27. Grayson

Chapter 27

Grayson

Now

N o, no, no.

I can't believe this is how Macy found out I am Daniel. I was so happy to see her in my room, I wrapped my arms around her waist and inhaled her sweet scent. When I saw the picture, she was holding, it was like the world ended.

I was paralyzed as I watched the gears turn in her beautiful mind. Her face fell with betrayal and pain. I was to blame for the tears in her eyes. I hurt her . As if she realized it too, her gaze turned lethal with hatred until I blurted out the truth.

Now, I stare at her worried face, unable to move. Because I'm back there, eighteen years ago, when the only word I could speak was "no."

The summers growing up, my uncle took a week or two off work to take me back to Sanibel. I spent that time looking out my bedroom window to see Macy. I just watched her. Because, while I wasn't out there dancing beside her, I could close my eyes at night and imagine I was.

One afternoon, while I watched Macy chase seagulls, her laugh carried to my window by the wind, I realized she's always happy. I forgot what that felt like. I figured I'd never feel it again. She looked at my house and her whole body seemed to frown.

I miss you, Mace, I thought. I spoke to her in my mind sometimes. I liked to imagine she'd appreciate the nickname I'd given her, since she'd never had one before.

The school years were black and white. Dark as a charcoal drawing. But when the warm season came, Macy lit my world up with color. She was taller each year. When we were ten her hair had grown to the bottom of her back. When we were thirteen, she began looking like a teenager, and at nineteen she looked like a woman.

I had grown up too. I did online college and started working, eventually saving enough money to buy my house from my uncle. I took down the wall that separated my room from my parents, turning it into a master suite. I got rid of the bunk bed and donated most of my family's belongings. They weren't using them, and someone else needed them more than I did. I found a note in Delilah's sparkly backpack that said "I love you, Grayson" in her childish handwriting.

She called me Grayson to tease me since we only heard our middle names when we were in trouble. I decided to go by my middle name from then on. I didn't want to be Daniel anymore, and this way, no one from town would ever guess I was the boy left behind.

I framed the note and put it next to my bed, because even after all these years, I needed to see her before I fell asleep, and the moment I opened my eyes.

I blink back to the present, glancing down at my pathetic self, crumbled on the floor, remembering what it was like to have my entire world ripped away. I can only say a two-letter word over and over, covering my ears like I am a six-year-old boy again.

She needs an explanation but can't bring myself to explain. I haven't even said their names since I was a kid. I never needed to. I told no one, and my uncle never spoke of them.

I'm a shell of a man, breaking before the woman who unknowingly saved me just by being outside my window. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to suppress the pain rocking through me, but my heart booms heavily in my chest.

With eighteen years between me and that day, I realize time doesn't matter. Not when I can feel every exhausting sensation I did back then. I close my eyes and pray to whoever will listen to take away this pain. Somewhere in the midst of my silent pleas, I fall asleep, like the emotional event is too much for me, so my body simply shut off.