Page 72 of Letters of Faith
Looking at it with fresh eyes, I can see all the places Grayson has touched.
The grass is short, having been cut right before winter hit, and the posts that had been chipping with paint before I left gleam white with a fresh coat.
I was stupid—so, so stupid. Grayson has shown me a million little ways that he loves me, yet I ran the first time that Harper made me question that. I became another person in his life who didn’t stay because I was afraid of losing him and having no control over it like I did with Nate, so I left before he could. My throat aches at the realization that I’ve created my own heartbreak here—not only my own, but Grayson’s, too.
“I’ll—uh—see you later, Clara. I’m going to go in now.”
She pats my arm, a look of understanding passing through her eyes.
“Of course, dear. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”
I nod, the lump in my throat preventing me from answering, then walk up the steps of my front porch. With each step I take, I notice a new place that Grayson has been—there’s no longer a creak in the bottom step, and a salt bag sits beside the front door where he musthave come over and salted the sidewalk when it snowed.
The dread of how badly I’ve messed up sinks deeper into my stomach as I step through the front door into the house. Everything looks just like I left it, but instead of the layer of dust I was expecting, everything is clean—waiting for me to return to it.
Nate’s jacket lies across the back of the couch, and I pick it up, putting it to my nose and breathing it in. If I concentrate hard enough, the faint smell of my husband’s cologne still lingers, but it no longer comforts me as it once did. That comfort smell is how Grayson smells when he pulls me close. He smells like home to me now, and instead of being there with him, I’m sitting alone in a house that no longer holds anything for me.
There’s only one thing that’s keeping me from dropping everything and running back to him, and that’s the realization that I’ve used him as a crutch for my healing. He’s been by my side every step of the way, and my heart doesn’t ache anymore because of him. But if I continue on that path, maybe one day he’ll question if I’m with him because I love him or if I’m with him because he makes the pain disappear. I don’t want him to ever question that, so before I go back, I have to find a way to heal myself.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I send him a text.
Georgia:Give me time, okay?
But when he doesn’t respond, I wonder if my time is already up.
______________________
After realizing that I’d been relying on Grayson to heal, I scheduled an appointment with the therapist I started seeing after Nate died. Now I’m sitting in the waiting room, my hands in my lap and my knee bouncing to an unnatural rhythm.
It’s been two days since I texted Grayson, but I still haven’t heard anything, not that I blame him. I shouldn’t have walked out the way I did. He didn’t deserve that.
“Georgia.” Dr. Burkes calls my name, and I stand to face her. She’s not much older than me, and I initially hesitated to see her. I wasn’t sure what she would know about grief besides what she found in a textbook, but the first time I met with her, she was kind, listening to all the things I was angry about without judgment. She didn’t tell me that I shouldn’t be angry or that everything would be okay. I hated that the most after Nate died. Everyone kept saying that someday I would be okay. Instead, she had sat and listened. When I was done spouting my anger, she told me my feelings were valid.
I’d needed that.
“How are you?” I ask as I walk past her into her office.
She gently smiles and says, “I’m doing well. It’s nice to see you again.”
Giving her a polite nod, I say nothing. It’s been a while since I’ve been to her office. It wasn’t that I thought I was healed, but I was getting out of bed. I figured that was as good as it was ever going to get.
I should have kept coming. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t be sitting here with a broken heart of my own doing.
We take our seats, me on the couch and her in a chair across from me.
Then, when we are seated, she asks, “So—what’s new in your life?”
Scoffing, I think about the letters and everything that has happened since the first one, then say, “Well, you know—a lot.”
It’s the best summary of my life in the last few months.
Laughing, Dr. Burkes says, “How about we unpack it then? Tell me one big thing that’s happened to you since I last saw you.”
“I fell in love with my husband’s best friend.”
A shocked silence falls between us. Dr. Burkes blinks several times, trying to determine if she heard me right, and then a big grin spreads across her face. That was—not what I expected.
“I’m so proud of you,” she says, her smile still covering most of herface.
