Imaginary Grace (37 page)

“No, not yet. I can’t,” I said, shaking my head.

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just bust through the door and confront him right then and there?” she asked.

“I told you, I just froze and then I panicked.”

“Well, you’re going to have to talk to him sometime. Does he know you’re here?”

I shook my head. “No, he doesn’t know I came home. He still thinks I’m meeting him at his place later this afternoon.”

She glanced over at the clock on my dresser. “Well, it’s nearly five o’clock now. Don’t you think he’s going to start to wonder?”

That’s when I remembered that I’d shut my phone off on the bus ride home. I asked Ryder if she could dig it out of my backpack. She tossed me the phone, and I turned it on. When it came to life, there were several text messages from Tanner, along with several missed calls and voicemails. The last text and voicemail, which had been left a few minutes ago, were similar with him stating that he was getting worried and that he was going to head over to my dorm.

I didn’t want him going over there and worrying Beth so I texted him back,
don’t come over. i’m in jersey
.

“Grace,” Ryder said, “he’s not going to just let that go. He’s going to want to know what you’re doing here.”

“Fuck him, Ryder. I don’t owe him any explanation.”

“Whoa, Grace, calm down. Jeez, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before. But think about it…he has no idea that you know anything, so you kind of do owe him some kind of explanation, don’t you think?”

I thought about it as my phone started to ring, and I guessed she did have a point, but I still didn’t want to talk to him. I hit ‘ignore.’ Immediately a text came through:
why r u in jersey? call me i’m worried.

“Tell him, Grace,” Ryder said with a serious look on her face after looking at the text. “Tell him that you know.”

I held the phone in my hand and slowly began to type.
don’t call me. don’t text me. its over. i know about EVERYTHING…

Chapter 50

Tanner

W
hat the fuck was going on, I thought to myself as I paced back and forth across my room. Why would she be in Jersey? I’d had an uneasy feeling all day, and it was beginning to get worse. I was at a complete loss as to what to think. I walked over to the window and stared out for a minute, thinking of all kinds of crazy scenarios. Maybe someone in her family had gotten sick? That was the only thing that made any sense.

And why wasn’t she picking up her phone? I let out a deep breath and turned from the window, and that’s when I noticed the small duffle bag sticking out from underneath my bed. I bent down and pulled it the rest of the way out. It was Grace’s. Confused as to why or when she would have left it here, I pulled the zipper open and there, sitting right on top of all her stuff, was a bus schedule.

As I reached in and pulled it out, my body went cold. It was a schedule of times for buses coming into and out of D.C. The one circled had left late last night. As the realization of what had happened slowly began to dawn on me, my phone went off, signaling a text from Grace.

I swallowed hard as I slowly reached for it, praying that I was wrong, but when I read it, I knew I wasn’t. She had been here last night. She had heard me and Scott talking in the living room. She’d heard everything. She knew
everything.
And seeing her text confirmed it.

“
FUCK!
” I screamed as I kicked the duffle bag across the room and then began frantically pacing back and forth, trying to recall exactly what was said. As I did, the rage at my utter stupidity began to build. I finally stopped, resting my palms on the far wall. I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the coolness of the wall…and that’s when I snapped.

Every ounce of rage I felt was directed solely at myself.
I
had let this happen. It was
my
fault. In that instant, a reflex bolted through me that was impossible to stop. My arm pulled back with my hand closing into a fist. Then, like lightning, I sent it crashing full speed through my bedroom wall.

Pain instantly shot up my arm as bits and pieces of wall and white dust drifted to the floor and I slowly slid to my knees. I
had
to fix this, I thought as I cradled my now throbbing hand. I didn’t know how, but I had to because I knew I couldn’t live without her.

Every time I called her cell, it went right to voicemail and any text I sent went unanswered. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like a caged animal. After icing my still-throbbing hand, I managed to wrap an ace bandage around it as I contemplated my next move.

Although I wanted to, I couldn’t drive to New Jersey. My car would never have made it. With no way to contact her, I did the only thing I could think of – I went over to see Beth. I thought that maybe she could convince Grace to at least talk to me.

After parking my car in the lot outside their building, I made my way around to the side door. I was able to get in by walking in with a group of students who had just opened the door. Once I found their room, I knocked once. The door was quickly answered by a surprised Beth.

“Tanner! This is a surprise. Come on in,” she said in an oddly cheerful manner as she let me in. “Grace isn’t here. I just got a text from her that she’s back in Jersey. She said something came up and she had to go home for a few days, but she should be back some time Tuesday. Do you know what happened?”

I just stood there, tongue-tied. Obviously Grace hadn’t told her what had happened. “Have a seat,” she said, motioning to the desk chair as she sat down on her bed. Then she added, “What happened to your hand?”

I absently grasped my injured hand as I sat down on the wooden desk chair. “Beth…you gotta help me…”

“Tanner, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me. Did something happened to Grace?” she asked as she stood up, now obviously concerned.

I couldn’t answer right away, and I couldn’t look her in the eye so I dropped my head into my hands. Finally I was able to choke out, “I fucked up.”

“What did you do to Grace?!” she said, her voice now ice-cold as she moved a step closer to me. “What did you do? I’m calling her right now!”

“Wait,” I said as I grabbed her wrist. “Let me explain.”

She yanked her wrist free, then snapped, “Explain, but make it quick. I want to call Grace.”

I started at the end with how she came home early from D.C. and overheard Scott and I talking.

“What did she hear? What were you guys saying?”

There was no easy way I could say it. It was impossible to put a good spin on what had happened so I told her what we said, trying to be as accurate as I could remember.

“That can’t be true,” she said, shaking her head, but when I didn’t answer she asked, “Tanner, is that true?”

Feeling defeated, I leaned back into the uncomfortable desk chair. Then, forcing myself to look up at her, I went back to the beginning and told her the whole ugly truth.

By the time I finished Beth was leaning back on her bed and slumped against the wall, looking completely disgusted.

“Please…Beth,” I tried to explain. “It may have started out like that, but, I don’t know, somewhere along the line I really fell in love with her.” Beth still didn’t respond, so I continued. “She won’t answer my calls or my texts. Please, I just need to talk to her. I need to hear her voice. If I could just explain…”

“Explain!” she scoffed. “It sounds like she got the gist of the whole shebang from listening to you two last night. Are you sure you still want to try to ‘explain’?”

“I…I just really need to talk to her. Please Beth,” I pleaded.

She scrutinized me for a minute, as if deciding whether I was worth the effort. Then finally she said, “Okay, I’ll call her. But I won’t do it while you’re sitting here. I won’t put her on the spot like that. Go home. I’ll be in touch, but I can’t promise you anything.”

“Fair enough,” I said accepting the morsel she threw me. “I appreciate it.”

As I reached for the door, I turned to thank her again, but she cut me off. “Did you really think she’d never find out? Did you really think you’d get away with this?”

“At the time I guess I wasn’t really thinking,” I said with my head down. I turned and left, closing the door slowly behind me. When I got to the parking lot and climbed into my car I just sat there for a while, unable to believe that things had gone so horribly wrong so quickly.

Yesterday at this time I had been on top of the world – I was having the time of my life playing music I loved in a great band that was getting ready for a summer tour, I was acing most of my classes, and I had a girlfriend who I was crazy about. Today, my life was in the shitter.

I started up my car and began to drive home, hoping that Scott wouldn’t be there when I arrived. When I got home the place was empty, so I cracked open a beer and collapsed onto the couch as I waited for Beth to call.

As I lay there, I started to think about Grace. Over the past few hours, since everything went down, all I’d thought about was myself and how tough it was going to be for me to deal with everything. How everything was going to suck for me without having Grace around. And that was when it hit me.

What was it like for her to hear me and Scott talking like that? What was going through her mind? She must have felt so betrayed, so humiliated. I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of how much I’d hurt her. She’d gone
home
. To
Jersey
. Things must have been really bad for her to do that.

Did she tell Ryder? Her mom? Her dad probably wanted to kill me. I knew I would if someone did that to my daughter.

I was pulled from my dark thoughts by the sound of Scott coming in. The first thing he said when he looked at me was, “What’s up with the hand?” He hung his jacket on the hook by the front door.

I’d forgotten all about my hand until he mentioned it. “Nothing,” I said, not wanting to get into it with him.

Oddly satisfied with my non-answer he said, “Where’s Grace? I thought she was coming over after her field trip, or whatever it was she went on. I didn’t eat ‘cause I figured you guys would have food here for me. Is she coming later?”

“No,” I said, hoping that I wouldn’t have to elaborate.

“Uh oh…trouble in paradise, my friend? Let’s hear it,” he said as he hopped onto the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table. “Come on, tell Scotty-boy all about it. Is it trouble in the boudoir? Finally realize you’re not really the monogamous type? I told you, monogamy can be a bitch.”

“Scott, I’m really not in the mood. Can you just leave it alone?” I said. I leaned my head back on the arm of the couch, but just then my phone started to ring. I jumped up and looked at the screen, grabbing it quickly off the coffee table when I saw that it was Beth calling.

“Hey Beth,” I said as I got to my feet and walked quickly into my room, leaving Scott behind. I closed the bedroom door behind me and said, “You talked to her, right? What did she say?”

“I talked to her,” Beth began. “I told her you came over, and I asked her if it was all right to call you. I’m not in cahoots with you, Tanner, and I’m not keeping anything from her. She’s my best friend.”

“Okay, understood,” I said. “Now what did she say?”

“In a nutshell, she said for you not to call or text her, and that she’d be back sometime Tuesday, and she’d talk to you then.”

“You’re sure? She said she’d talk to me?” I said, wanting her to clarify.

“That’s what she said. But, Tanner, one thing I’ll say on the QT is that you seriously screwed up, and from listening to her, I don’t know if there’s any coming back from this. I think at this point she’s beyond the hurt and humiliation and she is
seriously
pissed off. I know from experience that can be a lethal combination.”

“Yeah, I get it,” I agreed. “But as long as I know that she’ll at least hear me out, then there’s still a chance.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I’ve got to go. Maybe I’ll see you during the week.”

“Yeah, okay. And, Beth? Thanks. I appreciate it,” I told her as we hung up.

Without thinking, I meandered back out into the living room, grabbed my beer, and sat back down on the couch to contemplate what Beth had just told me.

“You’re as sly as a fox, dude,” I heard Scott say. I looked up to see him squinting and nodding with a grin on his face that could rival the Cheshire cat. “You’re doing Beth on the side, aren’t you? How long did you think you’d be able to keep
that
a secret? Tell me, did Grace find out? Is that what’s eating at you? I can cover for you. Tell Grace that Beth’s with me – she’d be none the wiser.”

“Shut the fuck up, Scott! That’s not what’s going on here,” I said, resigning myself to the fact that I was going to have to tell him the whole story.

“I get it,” he said, nodding knowingly. “You want to keep both of them for yourself. I don’t blame you. It’s a great gig if you can keep it up, but my guess is you can’t, ‘cause otherwise I wouldn’t have found you sprawled across the couch with a puss on.”

“Scott, you’re way off base,” I said, not even looking at him. “It’s much more complicated than that.”

“Well, let’s hear it then,” he said eagerly as he leaned forward with anticipation.

“She was here last night,” I said.

“Who was here? You mean Grace?”

“Yeah, Grace was here. She came home early, and she was here in my room when we got home,” I explained.

“Yeah…so?” he said, confused.

“Scott, don’t you remember what we were talking about when we got home…the Amber situation? You know, how everything with me and Grace came to be?” I continued to explain until he finally caught on.

“Oh,
yeah
, I remember . . . oh
shit
! She heard all that? She
knows
?” he said, now fully aware of the gravity of the situation. “What are you going to do? Oh man, she must’ve been crushed. You
idiot!
You should’ve told her! Now look what happened. Have you at least spoken to her?”

I proceeded to bring him up to date on everything that had happened since last night.

“Wow, that really sucks,” he said.

“Yeah, tell me about it. I’m hoping when I see her on Tuesday, I’ll be able to clear everything up,” I told him.

“Well…what’s there to clear up? I mean, she knows exactly what happened. It’s not like she got any false information, right?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said sarcastically as I turned toward the TV.

“Well, if there’s anything I can do, let me know,” he offered. “I hate the thought of Grace not hanging around.”

“Yeah me too…me too,” I uttered, barely above a whisper.

It felt like an eternity before Tuesday arrived. I’d respected Grace’s wishes – I didn’t call or text her after I’d spoken to Beth. I didn’t know what time she’d be back, but I knew that when she was, I’d hear from her.

Going to class on Tuesday was particularly depressing because she wasn’t there. That was the only class we had together, and it’d become one of my favorite parts of the week. That and going to the gym afterwards, which I couldn’t do because of my busted up hand that was finally starting to feel a little better.

After class I went home and just…waited. Would she call? Would she ask me to come over? Would she just show up here? The not knowing was driving me crazy. My wondering finally ended when there was a knock at the front door, and my heart leapt.

I got to my feet and answered the door. When I saw her standing there, all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and never let her go, but I held myself back. I needed to let her make the first move, since the ball was in her court.

“Hi,” I said, which actually sounded pretty lame, but I didn’t know what else to say. Then I added, “Come in,” as I moved to the side and let her through. “Do you want to sit down?”

“I’d rather stand,” she said with her arms folded in front of her.

Uh oh,
this wasn’t good
.

“So…I hear you want to ‘explain.’ Go ahead – I’m listening,” she said in a tone that I’d never heard her use before.