Page 47 of Eleanor & Grey

My legs ache. My back is sore. My throat is dry. My eyes burn.

I can’t breathe.

Every time I think about it, I fall apart, and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s just a nonstop cycle of falling apart over and over again.

I just want her back.

I’m going to be fucked up for a good minute…maybe even for quite a few.

-Ellie

17

Eleanor

“Hello?” My voice cracked as I said the words. It was three in the morning as I answered my cell phone, and after a day of crying, my vocal cords were exhausted.

“Hi, Ellie.” Greyson’s voice was low and tired. For a minute, I thought I was dreaming. “Were you sleeping?”

“No.” I sat up a bit in bed. “I can’t.”

“Yeah. That makes sense.”

“What are you doing up so late?”

“I couldn’t sleep. So, I checked my email and figured I’d call. I just wanted to make sure you were breathing.”

Tears began rolling down my face as I clenched the phone to my ear. “I can’t talk, Grey. It hurts too much to talk.”

“That’s fine. We don’t have to talk. We can just keep our phones pressed to our ears. Okay?”

I nodded as if he could see me. “Okay.”

I lay back down and kept the cell phone glued to my ear. His breaths were light through the receiver, but I was thankful for them. At some point, I fell asleep, and when I woke up again, his snores were still coming through the speaker.

It was quiet, and he was snoring, and tears were falling down my cheeks as I listened.

That was the very minute I knew I loved him—when I was broken-hearted at four in the morning and he still showed up for me.

Even though he hadn’t said it, I was certain he loved me, too. People didn’t have to talk about love to know it existed. Love wasn’t only real because someone said it out loud. No, love just kind of sat there quietly, in the shadows of the night, healing the cracks that lived in our hearts.

18

Eleanor

Dad hadn’t left his room in days.

I’d lost track of how many times I’d checked on him just to make sure he was remembering to breathe. Camila and Shay came down to help with the funeral service, and I was thankful for that. Without my aunt, nothing would’ve gotten done.

Shay stayed by my side day and night. She made sure I was eating, even though I didn’t want to, and she’d check on Dad for me when it was too hard for me to see him like that.

There was a bottle of whiskey that sat on his nightstand, and each time I looked in, more of it was gone. He was self-destructing, and I didn’t know how to help bring him back to life.

Truth was, the only person able to keep my father grounded was now gone.

The love of his life had left his side, and he didn’t have a clue how to live in a world where she no longer resided.

There was no Kevin without a Paige.

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