Page 91 of Gray Area

Declan undresses me and we touch each other leisurely. There is no hurry or madness in what we do. Even when he slides inside me, he moves unhurriedly, his stare glued to mine, and I can’t read him. He slides his hands down to my legs and moves my hips to rock into me deeper, then covers my mouth with his.

“I love you, Vivian,” he says into my mouth. “I love you so much. Everything I do is for you.”

Tears leak out of my eyes at his words as my orgasm builds in my belly. I grip his strong biceps as pleasure shudders through me and I cry out his name. Declan comes on the heels of my quaking, and then we lie together, still connected. Gently kissing each other.

I feel myself getting sleepy and I fight it, not wanting this moment to end. “Will you stay with me?” I ask him.

“I’m always with you, Vivian,” he whispers to me, and his answer chips at my heart. “I will always take care of you.”

I hate his words because they aren’t an answer; they’re a riddle. “I love you, Declan,” I tell him, trying to hide my quivering chin. And so I give in to sleep.

When I wake up he is gone. I move through the apartment like a zombie and try to think about what to do, but every thought returns to Declan. I go between thoughts of how I don’t know ifI can live without him, but I’m not sure I can survive the way we are doing things much longer.

I think too about what Bailey said, to just trust my gut, but my gut has taken a vow of silence. As I zone out, I hear the familiar noise of the mailbox opening and closing, and I go to gather it, hoping to distract myself from what my reality is.

Grocery flyers and junk mail take up the bulk of the mail, but at the bottom I find a large packet, addressed to me. On the envelope are multiple rerouting stamps indicating my change of address, and I see that this letter was actually mailed weeks ago, but seems to have been delayed. The return address is from the Central District of Columbia University. My hands shake as I open the sealed flap and pull out the top sheet.Dear Miss Santos, Congratulations! It is with great pleasure that I inform you of your acceptance…

I stop reading. My first acceptance letter. I had received a few rejection letters, but no acceptance letters. My heart jackhammers in my chest as I read it. But then it falls when I see the college is located in Washington, DC. My excitement quickly diminishes when I realize that I’d have to move. And move far—too far for me to see Declan regularly.

Well, maybe that’s for the best, a small voice whispers, and I shake it away. I’m not moving that far away from him. We love each other.

But, I decide it wouldn’t hurt to see what kind of financial aid they’d offer me. I dump the packet onto the counter and spend the next hour in shock at the amount of financial assistance I have been offered. My application to the school and many of the grants they offered must have flagged something somehow, or tricked the system. I’ve been approved for a special learner grant, one I vaguely remember seeing, and that has covered my tuition for the first year. Another scholarship I applied for I was awarded, and that one would cover room and board. I was alsoplaced on a waitlist for a teacher’s aide role that provides a small weekly stipend. The only thing not covered is my food benefit, which I have more than enough saved to cover.

I am at a loss what to do.

I grab my phone, the iPhone Declan had given me and returned only after Axel had deactivated the tracking feature, and call Declan. It rings once and goes to voicemail. I send a text, “I need to talk to you, it’s important,” and an hour later there is no response. So I call, on repeat for two hours, and each time the phone call is declined. In between the calls I send texts, but those remain unanswered and unread.

I open the web browser and search for the next bus to Washington, DC, and find it leaves in just over two hours.

And the decision is made for me.

Chapter 56

DECLAN

It’s well after midnight when I get back home, and I am exhausted. That’s becoming my new normal, just feeling exhausted all the time, but still going. My brothers and I have been working nearly round the clock between the properties and the restaurants and putting everything into place that we need for Lexington.

I need to hold Vivian. Holding her reminds me why I am doing all of this, why I am doing all this shit that keeps me away from her and burning both ends. I nearly cracked when she wasn’t in bed last night, and I deserved it. The beating she gave me too—I deserved that a hundred times more. I am no good for her, and I know it. I am going to push her too far. I just hope I get everything done before I hit her breaking point.

So tonight when I get in, I head straight to the bedroom, and again she isn’t there. So I wheel around quickly to the living room, but I don’t find here there either. I start to throw lights on and move through my entire place, calling for her. But she is nowhere to be found.

When I get to the kitchen, I see the mail all piled up. I am about to do another search when I see the folded paper on top of the stack, with my name on it, in Vivian’s handwriting.

Panic’s too tame a word for what I feel as I pick up the note. Once I’ve read it, complete and utter devastation just barely covers the new feelings I have.

She is gone.

I am too late.

I hit her breaking point.

I take the letter and go into the living room, reading and rereading it until it is memorized. Until I know every line and curve of each of the letters to each of the words she has written. She is leaving, it says, and she doesn’t want to be found. She hadn’t said where she is going, so I can’t find her. Do I even have a right to anyway?

I sit on the couch with the letter for hours. Eventually I get up and walk over to the TV, lifting all sixty inches of it up and throwing it into the wall. After that, everything is fair game. Anything that I am able to lift meets the same fate. I destroy my apartment and then sit in the middle of it and drink every bottle I can from my liquor cabinet before I pass out.

Slade finds me there at some point the next day.

“Dec!” he shouts when he enters the space, finding me on the floor. “Oh God, Dec. Vivian! Did they—”

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