Page 97 of Eleanor & Grey

“Working, unlike some people around here. How dare you let Lorelai barge into my office? Do you know how important that phone call was?” he barked.

“Do you know how important that artwork was?” I barked right back, not backing down. I was done backing down. Greyson was lost and stuck and hurting and pained, but in all that he was allowing himself to hurt the ones who meant the most to him. He was hurting his girls.

He huffed. “Eleanor, please leave my office.”

“No.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “What?”

“I said no. I’m not leaving, because you have to hear me.” I swallowed hard, nervous but intent on getting my point across. “I get that it’s hard for you.”

“What?”

“I said I get it. I get that some days are tougher than others, but the way you just treated Lorelai is unacceptable.”

“I beg your pardon?” he hissed, his voice dripping with indignance. His chest rose and fell quickly as his fingers clenched together.

“The way you just blew off your daughter is unacceptable. She worked on those drawings all week long and couldn’t wait to show you.”

“Her timing was wrong.”

“And when was she supposed to approach you? Lately the timing seems to always be wrong with you. You’re never home, and if you are you lock yourself in this office like some caveman. You don’t engage with your daughters unless they are sleeping, to which I don’t even understand the point. During the day you don’t even look at them, Greyson. You don’t even see your daughters.”

He shut his eyes for a second, almost as if he knew the truths behind my words, but he fought against them, not wanting to face reality. “She knows the rules about not barging into my office.”

“She’s five, Greyson! Screw your rules.”

He turned his back on me, again. That was his favorite move, turning his back on things. “If you can get back to your job, I’d like to get back to mine.”

“She worked so hard on that artwork, and you just tossed it aside. You owe her an apology.”

“You need to leave,” he scolded, taking a few steps toward me.

“No,” I bellowed, standing tall, as I stepped toward him. Chest puffed out. Head held high. I hoped he didn’t see the small tremble in my body. It was no secret that he made me nervous. He was so cold and hard that I never knew how close he was to snapping, and that was scary. Still, I wouldn’t back down, because Lorelai needed me. She needed someone to stand up for her, seeing how she couldn’t do it for herself. So, I planted my feet hard on the floor and stood my ground. “Your daughter is crying in the other room because you didn’t even take the time to notice her artwork.”

“Is that all, Eleanor? Because if you are finished I need to get back to work.”

“Not everything in life is about work,” I scolded.

“Maybe not for you, but it is for me.”

“You didn’t want to be him,” I told him, shaking my head in disbelief. “All your life, you didn’t want to be like your father.”

“My father was a hardworking man. I was a child who didn’t know the sacrifices he made to run this company in order to provide for his family.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Eleanor, stop,” he said, almost as if he were begging me to back down because I was tapping into sensitive territory, but I couldn’t do it. I was going to push him. I was going to keep pushing until he woke up from this deep somber he was in. I was going to keep shoving him with my words until reality hit him.

“Your father abandoned you,” I told him. “He walked away, just like your mother, and they left you alone.”

“Eleanor.” His voice was low, and his eyes were intense. I was doing it. I was getting under his skin, and I wasn’t going to stop.

“You told me repeatedly how alone you felt after your grandfather died. You told me time and time again how you hated sitting in your house, because there was no one there for you. Greyson, this isn’t you. This isn’t the person you wanted to become. This isn’t who you are supposed to be.”

“You don’t know me,” he barked, his face turning redder and redder each second that past. “You don’t know who I’ve become.”

“Yes, but I do know who you were,” I promised. “And I can still see that boy in those eyes sometimes, fighting like hell to come back to life.”

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