Page 54 of Austen, Edited

Chapter 33

Abby couldn’t concentrate on her paper. Her mind spun, replaying the scene that had taken place just minutes before. Greyson had come into the library and said he loved her loud enough for most of the floor to know. How was she going to respond to it?

Greyson Campbell actually wanted to be her boyfriend? She may as well have been dreaming. But the sincerity in his features, the way he’d admitted his jealousy about seeing her with Jeff, made her realize how genuine he was.

But she couldn’t run after him now. He was probably close to home if he’d driven himself.

She clicked open the browser to the internet and searched a few things, trying to come up with some clever way to apologize to him. Because admitting that she’d loved him since the day she met him twelve years ago wouldn’t come out of her mouth in a coherent sentence.

After a few ideas started to click into place, she made a call to Jorge, giving him a few instructions to get the plan rolling.

* * *

Greyson sankinto a seat on the couch in the theater room, turning on an action film to help ease the hollowness in his chest. How was he going to get over Abby? He didn’t have the confidence that she would return his affections now. He could have kicked himself at the fact that if he’d only realized his feelings for her earlier, he might have avoided all this and could have had her in his arms right now.

He didn’t even pop popcorn, knowing it would only remind him of her and the last time they’d been there watching a movie.

He’d hardly concentrated on the screen the entire time when a phone call came through, Jorge’s name flashing on the screen.

“Hey, man, what’s going on?” Greyson tried to make his voice light, hoping his old friend wouldn’t pick up on the bout of depression pushing down on him.

“Not too much. Just working to get this project done for Love, Austen. Hey, there’s something I need you to take a look at on your end.”

Greyson frowned. Anything he’d done he’d disclosed to Jorge, so he should be able to figure out any problems that arose. “You need me to look at it right now?”

“The sooner the better.”

Greyson stood and turned off the projector before walking quickly through the halls of his parents’ home until he arrived at his bedroom.

“Okay, I’m here. Let me log in to the program,” he said, turning the call to speaker. Clicking a few buttons on the keyboard to log in, he said, “Ready.”

The program brought back another flood of memories, good times spent with Abby as they worked on the project.

“It’s something I need you to edit since you wrote the code. Do a scan for double stars, and you’ll find it. Just a second,” Jorge said, and there was a slight pause on the line. “Hey, my mom is calling right now. Fix that for me, and I’ll talk to you later.”

Greyson heard the line click, and he pressed shift + 8 twice in the search bar of his program, waiting as the system searched all the code input in the back of the app. Several seconds ticked by, and he tried to remember what he’d put in there that needed to be edited out.

The program pulled up the section, white letters on the black screen. His mind read through the words quickly, trying to decide if they were from one of the classes he’d input with Abby’s help. But it was when he saw two words at the end that he realized who the message was from.

Love, Abby.

His eyes focused on those words for several seconds, his heart beating against his ribs, the sound thundering in his ears. Skimming back to the beginning of the code, he read:

Greyson,

I’ve loved you since we were in grade school, and with everything that happened over the past year, I was sure you’d never see me the same way. The fact that you love me back is something I’ve only ever dreamed about. So, I hope you accept my apology for not saying I love you back before. You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted.

Love, Abby.

His eyes clouded over, and he swallowed to clear his airway of the lump that had formed. It had taken him so long to figure out that life without Abby wasn’t a life at all. The time away from her when he was at Princeton had weighed on him, but he thought it was for other reasons.

As he thought back over the years, he recognized some of the little gestures she’d done to make him happy. The one that came to mind most was the sadness in her eyes as he took off with Hannah to New Jersey, letting him go even though she wanted him to stay.

Throwing on a jacket, he picked up his keys and slipped into his moccasins with rubber soles and ran down the stairs.

“Whoa, where are you going?” his father asked, a spoonful of chocolate ice cream poised in front of his mouth.

“Just got to take care of something.”

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