“Will she call me, at least?”
The lady’s lips press into a straight line. If she knows her granddaughter, no, she won’t. She’ll want to protect him, which will mean letting him go. The boy seems to read this answer on her face. It feels like shooting a man already down, but she has no reassuring words to say. She’s the person people come to for a positive outlook on a situation, but today, she doesn’t have a positive bone in her body.
Instead, she goes to the scrapbook she was working on yesterday, when she didn’t know her world was about to shatter. She finds a picture she took a few years ago, one she always loved because her granddaughter looks so at peace in it. She knows it’s because of the boy she’s looking at.
She returns to the boy, now even taller than he already was in the picture, and hands it to him. He looks down at it and immediately snaps his eyes shut.
“You were her world, Eli Grant.” She squeezes his hand. “Thank you for loving my girl.”
A tear slides down his cheek. “What am I supposed to do?”
“You move on.” The boy is young. He’ll be able to. Not like her.
“I can’t.” His head shakes sternly. “I’ll never get over her.”
She breathes through the thickness in her throat. If she starts crying with him, she’ll never stop. “I don’t think I will, either.”
The lady doesn’t know whether she’ll see her granddaughter again in this lifetime. And if that means she gets to find happiness, then it’ll have been worth it.
Chapter 36
Idon’t know how much time has passed since I left Mom’s and got back to Eli’s. I’ve blanked again. The only thing I know is by the time I hear the front door open and close, the sky outside the window is in this in-between state, with stars slowly blinking to life while fuchsia and orange still color the horizon.
“Oh, thank God,” Eli says after climbing the stairs two at a time and finding me sitting on the bed in the guest bedroom. He’s alone. “I searched—”
“Where’s Zoe?” My voice sounds empty.I’mempty.
“At Keira’s. I thought maybe it’d be better if she stayed there tonight.”
I don’t dare ask why. I don’t think I can hear it right now. I won’t be around for long anyway.
Eli steps closer, slowly, like he’s afraid I’ll jump and bolt. “How are you—What’s this?”
I follow his gaze to the pile of clothes I’ve started gathering in my open suitcase. “I just started on some packing.” Although by the time I’d gathered half my clothes around the house, I gave up. I’d rather leave it all here. It hurt too much to fold each piece of clothing that now had a memory attached to it. The shirt Eli kissedme in for the first time in his room. The sandals Zoe borrowed to parade for me, so big they slipped off her feet with each step. I won’t want to see them again.
Eli looks like he’s been punched in the stomach. His face has gone a pale shade of green. “W-Why?”
“I’m leaving in five days.”
“But… Why?”
“That was always the plan.”
“I thought…” He drags a hand through his hair. “I thought you might have changed your mind.”
I close my eyes.
“Because you could, you know. Stay.”
His sweet smell wraps around me as he approaches. I can’t breathe.
“I’m keeping custody of Zoe. Liz won’t fight me on it. There’s no reason for us to hide anything anymore.” It feels like a lifetime before his hand lands on the side of my neck. “We can be together. Iwantus to be together.”
I squeeze my eyes tighter so the tears don’t fall. It hurts too much to feel everything for this man and have to say no.
“This place isn’t for me,” I say when I trust my voice to remain steady. “It never was.”
“I know today was rough, but—”
