Page 107 of Falling Into Forever
I bite my tongue because I can only handle one fucked up situation at a time, and I have no doubt the situation between Grady and Lena is seriously fucked up. “Mm-hmm.”
“Fine. I’ll get the ball rolling, but find another attorney. I’m not doing this anymore.”
“But you will.” I flutter my lashes. “For me, or are you doing it for Lena?”
“All that matters is that I’m doing it. What’s your plan now?”
I lean over the table and lower my voice. “Going back to California to settle this shit is the only option. I have a house to sell. Lena has an apartment I’ll pack up if she wants me to. And then I’ll ruin Trent’s entire life.”
He studies me like I confuse him. “This is a lot to give up,” he says, nodding toward the table.
“No. Saylor was a lot to give up. Ascendancy is the physical representation of heartbreak that had no other outlet. This”—I gesture to the paperwork—“is the easiest decision I’ve ever made. I don’t need any of this. I never wanted to be famous, so walking away from LA is no hardship, trust me. I’ll gladly spend the rest of my life waiting tables if it means I have Saylor back. Love is worth more than money and fame. It’s worth more than my time or energy. She is worth everything. She’s worth fighting for.”
“She’s stronger with you by her side.” His voice is pitched low, so Saylor can’t hear, but there’s love behind his observation.
“So am I.”
“She’s holding up better than I expected.” He doesn’t have to say anything else. We can hear them outside even with the windows closed. Hope Hollow has been overrun with media vans and reporters for the last day and a half, and more show up daily, if not hourly.
“But,” he says, tugging on his beard, “me talking to you isn’t betraying her. We made a deal a long time ago to look out for one another, and this is looking out for her.” He scowls and points a finger at me.
“Ah, okay.” I straighten my shoulders when unease settles across my skin.
“She’s holding up, but I don’t know if she’s holding together.”
“What do you mean?” Going to him for advice on the one person I’ve loved for almost half my life would grate on me if I didn’t need the information so badly. The fact that he’s coming to me means more than my pride, though. It means he trusts that I’m here for her.
“She has—I don’t know—tics? Tells? She does things that maybe she’s not even aware of when her mind is filling with more than she can handle.”
Mentally I run through the last couple of days, trying to pull anything from my memory bank to corroborate what he’s saying, but I come up blank.
“It took me years of helping her dig herself out of the darkness before I picked up on them. It’s simply a matter of time spent in sadness and grief with her that I’ve learned these things. You’ll learn them, too, probably much faster than I did.”
Guilt is a dirty bastard. I should have been here for her.
“She digs her fingernail into her earlobe,” he says, and an image of her the other day hits me hard. “That’s the first one I noticed because it leaves deep grooves in the skin.”
“Like her palms,” I say as more memories come into focus.
“Yeah, but her palms are when she’s trying to shut down something emotional. The ear and her necklace are the two that happen the most. But there are others that show she’s struggling, and they become more obsessive when she’s entering a true depressive episode.”
My expression must be giving way to my fear because he adds, “There’s not a ton of them, and it hasn’t happened in a long time. But when they do, it’s our job to make sure she keeps fighting, even if that means simply getting her outside for five minutes a day until she can do it on her own.”
Reality crashes into me like a heavyweight fighter. Saylor isn’t only dealing with things that make her sad. She’s fighting demons that drain the life from her.
“I write in cursive with my pointer finger,” Saylor says, entering the room.
“I…We…” I stumble over my words, but she shrugs and slides into the chair next to me.
“It’s okay. Maybe Grady should have let me tell you, but I understand why he didn’t.” She turns to him. “We’ve been through a lot together, and I would have done the same thing.” She angles her body to face me. “I would have told you eventually. Probably. The truth is, I’m not aware I’m doing them most of the time. And I did talk to my therapist this morning, you know.” She looks from Grady back to me. “I will be fine.”
“Yes, you will. I believe that with all my heart.” Even as I say it, though, her skin draws taut. She’s forcing a smile for my benefit. When I catch Grady’s attention, I know I’m not alone in my surmise. “Grady was just confirming what I already knew.”
Her gaze flickers between mine and Grady’s. It’s the first time her mask has fallen since the news broke. I have suspicions that she cried in the shower after Grady left with Poppy, and it pains me that she didn’t let me in, but once I fix this, I’ll be back and will never leave again.
“I need to go to California and deal with all this.”
“I know.”
