Page 75 of Good Graces

“I’m sorry,” I say finally, softer now. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You never mean to,” he cuts in. “But you do. Every damn time.”

The wind shifts, rustling through the tall grass. The wildflowers brush my ankles, soft and fragile, like they’re trying to taunt me. I look down at them instead of him.

“This place,” I murmur. “I thought maybe . . . I don’t know. I thought maybe we could talk here because it’s where we had our firsts.”

I remember that night the way I remember my own name. The way he kept pausing, breath held like he didn’t want to mess anything up. The way his fingers trembled when he reached for me, like he was scared I’d laugh. Like he thought I’d roll my eyes and sayseriously?

But I didn’t. Because I loved him. And I loved that he was nervous. I loved that for all his bravado and easy charm, Warren Mercer had never done this before.

And I never told him it was my first time, either.

He assumed it wasn’t. And I let him believe that because he seemed so certain. Because I thought it would make things easier. Because I didn’t know how to say it without feeling like I was risking too much.

For the first time since he showed up, I wonder if his hesitation isn’t just about me or us. If maybe whatever’s been following him since this morning, whatever has wound him up so tight, is something else entirely.

“I’m not playing games,” I say softly. “I just . . . I don’t know how to do this.”

His gaze flickers back to mine, guarded but searching.

“Me neither,” he admits.

We sit there, the air thick between us, words unsaid piling up like stones.

“I’m tired,” Warren says eventually. “I really don’t know if I can do this today.”

“Then don’t.”

I start to push myself up, thinking maybe this was a mistake. Maybe it was too little, too late. And as usual, my indecisiveness has chipped away at whatever chance we had left until there is nothing solid to stand on.

“No, wait, stay,” he says. “Just . . . stay a little longer.”

I sit, and neither of us speaks. For a minute, it’s just the wind shifting through the grass and the faint rustle of leaves overhead.

We were good once. Better than good.

When summer ended, we worried it wouldn’t last. We were afraid that without the blazing afternoons and stolen hours between shifts, we’d start slipping apart. That things would get harder once school started with classes, schedules, and friends pulling us in opposite directions.

But we didn’t slip. We flourished.

We walked to class together, grabbing coffee from that spot near the quad where he always ordered the same thing—black, no sugar, no fuss. I’d sit on the floor of his dorm room, flipping through his kinesiology notes while he stretched before morning practice.

We spent weekends tangled up in bed, half-dressed and lazy, my fingers tracing the dip of his collarbone, his mouth finding my pulse like he was trying to memorize the beat.

We were happy.

And then over winter break, it all unraveled.

I did something fucked-up, something desperate, and he reacted. Of course he did. But before that, before I ruined it, it was real. It was everything.

“We were so good together,” I say finally. “Before the split . . . we were good.”

“Sure.” His voice is quieter now. “Until we weren’t.”

“You didn’t ask me to stay,” I whisper. “Back then, you didn’t ask.”

“You fucked me over, and then you pushed me away. You told me to leave. You didn’t try to fix it after that.”

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