Page 133 of Eleanor & Grey

Oh, my gosh…

I needed a shower.

“I—” he started, standing up, but I shook my head.

“It’s fine, really. I think we should just call it a night, though,” I said, snatching the sheet from the bed and wrapping it tightly around my body. “I’m just going to shower here first before heading home.”

I felt hurt.

Used.

Embarrassed.

He looked as if he had so much to say, but he knew nothing could fix that moment. There were no words that could heal my humiliation, so he simply gathered his clothes, and got dressed.

As he walked away, he muttered another apology, but I couldn’t even reply to it.

I shut the front door, headed straight for my shower, and dived inside, allowing the water to wash all over me. I turned up the heat, too, letting it slightly burn my skin.

I wanted it removed from me. I wanted his touches that weren’t crafted for me to be gone. I wanted his taste to leave my mouth, I wanted his name to escape my mind.

The water hammered against my skin as the water crystals intermixed with my tears.

I guessed that was the thing about dreams.

The biggest problem with dreams was the fact that one day, you were forced to wake up, and once you awakened from the slumber, you could no longer return to the make-believe world you were creating.

Reality set in, and you were left to face its truths all on your own.

“He called you by her name?” Shay blurted out, stunned as I sat on our couch with my knees pulled to my chest.

“Yup.”

She lowered her brows. “After you two had …?”

“Yup.”

“Crap,” she breathed out, stunned. “I’m so sorry, Ellie. I can’t even imagine how hard that was for you.”

“Well, I just sobbed in the shower. No big deal,” I joked, but Shay didn’t laugh. She just kept frowning. “I’m okay. I mean, we’re okay, Greyson and I. I’m sure it’s just something we have to get over together. Just a speed bump.”

“Wait, what? Ellie, that’s not a speed bump. That’s a red light. That’s a stop sign. That’s a ‘Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred’ moment. You can’t seriously think that you and Greyson are still…something.”

“How could I not? It feels like we were brought together for this, for us to be an us.”

“But you aren’t an us,” she argued. “Eleanor…he called you by his dead wife’s name. That just has toxicity written all over it.”

I shifted around in my seat and shook my head. “You don’t understand, there’s something there with Greyson and me. There’s always been this thing between us.”

“Yeah, I know, and trust me, I was there for it through and through, but this changes everything.”

My stomach flipped as I listened to her words, and anger began building more and more. “You were the one who’d been pushing me toward this idea! You and your reality show talk.”

“Yeah, I know, but this…this is more than just a mishap in the beginning stages of a new relationship, Ellie. This is unhealthy. I know how you feel about Greyson. I’ve known ever since we were kids, I get it, but he’s not in a place where he can give you what you deserve.”

“I deserve him,” I told her. “He’s the right one for me.”

I knew it, too.

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