Grace
Later that night,I couldn’t stay asleep. All I could think about was Julia. My subconscious never let me forget her or what had happened.
Sometimes, I wished I could be like my mother. Someone who moved on so easily. Floated through life like this horrific thing didn’t happen to our family.
I knew deep, deep down that it wasn’t completely my fault. But when everyone you’d known your whole life looked at you for months after the incident like you were the one with blood on your hands, you started to believe them. Little by little, all the stares and whispers ate at you. When you walked into a room and it went completely silent, you couldn’t help but feel the black mark against you. Like you were the villain. Not to mention, the way people phrased their sorrows at the funeral. “Poor Julia,” or “Poor Jacqueline.” Never poor me. And God forbid they said, “I’m sorry for your loss.” The looks of pity from strangers were the only forms of real condolence I’d experienced. Most didn’t think I deserved to grieve. After all, I was a murderer in their eyes. I possibly gave her the drugs that killed her.
No, a little voice inside me yelled.The doctors reassured you over and over again the injuries from the crash were too severe. If anything, the drugs helped ease her pain.
Julia was laid to rest quickly. My mother wanted it done. Over with. My father did too because he couldn’t wait to hop back on a plane and pretend he had no life before Italy. That way people could stop talking about the Harringtons and move on.
But that was the thing—I didn’t get to move on. I didn’t even get to mourn her. I didn’t get the luxury of closure.
I had to tell Caleb the truth. All of it. If I didn’t, I was going to lose him. Who knows—I could still lose him after he hears about my involvement in Julia’s death.
It took everything in me not to venture to his house, bang on his door, and confess all my sins. I had my coat on before I remembered Noelle and retreated. I didn’t need to get that innocent girl mixed up in all my mess. It was bad enough Caleb got caught up in it without knowing what he’d signed up for.
I was determined to tell him tonight. He was supposed to be teaching me how to make his famous lasagna. Who knows if we would even get to that?
While I wasn’t arrested following Julia’s death, I was questioned extensively. For hours. Having to recount every detail from that night. While still protecting Grant, of course.
I felt guilty. They knew it; I knew it. It was written all over my face.
Last thing I needed was the Abernathys to come after me. At least that was what my mother kept telling me. She convinced me I was doing the right thing. Why should another upstanding family be destroyed like ours?
I listened to her up until recently. I listened because I felt like I owed it to her. After all, I did cause this mess.
Now, all I could think about was how I wasn’t alone the night of Julia’s death. I wanted to tell the truth. My truth.
The tabloids capitalized on my guilt and remorse.Killer Harringtonwas what they dubbed me. They used every mistake or weak moment they ever captured with their cameras to prove I was in the wrong. That I deserved the treatment everybody doled out so easily. Every photo on a yacht, every skimpy outfit for a themed event, every drunk encounter. Plastered on every newsstand for the world to dissect.
In their eyes, I was a murderer. The judgmental looks from my so-called friends and associates solidified their opinions on the matter. Not to mention my own anguish whenever I did get the courage to leave the house.
I checked myself into a program voluntarily. The courts suggested a small drug course. I was surprised. I thought I should be punished more for my involvement. Instead, I’d been punishing myself.
I had to get away from it all. The escape from the city did me good. I did every kind of healing remedy suggested to me.
I’d been running for so long, but eventually, I was forced to face the proverbial music, and try to find a place where I truly belonged. But I couldn’t go back to the brownstone, which is why I decided to put it on the market. There were too many memories there. It would’ve been like going home to a ghost. A shell of who I was and will never be again.
It was for the best, but I wished I could have been this person when Julia was still alive. But the logical, more rational side of me told me that I couldn’t be this person until Julia was no longer here. What a sick joke.
That was the thing about grief—you feel like you’re cheating on the deceased by moving on, by just living day-to-day, because they don’t get the luxury.
Grand Haven certainly captured my heart, and it had everything to do with the handsome man leaning against his beat-up truck. Caleb insisted on picking me up from Fiona’s.
It was only a ten-minute walk to his house, but he argued it was getting darker earlier and he’d feel better if he could drive me. The sleepy town was the epitome of safety. Everybody knew everybody. The biggest scandal this town had seen before me was Dirty Al and his shenanigans. Now, I was the most scandalous thing about this town. It was Caleb’s “free” night where Anne had grandma time with Noelle, so we were sneaking in a moment to ourselves.
Not that I didn’t love being with Noelle, but I did cherish the time I got to spend with only Caleb.
I knew if things progressed in our relationship, I would be around his daughter more, and if we grew even more serious, one day I might fill the role of being her stepmom.
I shook my head, trying to rid myself of pipe dreams as I ran to the one I never wanted to run from again.
Hopefully I wouldn’t be the one getting pushed away.
“Grace!” Caleb waved.
Always so damn attentive. Loving him was the easiest thing I’d ever done.
