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It wasn't in me to laugh at my father's words, no matter how out of place they were, but I still argued. "I've changed."

"No, you haven't. You're stronger because you had to be. Smarter because of the mistakes you made in the past. The sadness you've known, that only helps a man become happier because he learns to appreciate what he has. You haven't changed, you're just wiser because you've learned life."

His door groaned as he pushed it open with two last words said to me.

"Use it."

Grace

Watching Keara and Josh together was like watching the middle of every romance movie ever made. The happy times, the love, the kissing, the touching ... it was
always
that way. Never before had it made me feel anything but happiness for them.

Tonight, I was jealous. I was lonely. I just wanted to close my eyes and pretend that Keara and Josh were me and ... anyone.

"Grace, did you hear me?"

I lifted my eyes and saw them both staring at me with searching eyes.

"Huh? I'm sorry, I wasn't really listening."

Keara reached across the small table and took my hand, her beautiful diamond glistening in the dim light of the restaurant. The two of them had invited me out for dinner and I'd accepted immediately. Anything to get some distance from Merrick. I wasn't really in the mood for celebrating, but I couldn't take the thunder from Keara. She'd waited for this for so long and I was truly happy for her.

"Are you okay, sweetie? You've been gloomy all night."

I shook my head and looked down at my plate of food. My steak was barely touched and my potatoes looked like there was an explosion. "I'm just tired."

Keara's gaze was on me, scrutinizing every movement I made. I didn't dare look up from the massacre on my plate.

"Josh, baby, will you do me a favor?" she suddenly asked.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"Call Christie for me, please. Tell her we need her and Jen tonight."

I barely opened my mouth to stop him when Keara stopped me. "Don't even think about it."

Josh's smile was wicked as he rubbed his hands together like a villain does right before he catches the good guy. Not that Josh was villainous, but he looked like he was enjoying my helplessness.

"Does that mean you might come home drunk?" he inquired, bouncing his brow at my best friend.

Keara rolled her eyes, but she couldn't stop the pink from rising in her cheeks. "Maybe."

Josh puffed out his chest and stood from the table, already dialing the number.

"Keara, I don't need an intervention, plus, tonight is
your
night."

She looked offended. "You know me better than that, Grace. If I was staging an intervention, you wouldn't know it was coming. This is a girl's night. You need it."

I kept my mouth shut because, like always, she was absolutely right. I needed to spend some time with the girls. I needed to get my mind off of Merrick and how intense my feelings for him had become. I could barely stand to be close to him anymore without feeling like I was going to burst.

I needed distance. I needed to get my head on straight before I did something stupid like tell him how much I wanted him. How the loneliness went away when I was with him.

"They're on their way to the house," Josh stated when he returned to the table. "I just got called in, so I'm heading to the station."

Keara's smile dropped for only a moment before she pulled it right back. She wanted to stay proud of Josh for what he did for work, but it still scared her. She didn't like being alone either.

We paid for dinner and climbed into Josh's truck. The drive to the station only took a few minutes and Josh leaned over to kiss Keara before waving goodbye.

"You two make me sick, you know that?"

Keara burst out laughing as she slid into the driver's seat. "Yeah, well, you'll have to suffer through it."

We drove for a minute before she drew in a long breath. "Do you mind if I stay with you tonight?"

"Of course I don't mind, Keara. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I just hate sleeping in that house without him. I don't like being alone."

"That makes two of us."

"At least you got your parents there with you. And Merrick. He's close enough that you could shout and he'd be right there."

Would he come? Would he at least try?

Yes, I think he would.

Keara pointed to the couch the second we walked into her house. "Sit. Stay."

I rolled my eyes and fell into the cushions, making myself comfortable while she wandered around the kitchen.

Voices outside signaled that Christie and Jen had arrived and before I could move, the front door flew open to reveal the two of them with beaming smiles on both of their faces.

"I believe we have been summoned," Jen smirked, gliding into the house and heading straight for the kitchen.

Christie shut the door and waddled over to the couch, almost falling on her butt as she sat down. "I so need this right now," she sighed.

"A couch?"

"No, a girl's night. Gary is driving me crazy."

"He is?"

She turned her head and lifted an eyebrow, her expression telling me I was in for a treat.

"Did you know that they have a book just for men on what to expect when your wife is pregnant?"

I shook my head.

"Well, they do. Who was the moron that wrote
that
book? They should call it
'How to Piss Your Wife Off When She's Pregnant and Hormonal'
. I swear to God, every word in that thing causes Gary to freak out."

I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth in an attempt to keep the laughter inside.

Christie adjusted her massive belly and got more comfortable. Then she let out a harsh breath. "He said he was having jaw pain, so we went to the dentist – a male dentist no less – and that idiot told Gary he has TMJ because of stress. And do you know what that dumbass dentist said next?"

I shook my head again and bit down harder on my lip.

"He said it's sympathy pain.
Sympathy
pain! Can you believe it? Gary is having sympathy pain with my pregnancy, so guess what he does? He goes and buys this big ass book for dads and reads the whole thing in two days."

"Oh God, is she talking about the book again?"

I turned to see Jen walking out of the kitchen with two glasses of wine in her hands. Two very
full
glasses of wine. She handed one to me and winked. "I told Mike if he even
thought
about reading that book, I'd leave him faster than a hooker leaves a hotel room."

"Yeah well, I can't leave Gary because I've only got a month left and I can barely wipe my own ass," Christie exclaimed.

Keara's howl of laughter came from the kitchen and I couldn't hold back the giggles. I held tight to my glass of wine, the liquid bouncing as I laughed.

"It's true!" Christie shouted.

We calmed and Jen sat on my other side, sprawled out. The three of us rested our heads on the back of the couch and gazed up at the ceiling. None of us moved until the smell of something delicious hit my nose, making my head pop up.

"Sushi," Jen informed me before taking a considerable gulp of her wine. "It's one of those nights."

"Oh, don't even get me started on the sushi," Christie fumed. "Gary tried to tell me I wasn't supposed to eat it. I can eat
some
of it, but nooooo!" She leered at my glass of wine and licked her lips. "I can handle giving up a few things. Not that. I love the man, but if he tries to stop me from eating sushi again, I'll punch him in the wiener schnitzel."

Jen was taking another gulp of wine as Christie ranted, but it didn't stay in her mouth very long. Wine sprayed all over the coffee table and the hilarity of the moment was so flawless, we all would have fallen over if it wasn't for the couch.

Keara's laughter only made it worse. She snorted, making the rest of us snort until laughter was no longer possible. It just turned into a struggle to breathe.

A few minutes later, Keara was cleaning up the coffee table, her lingering laughter making us all smile.

"I'll get more wine," she sang and pointed at Jen. "You get the sushi out here."

The next two hours were spent with lots of wine, even more sushi, newlywed-sex talk, a sappy movie that made the four of us tear up, and a reminder that even when I was alone, I wasn't.

These were the kind of friends a girl needed in her life. Desperately. The kind of friends that would punch a bitch in the face for saying a few mean words about the other. Finding them wouldn't have been possible any other way.

I spent a while staring at Christie's ever-growing belly, feeling the kicks and twists while Christie struggled to hold her bladder. I remembered that feeling. Like someone was sitting on my bladder. Well, I guess someone really was.

Jen kept pouring more wine and I could barely move by the time the movie was finished. Keara only had a glass or two and stopped before the movie even started so she could drive us back to my parents.

The night was still young, but Jen needed to get home to Mike, and Christie – who looked ready to pass out – was her ride home.

We said our goodbyes, promising to get together again soon. I cleaned up while Keara packed an overnight bag and by the time we got to my house, we were both struggling to keep our eyes open.

I discretely glanced over at Merrick's house and saw all the lights off. Not that he would have turned them on, but there was no way he would be back already. Not when Emma had all her kids there.

"Is Merrick home?" Keara sang, bumping me with her elbow.

I shook my head. "He's with his family tonight. I bet he'll stay the night there, actually. He especially hates being on the road at night."

Keara and I sprawled out on my bed and sighed.

I glanced at the clock and
9:30 PM
blinked back at me in bright, neon green digits.

"Wow, we're lame," I snorted.

"We're adults now. Nine thirty is like midnight on the worst day of my life," Keara mumbled into the pillow.

"You don't have bad days, do you?" I asked, attempting to run my fingers through the knots in my hair.

"Everyone has bad days, Grace. It's part of being human. Hell, it's part of being
alive
."

The lightness I had been feeling all night started to weigh down. Heavier and heavier until my chest couldn't rise and my shoulders ached from the burdens they carried.

"And if there are more bad days than good? What then?"

Keara turned on her side and gazed at me with her all knowing grey eyes. Her expression gave nothing away and a few seconds passed before I finally looked away.

"The bad prepares us for the good. Even when it doesn't feel like it ever goes away. We just have to keep pushing through it."

"How?"

"I don't know, sweetie. I just know that God will never give us more than we can handle. So whatever hardships stand in front of us, we just have to remember that we can make it through. One step at a time."

The tears fell before I could even blink, but Keara was there, wiping them away as I took a ragged breath. The enormity of what I went through ... it was too much. Maybe God hadn't read me right when he was dishing out the shit. Maybe he accidently gave me too much and didn't realize I'd try to fake my way through it until it killed me.

"Why?" I growled as the breaths stirred the anger inside of me. "Why her? Why take
her
away from me?"

Keara's eyes widened as they welled with tears. "I don't know, Grace," she whispered.

The twisting pain in my chest finally released, and with it, came the waves of desperation I'd felt in that hospital room and for many days after. It took my breath away. Over and over, it fractured through me, tearing apart all the pieces I thought I had put back together.

"Get it out, Grace. Let me carry some of it."

I sobbed into my pillow. Loud, ugly sobs that would crack my ribs if they were any more violent. It all came back, like a flood filling the empty roads in my mind, bringing with it all the things no one wanted to see.

"I wanted her, Keara. I wanted her more than anything."

"I know, Grace. I know you did."

Her fingers softly drifted through my hair and she waited. She waited for me to tear my broken heart out of my chest and show her all the cracks and missing pieces, the ones I couldn't hold together any longer. The ones that had died when I lost my baby.

"The pain ... it was like having my insides ripped out. I hadn't felt her move all day and all of a sudden it felt like a knife in my back." The pain was unbearable. I remembered it vividly; it was terrifying. "Jason didn't answer the phone so I drove to the hospital by myself."

Her fingers constricted, pressing into my scalp as anger swept through her. I knew she was angry, because
I
was angry.

"Every contraction was a struggle, like my insides didn't fit inside of me anymore and everything was trying to force its way out. I could hardly breathe and I couldn't control the car. I almost crashed a few times because they were getting so bad, so I drove slow. So fucking slow! I was scared of what it meant, so scared that I considered turning around and going back home," I admitted. "But I didn't know what was happening. I just thought she was coming early and the only thing I wanted to think about was that I was finally going to see her. To hold her."

I looked up to see Keara crying right along with me. If she'd been there, if I hadn't been such an awful friend, she would have driven me to the hospital. She would have helped me breathe through the pain. She would have gotten me there sooner and maybe – just maybe – things would have been different. She would have held my hand when the doctor told me to push and she would have cried with me when ...

"I held her in my arms, Keara. She was already gone, but I held her tiny body against my chest and she was beautiful. Warm and soft. And she was gone. My daughter, my baby girl. She was gone and all I could do was cry."

Keara's arms came around me and I buried my face in her shoulder, sucking in deep breaths before letting them out with more tears.

"I just cried for her. I didn't know what else to do. I was alone in a cold room surrounded by strangers. They didn't say a word to me. They just watched me lose her."

"Grace ..."

"Do you know what it's like to actually lose a piece of yourself?" I pulled away, my cheeks wet with the hot tears that I'd held back for so long. They said it was time to let her go. They yanked her out of my arms and that was it."

I lost it then. The racking sobs came all at once and the year of agony and loneliness seeped out of every pore in my skin. The heavy darkness I'd left behind had followed me every step of the way, waiting for this moment. Waiting to surround me again.