speak—too numb to even react. I never knew how well Grayson could sing, but I also never knew how a simple song rolling from his lips like velvet would have such a hypnotic effect on me. I'm mercy to his words—his lyrics.

I clap my hands together in what feels like slow motion, watching Grayson ambling back to the table with nothing but a smug grin stretched across his goddamn perfect face—of course he's loving the attention.

Grayson slithers back into his seat just as the room finally fades back into its usual hubbub of chatter and laughter. I fold my arms across the glossed table, my eyebrows shooting to the top of my forehead. "So...you never told me you could sing."

I earn a shrug from Grayson. "It's just one of my many talents. Did you like the song?"

Did I like it? I loved it. I stole the lyrics from the air as they hummed into the atmosphere and I stored them in a special place in my mind, my heart gathering the reverberations to lock them away forever. All I could do the whole time this damn man sang karaoke was plead that my frenzied heart didn't abolish me completely and finally.

I guess I just about made it.

"I...loved it," I choke, my words tripping over one another. "It felt, well, personal."

Grayson's smile contorts into a meaningful, sympathetic expression that I can't put my finger on. "It was meant for you," he says quietly, his voice just about projecting over the bumpy music. "I guess sometimes songs have a better way of expressing feelings than actually talking itself does."

I consider his words and agree; music does have a tranquillising way of expressing emotion, sometimes more than words or actions could ever do.

My heart seems to hitch a little. I feel so close to the dangerous line of love again and I'm afraid it could damage everything we're working so hard for at the moment. "I'm glad you did that," I say truthfully. "And I'm also sorry that some of the lyrics are true."

I recall the lyrics, yeah I broke your heart like someone did to mine, over and over again. What I did with Brody seems almost unspeakable now. I broke Grayson's heart not only into two but into a billion. Grayson broke my heart when I found out what he did—not only what I found out but the way I found out. He broke my heart when he disappeared from my life and when I saw that photo of him kissing Delilah—complete sabotage aside.

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