***THIS IS A DIFFERENT VERSION OF CH. 36!! It's the continuing part after ch. 35. I've had many readers not be happy with the chapter, so I took it down and this is the rewritten version that gives you more depth into the situation Grace is in. This chapter follows weeks after Christmas and the progression of Will and how Grace deals with it.
SONG: 'Hollow' by Tori Kelly***
Grace
—One Week Before—
"I really wish you guys weren't leaving today," pouts Vivien as she adds another pancake to my already growing stack. I let out a chuckle as I grab the syrup bottle from off the middle of the table and pours the sticky liquid all over my pancakes, drowning them.
Using my knife and fork, I cut into the stack of six, pulling out a huge piece and putting in my mouth. A low man escapes past my lips as I chew the taste of the food absolutely delicious. If this is Vivien's way of getting us to stay, I might never want to leave.
I stop eating the moment I hear something crash to the floor with a loud thud. It comes from the hallway, near the stairs that lead to the bedrooms. Dropping my fork and knife onto the plate I race out of the dining room and to the hallway, where my eyes land on what had fallen. It was two suitcases—my suitcases to be exact.
It doesn't take me long to scan the area and find Will standing up at the top of the stairs, cheeks flushed red in embarrassment.
My eyebrows scrunch together. "What happened?"
Will shrugs, laughing nervously while scratching the back of his neck. "...Well... I tripped."
For some reason, that didn't feel like the truth. I study his face and notice that he wasn't looking at me—actually, he was trying to look anywhere but me—and he still hasn't shaven the scruff that has now turned into a beard off. He was twitchy and had a goofy smile on his face, but I let it go. Bending down I pick up my suitcases and roll them over to the front door before returning back to the dining room to finish my breakfast, which was now cold.
Will follows in behind shortly after I've sat down. He doesn't come over to the table, but instead to the sink, where he grabs a glass out of the rack and fills it with water from the tap. Leaning against the counter while he chugs down his water, he taps his feet on the ground.
As I'm almost done my breakfast I remember that Will needs to take his medication that the doctor had prescribed when he was allowed to leave the hospital six days ago. They were for pain if Will had any, and I knew he did because he complains about in the middle of the night when I'm sleeping and wake me up.
"Will, did you take your medication?" I ask as he's about to leave the room. He spins around on his heel, almost knocking into the wall as he did, and looks at me, nodding.
"I did, this morning." That's his only answer before he's gone, racing back the stairs. As he did it leaves me confused.
Why would someone who complains so much about having pain be able to do so much?
*
—Week Two—
"Hey, Will!" I shout from my place in the kitchen in our apartment, my hands on an almost empty bottle of my boyfriend's medication. My eyebrows knit together in confusion, not understanding how there's like fifteen tablets left in the container when we just got back from Will's grandparent's place about a week and half ago.
When I don't get an answer back like I expected, I walk out of the kitchen and into the living room where I find Will spiraled out on the couch, tangled in the blanket that he's covered in. A small smile tugs at my lips at the sight of him, but the worry I feel deep down inside doesn't go away.
Shoving the bottle of pills into the back pocket of my jeans I bend down and pick up the part of the blanket that's fallen to the floor and toss it back onto him. Though, when I do, Will starts to stir in his sleep, eyelids fluttering open suddenly and then he's sitting up. This action causes me to let out a little squeak in fright and jump back a good three feet.
"Will...?" I question, wanting to reach out to him but too afraid to. He's breathing is heavy, lungs having to heave in oxygen and he's covered in a thick layer of sweat I hadn't noticed earlier. His eyes dart up to look at me, a wild glint in them and for some reason I start slowly backing away from the couch—and him.
This time, the wild glint is replaced with a look of confusion that appears as I start walking away from him. He begins to get up and off the couch, throwing the blanket off of him. I watch from where I stand ten feet away, only a step away from knocking into the television. As he gets closer to me I'm saved by the phone ringing.
I glance between him and the phone and it seems like he knows what I'm about to do as we both lunge for the phone at the same time, but I'm quicker and have longer arms. My hand wraps around it, my thumb hitting the 'TALK' button on the phone and pressing it to my ear, not bothering to check caller I.D.
"Hello?" I answer right when it's about to go to voicemail.
"Grace?" It's Kimberly on the other end and I let out a sigh of relief. Carefully, using the table that's place at the end of the couch by the arm of it as a stabilizer to help me up off my knees, I stand up.
In the corner of my eye I see Will looking at me, arms crossed over his chest. He sees me watching him and mouths, "Who are you talking to?"
I roll my eyes at him, "Hi, Kim." My annoyed tone of voice earns me a glare from my boyfriend as he storms out of the living room, mumbling something under his breath that I didn't catch onto. I have the urge to give him the finger and tell how much of drama queen he was being but keep my inner thoughts to myself.
"Okay... what's with the weird voice—wait! My spidey senses are tingling! Are you in Will in a fight?" She assesses correctly and I tilt my head to the side, thinking about for a second and then nodding my head.
"Something like that," I grumble bitterly, heading out of the living room and back into the kitchen where I place Will's medication back in the cabinet beside the fridge. For some reason, in my head, I keep repeating the number fifteen, not wanting to forget it.
As I'm about to ask Kim why she called when Will comes walking into the kitchen, dressed in a pair of jeans and a hoodie. He strolls right past me, like he didn't even notice that I was literally standing right in front of him, and grabs his car keys off the hook near the door.
"Where are you going?"I ask him as he's about to shut the door and all I get as a response is: Out. Great, I'm being ignored. "Hey, Kim areyou busy right now?"
***
"Grace... What exactly are you telling me?" Kim asks once I've told her everything that's been going on with Will. We were both seated down at a table in a place called 'Little Cafe' that was two blocks away from my apartment.
I pick at my scone, tearing pieces of it off. "I-I don't know. All I do know is that something is wrong with him and I don't know what." My eyes begin to sting as tears begin to form and I wipe them away with the back of my hand once they fall.
"Oh, sweetie," Kim coos, grabbing my hand with hers, giving it a tight squeeze. "This must be tough—no, it is tough—and I'm sorry. Here, maybe if you try to put the pieces together of what you've noticed that might help, yeah?"
I nod, biting my bottom lips as I try to remember. "...Well, he's been more tired lately, sleeping in past the alarm and just barely making it to work on time. Will's usually so upbeat, you know? Now... now, it's like he's not even there. Oh! And he's been drinking lots more water at first I thought was because the doctor told him to keep hydrated, but it's kind of getting ridiculous."
Kim's lips purse in thought and she gives me sympathetic look. "I know you don't want to hear this, Grace, but as you're friend I'm going to tell you, okay?"
"Okay...?" I agree, hesitant.
"So," she begins, "I had this boyfriend one time, and it sounds a lot like your situation. At the beginning of the relationship, he was fine. Good. Dandy. But then something change; he went through a bit of a rough patch—and when I say 'rough patch' I mean rough patch—and it was brutal. I won't get into details about it, but let's just say he was thirsty all the time and would come home at dawn. This one time, when I was in search of a pain killer because it was that time of the month and I couldn't find any... the next day, I find him—Matt—face-first on the ground in my apartment near death. I take him to the hospital and they tell he had overdosed on pain meds."
"What you're telling me is..." I couldn't even finish what I was going to say, my closing up. I didn't want to think about what Kim had just told, but I knew it was going to stick with me for the rest of the day, haunting me.
Kim looks me dead in the eye. "... What I'm trying to tell you Grace is that your boyfriend might be abusing his pain meds."
And a little part of dies at her words as theysink in.
*
—Week Three—
Without Will knowing, I begin to keep track of his pain meds, and so far he's only been taking one every day. Since my discussion with Kimberly the other week, I've been taking note of Will's every move—well, not every move.
This week his mood has changed drastically, going from grumpy to upbeat and it was startling. He started getting up in the morning, taking care in personal hygiene, and for once in weeks has he finally shaven off his beard. (I was exactly a big fan of it, if you couldn't tell.)
At night he cooks dinner for the both of us, leaving me to relax on the couch and watch episode of Scandal on Netflix. It was absolutely wonderful and for a minute I thought everything would go to hell in a hand basket when he got a phone call from his father, stating that he was retiring. The news was very shocking to everyone.
"What did he want?" I had asked him that night while were cuddling on the couch, watching some movie.
He had shrugged, acting like it was nothing, but the big, goofy grin on face said otherwise. "...He, ugh, wants me take over the business."
Things were good... for about two weeks, but then, in the middle of February it all took a turn for the worst.
*
—Two Months—
It was a cold night in February, the snow just beginning to melt leaving the ground a wet mess and my shoes soaked in water. I had just come home, entering into the apartment when I'm slammed into the wall. For a second I had thought it was some intruder, but no, it was only Will. I stare wide-eyed at my boyfriend, my heart pounding harder inside of my chest. He didn't make any move to let me go, which only made me panic.
If he didn't move in the next minute or two, I was bound to have an anxiety attack.
"Where the hell were you!?" He shouts angrily, staring me right in the eye.
"A-At Kimberly's," I stutter, finding it harder to breath as his arm pressed against my throat, choking me.
"Tell me the goddamn truth, Grace!" He demands, not believing me.
"I am!" I yell back, bringing my arms up and using all my strength to push him away from me. He stumbles back a couple of feet, but I could care less and I slide down the wall, curling my knees up to my chest, cradling them as I rock back and forth to calm myself.
He tries to come near me, but I scream, "Don't fucking come near me!"
"Don't touch me," I mumble when he's about to place his hand on my shoulder, but I recoil, flinching. Tears begin to prick in my eyes and I grab my bag that I had let fall to the ground when Will had shoved me against the wall. I run straight for the bathroom, locking the door behind me.
Taking a seat near the toilet, wanting to be nowhere near the door when Will starts pounding on it, asking for me to come out as he apologizes, I let the tears I had been holding back fall. With a blurry vision I search my bag for my phone, fumbling with it and sending a quick text to Kimberly telling her what's going on. She replies instantly, telling me she'll be here any minute.
Until then, until Kim gets here, I stay locked in the bathroom with my hands over my ears as I try to tune out the sound of the loud knocking on the door and Will's shouting. Twenty minutes later, Kimberly's here, and I only open the door for her, locking it when she's in the bathroom with me.
She hugs me and Icollapse in her arms.
*
—Four Months—
Staring at the clock, watching as the hands ticked by, I contemplate on whether I should pick up the phone and call him. Though, I had already done that about ten times, always getting his voicemail. I promised myself I wouldn't be one of those girlfriends who obsess over where their boyfriends go and what time they'll be back, but it was currently two a.m. and I can't take it any longer.
I needed to know where he was and if he was okay. Having an anxiety disorder didn't exactly help with the situation at hand—it made everything worse. Every time I went to think of positive thoughts, they were clouded over by negative ones, filling my brain and leaving me with a gnawing worry in my stomach that only grows bigger by the second.
This wasn't the first time Will's done something like this on me. Ever since we got back from his grandparents and he'd been recovering, something had changed. Maybe it was the stress of taking up more responsibility at work, or maybe it was just life in general. But whatever it was I wish it would just stop so I could my Will back.
Pacing the living room, walking from one side to the other in slow strides with the phone pressed to my chin, I go back and forth. I give myself a limit—a time—and when the clock strikes the certain number I'll call.
It might be his number, or the police's.
But I was sick of this—sick of feeling worried all the time; of thinking he might be dead in a ditch somewhere. At first, back in January I had ignored his odd behaviour, thinking it was just the pain killer he was taking. But then January turned into February, and something strange happened where he became ... happy? Was that even the right word? More like bright and excited of the world.
He took a turn for the worse in March when he suddenly stopped shaving, growing out a beard and defending himself by saying, "Everyone's doing, it babe." Oh, and he also started calling me 'babe' instead of Gracie, and when he did call me Gracie it felt like it had in middle school; like how the boys would tease me and call me sick names.
It was no longer a cute nickname my boyfriend had decided to call me one day. It was, however, a bad excuse to push aside his horrible, childish behaviour. He used it when he wanted me to do something for him or when he 'apologized' after coming home late.
At some point, without really realizing I was doing it, I'd go to the fridge and count how many beer bottles where in the casing. And each time I saw Will take one, taking notice that it was the middle of the afternoon, I'd go and see how many were left. By the end of the week there would only be four or two left in a group of twelve.
When the clock strucks three I punch in the number I had grown to know by heart and press the phone to my ear, hearing it ring. Please, pick up. Pick up, pick up, pick up. There was this constant mantra I say to myself in my head every time I went to call him, scared to death I get his voice mail.
Just when I think he's actually picked up, I get the rest of the message that followed after the: "Hey, it's Will."
"Hey, it's Will. Sorry, I couldn't answer the phone—leave a message at beep and I'll try to get back to you later." The beep comes three seconds, and I'm letting a huff of air in frustration, the sucking in air, preparing myself to leave, yet another message for him that he most likely won't listen to.
"Will, it's me, Grace—you know, your girlfriend. I'm really worried and if you don't call me in the next twenty minutes—and I swear to God if your phone is dead or turned off—I'm going to the police—" before I could finish what I was going to say, the door to the apartment flies opens and closes with a loud slam.
I spin around on my heel, eyes widening at the sight before me. Standing only thirty feet away from me is Will, hair an unruly mess, eyes bloodshot, and stumbling around as he tried to take off his jacket. Racing over to him, shouting his name and wrapping my arms around him once I'm close enough, I pull him into me.
He lets out a groan, patting my back after taking a moment to realize it was me, "Hi'ya, G-Grace."
When I'm about to bury my head into the crook of his neck, all the worry I had felt disappears in the blink of an eye, replaced with rage. The first scent that hits me is Vodka and then the sweet smell of Lavender perfume that his shirt was practically drenched in. Stepping away from Will, I push him away, crossing my arms.
"Where the hell have you been?" I snap and he looks taken back by the harshness of my tone. "Answer me damnit!"
"Club," he hiccups, and then not a second later is he throwing up all over the floor. With him bent off I see the back of his jacket, which is coated in glitter. Once he's done puking, being nice enough at the moment to give him time to hurl his guts out, I grab onto his shoulders and back him up until his back hits the wall.
"W-What are you doing, Gracie?" He asks like a small child as I drop down and start patting his jean pockets. My hands graze the left, pulling out his wallet and undoing the zipper, counting the cash that was inside of it. As I'm counting, I find a card with a name of strip club printed out on the front of it.
Angrily, I chuck the wallet at Will's chest, watching as it falls into the pile of puke. We both do; but as it hits the floor, Will roars, "That's Italian leather, you bitch! Do you know how expensive that shit is?!"
I stare back at him, wide-eyed and shocked. I could've cried—I wanted too—but the urge to hit him was so much stronger. My body running on a fuel hot, red, and burning fury I raise my hand and slap him hard across the face. Being confident I take a step forward, remembering the words my mom had taught me about never bending down to a man, even one you love, and grabbing him the collar of his shirt.
"Don't. Ever. Call. Me. A. Bitch. Ever. Again," I growl out, speaking one word out at time, forming them slowly so he'd understand. "Now, where the hell were you William Reed and don't you dare lie to me because you won't like what I'll do."
I could see the fear in his eyes as he spoke, "At a strip club ... with Jordan."
Jordan. The sound of his name being spoken has warning bells going off in my brain, causing me to go on auto polite as I take a closer look at Will. I begin to remember everything since we've got back in January. The moodiness, changes in behaviour, red, bloodshot eyes. It all began when we got back and Will started taking pain meds...
... But maybe they weren't just pain meds he had been taking.
I fall away from him, not being able to feel anything but disgust towards Will. There's this little, tiny part of my brain that tells me this is the man I love, the man I shouldn't hate. But at this moment I realize something that I should've months ago. The man standing in front of me was no longer the bright, blue eyed, handsome, and cheerful man I had fallen in love with but instead a darker, twisted, and revolting stranger who took his place.
The worse part of it all? I had let this stranger walk all over me, ignored all the signs, and became the naive girlfriend.
I wasn't just ashamed of Will, but myself as well.
There wasn't anything else I could think of but getting out of here, away from here—away from him. I couldn't—wouldn't—be with a man who was like this. I've seen and handled broken people all my life, and although I love Will, that man in the doorway is not him.
Was it so selfish of me for wanting to be happy and not having to deal with another mess for once?
I go to bed that night alone, like I've been doing for the past month. I lock the door to the bedroom, not wanting Will to come sneaking in here at some point when he's supposed to be sleeping on the couch. Before going to bed I hand him some fresh clothes and his toothbrush, making sure he had everything before getting wrapping myself in the covers.
Sleep doesn't come though, like I wanted it too. I toss and turn the rest of the night, only getting about two hours of sleep. Waking up in terrible mood when the alarm clock goes off, I skip the shower and ditch breakfast, not having much of an appetite.
When I walk out into the hallway later that afternoon, having slept in, I find there to be no body lying on the couch, the blankets folded neatly in a pile, and sticky note stuck to the top of them. Picking it up, my heart falls to the pit of my stomach as I heard it, my eyes stinging as tears begin to form.
"Grace, I need to go. I don't know where, but I need to leave. I'll see you tonight." – Will.
What happened to my break? Was I the only one in the relationship that was supposed to care and hold the both of us together? No. The answer is fucking no! Tearing the sticky note in small pieces and wiping the tears away I storm back into the bedroom, stopping to grab garbage bags from under the kitchen sink.
In the bedroom I head to the closet and start ripping Will's shit from off the hangers and shoving them into garbage bags, hoping this would make myself feel better. But when an hour has passed and I've found myself sitting at the edge of the bed, pillow pressed to my chest, feeling sorry for myself I hear my phone start to buzz.
Crawling to my side of the bed and grabbing my phone off the nightstand, I click on the notification that's present. It's a text message from Samantha.
A piece of my heart told me I could forgive Will, that we could make it through this. But that's until I read Samantha's text, clicking on the picture attached to her message. At first, I didn't want to believe what I saw, that this was a lie. For some strange reason, though, I didn't cry.
In that picture, sitting in the back what was probably a bar, was Will, smiling like a goof and his arm swung over the shoulders of mystery woman. She was leaned in close, her lips by his ear, whispering something to him by the looks of it. He was obviously very intrigued by the way his eyes were locked with hers, filled with lust.
In the text message, Samantha explained to me what was going on. It wasn't the facts that Will had cheated on me that made me angry and go into the room we shared and chuck the picture of the two of us at the wall, glass shattering and scattering onto the floor in tiny pieces. It was the fact that he made time to go hang out with his sister when he couldn't even give me the time of day.
It was the simple fact that I hadn't felt wanted by the man who said he loved me. It's the fact that for three damn months I've been putting up with his shit, letting him do whatever he wants, and he goes and does this – leaving me behind and treating me like garbage.
Of course I was pissed off, but only for a while.
Reality came knocking on my door two weeks later and there stood Kimberly, one paper brown bag in her hand filled with take-out and the other with a grocery bag, that had a bunch of scotch tape, permanent markers, and tissue paper inside of it.
We ate Chinese food in between filling boxes with my stuff. Kimberly didn't ask anything about my current situation, and decided to just keep talking about herself, which I was grateful for. She talked about how Hayden had asked her out, to which I replied with a dramatic sigh and congratulating her on her new relationship. She apologized for talking about her relationship, and how it was going to fantastic for her, but I just waved it off.
After spending half the day packing my stuff – which wasn't a lot – into boxes, we loaded up a moving van. Kimberly had asked me a week before, while we were planning this, if I had somewhere to stay. I told her I had already been looking at places to live. She said I was welcome to stay with her, but I declined, explaining how Frederick had left with an inheritance – which I gave a half to Samantha for Christmas.
I was left with two million dollars and I was going to use it. I quit my job, letting David take over. At the end of the day, after everything was done, the only thing for me to do was tell Will goodbye. He didn't deserve it, really. It wasn't in person that I told him I had left, instead I wrote it all down in a two page long letter.
It wasn't soon after that the media caught hold of our breakup, and that's when a couple of men in black, holding cameras, took pictures of me leaving. A day later, my voicemail had been blown up with unanswered messages from Will. He was practically begging and pleading for me to come back as he sobbed out apologizes. I tried to listen to each one, but it hurt too much to do so. So I left it alone, got a new phone and started a new life and different city.
The only people who knew where I actually was, was Samantha, Kimberly, and Marge, and each promised not to speak a word. They knew if they did that I'd probably never forgive them for it. I'd just hoped the rest of them could understand.
It took me time to recover from the heart break. This was when it was the beginning of April and I hadn't been back to New York in five months.
*
—Five Months Later—
"Hey, babe," Miles sighed out tiredly as he wrapped his arms around me waist, pulling me into his chest. He rests his head on my shoulder, watching me as I cooked. I am currently chopping up vegetables and then putting them in a bowl when I was done.
I lean back at his touch, relaxing into him and set the knife down. "Hey," I say back, a smile tugging at my lips when the words come out of my mouth.
He sees this and pinches my sides lightly, causing me to squirm. "I love it when you smile. You look absolutely beautiful – especially when how your nose scrunches up when you do, making you look like a kitten. Did I mention you have smile lines, which would seem a bit odd considering you always say that you don't smile."
I bite my lip and turn my head to look at him, our eyes locking. "Maybe it's because I smile when I'm in pain. That I find beauty in suffering."
"Even with blood in your teeth, I presume." He tells me, his lips inching closer to mine. "How poetic of you, dear, but that's what makes you spark, gorgeous. The darkness in you."
I breathe out a laugh, the smile that's on my lips growing wider. "And you call me poetic—"
He cuts me off, planting his lips on mine, and I move my body so I'm facing him. My hands don't go to his hair, or around his neck, the fall by his sides and I hook my two pointer fingers into one of his belt loops each. The kiss deepens when he pushes me back into the counter, the end of my tailbone hitting it. A scream of mine doesn't even get to escape past my lips as it's quickly replaced by a moan when he uses one of his hands and cups my butt.
I look up at him, glancing upwards, and smirk into the kiss as I take my hand and drag it down his chest, racking my nails a little too hard against his covered skin that he lets out a hiss. A sinister chuckle is let loose from his mouth, and he pulls away for a second, letting his head fall back and then our mouths reconnect.
Miles chest heaves breathe coming slow, and he groans when he accidently grinds his hips against mine. I feel something poking my leg, but it didn't take me long to figure out what it was. I pull away as I shake my head, holding back a chuckle when I see the shocked looked on his face.
"Why did you pull away? Did I do something wrong?" He asks, his eyebrows scrunching up in concern as his candy apple green eyes stared back into mine.
"No, nothing like that. You were doing everything right," I tell him, and a cocky smirk appears on his rose colored lips, all the concern he had of supposedly hurting me flying out the window.
"So, I'm good, then, eh?" He asks, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. Miles had an accent, which came out on occasion. One of the first things I notice when I meet him was the way he loved hockey more than he did baseball, when I saw him eating fries covered in gravy and cheese pieces all of it came together. I didn't bring it up, thought, not wanting to hurt his feelings, but he brought it up in a conversation once when he decided to explain to me that he had dual citizenship.
I slap on the shoulder playfully. "Yeah ... Don't go getting all cocky on me. It's not attractive."
He raises a skeptical eyebrow, "Oh, really now? Because, I believe, that was one of the things that drew my attention to you."
I scoff. "No," I mumble, but it comes out a little too quickly and my voice is just a little bit higher than it should be and he stares down at me in disbelief. " ... No ... It was the ... What's the word? Confidence? Yeah, your hustling skills are what really got me."
He rolls his eyes at me and leans down and gives me a quick peck on the lips. "Okay," he says as he stands straighter, about to walk away. "I'll let you have that one – but only because I'm terrific at pool."
"Yet, I beat you at your own game," I state, crossing me arms and he frowns.
"That's only because I let you," he grumbles, throwing his hands up in the air, getting all dramatic on me as he walks away from me. "If you need me, I'll be in the shower!"
"Got it!" I call back to him as he disappears down the hallway and I turn around, going back to chopping up vegetables.
At some point I turn on the radio, listening to it while I get all the food together. But after that's done, and the dish is in the oven, I go into the living room and dance around to it. Singing along to the music, not having to care about the neighbours because Miles and I lived in a house that had a yard separating the others.
My mind wonders, though, and I couldn't help but think about how I should have been doing this in the house that Will and I had picked all those months ago. We didn't get it, unfortunately, but it had been quite the fixer-upper and we gave it up once we found out about the black mold. The contractor we hired to check out the place explained to us how it should have been demolished by how bad it was. This had been some times after Frederick's funeral.
A love song of all song comes on and tears begin to well in my eyes, causing me vision to blur and I hit my leg on the side table near the couch. I curse so loudly that it comes out as a scream and a couple of minutes later Miles comes running into the room, body wet, hair dripping and only wearing his pants. He stares at me, not knowing what to do as I run my fingers through my hair, chocking back a sob.
Breathe hitching in the back of my throat as I pace back and forth; trying to calm myself, but my mind seemed to have full control of me right now. A panic attack was easing its way in me, getting bigger by the second. Miles knew not to touch me when I was like this unless I asked, because if he did then anger would replace the sadness, the rage I'm already feeling at the moment.
"W-Water," I breathe out, the word just barely escaping my mouth as I found it hard to talk. Miles nods, running out of the room and I hear the clatter of things, then water running, and he returns a minute later with a glass of water in his hands.
I snatch it from him and down it the second the glass is in my hands. As the cool liquid runs down my throat I could feel myself start to relax, my breathing returning back to normal.
"Was it about him?" Miles asks once I stop pacing.
I look at him, feeling ashamed. "Yes. I heard a song on the radio and it reminded me of him ... I'm sorry, Miles."
He shakes, holding out his arms, giving me a question glance. "It's okay, I think about Marie sometimes, too. She broke my heart, left me high and dry. And like the coward I was, I ran away from a different country and came here instead of facing my demons. The good thing that came from the heart break? I found you, and you G, helped me realize that life is too short to waste it on people who supposedly loves us and let them have all the power. We can't let them ruin our lives – I mean, you can think about them from time to time, but if they ever truly loved us do you really think they would've done what they had done if they did."
"Ever thought about seconds chances, though?" I ask, but feel absolutely guilty when I do and I look down at my feet. " ... This whole situation blows."
"I know it does. It always does. Nobody tells you it's going to be this hard, getting over somebody. Just remember G that you gave him three months – three months and he didn't clean up his act. All that time, he spent it, ignoring you. He probably and maybe even still loves you, and you can go back to him, or you can stay. But I'll be here, not forever, but as long as you need me or want me in your life I'll be there for you as long you do the same."
I hated the fact that he was basically handing me an out, and offer for me to turn away from this relationship and head back to the one where I feel in love with a player, a broken man who needed to figure out how to love himself before he could love somebody else. I know for a fact a part of me would always love him, and maybe in a year or a few, if he came running back, apologizing maybe, just maybe, I could forgive him.
The difference between Miles and Will was that Miles knew he was broken, but used as his strength instead of his weakness. He didn't drown out his sorrows with alcohol or drugs. He challenges his demons, became friends with them, and saw that there is both light and dark in life and learned that he couldn't change that. So, it was either he gave up, or got with on the same level. He saw colors where Will saw black and white.
One relationship was made out of an agreement while the other was an actual thing. When I moved here, the first weeks I'd go down to the same bar, and every time I'd see this Twenty-six year old guy, hustling a bunch of college kids in pool. He saw me looking from a afar, and he built up the courage to come over to me and ask me if I wanted to play. I kicked his ass, but this mystery guy wasn't a giver upper and asked if I wanted to go on a date.
That's how we started out. A few casual dates here and there where we go down to this little Cafe at the prior and we both share stories about the lamest things we've done over chocolate milkshakes, except, he got a cherry where I didn't. We were friend for a while, and I waited patiently as I slowly, ever so slowly fell for this awkward man, to ask me out. He did eventually, and when he did, I'm pretty sure it made us the two happiest people in the world.
Since we had been friends for a two months, because I moved out here to Chincoteague, VA in May, and he let me live in his basement because I had nowhere else to go I don't think it would have been declared as moving too fast. I almost didn't, joking about he could be a serial killer, and he promised he wasn't.
Miles put my broken pieces and put me back together again. Well, not fully. Sixty percent of that was mostly just me getting my shit in a group, and the other forty was him showing me that life is too short to dwell in the past and even though it's familiar that doesn't mean it's safe to go back too.
I loved both men, but I realized that one didn't love himself enough and the other did. That was probably why Miles is so confident with himself, that he doesn't care about what other people say about him because he can turn around and say he's heard worse. We, in a sense, were similar in a way – in a way where we could literally smiles with blood coating our teeth.
I love Will and there's no denying that some nights I wake up and expect to see him sleeping beside me, but instead find Miles. I'd be okay, not find, but okay. And I'm fine with just being okay. I'm fine with living with a man who's a mechanic and doesn't have a bunch of people following him around on a daily basis.
I know now that I've grown from my mistake and that Will would be my best and worst mistake of my life and many others will follow.
When I look back up, locking eyes with Miles a smile appears on my face – a real genuine smile – and he sees this and his eyes brighten up at the sight of it.
"I'll stay. I'm staying."
THE END.
*
Hi, everyone! Here is the new rewritten version of chapter thirty-six! I hope it gave you guys more insight into what was going on and I'm very sorry for the horribleness that was the last version of this chapter.
I would just like to thank those of you have read this book and new-comers! I appreciate all of you and hope you continue to read my books.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Til next time, Alex. xoxo