How to End a Love Story(73)

“It’s stupid,” he mutters, and she presses a kiss against his neck, willing him to go on. “Traffic on the five north, because of the pileup.”

“The big car accident?”

“There was a second one, a few miles after the big pileup. Someone in a sheet on the ground,” he says.

“Oh.”

“I kept thinking about how they made it past all that traffic, just to die a few miles later,” he mutters. “Or maybe it happened before and caused the other big pileup. I don’t know.”

“And you had a panic attack?” she asks, looking up at him.

He wipes his face with his hand, and she takes the hand from him to press a kiss into his palm.

“You’ve done that before,” he says, and swallows.

“You were hurt then too,” she murmurs, lacing her fingers through his hands.

He exhales shortly.

“Sometimes I get like this,” he mutters. “I don’t know why. The most random fucking triggers, it’s embarrassing.”

“Is it about . . .” Helen doesn’t finish the question, but he hears it anyway.

“Probably,” he says. “I mean, it definitely fucked me in the head, if that’s what you’re asking. It took so long for the paramedics to get there, I still remember the traffic.”

“Come on,” Helen says, and tugs his hand to lead them toward his office.

She shuts the door and sits on the couch against the wall. He removes his baseball cap and leans against the door. He’s cold and pale, and she aches at how vulnerable he looks.

“Come here,” she says, and when he moves to the couch, she urges him down until his head is in her lap. She brushes a hand through his hair, repeating the motion in soothing strokes.

“Do you think about that night a lot?” she asks.

“I try not to,” he mutters. “I feel so fucking useless whenever I do.”

“There was nothing you could have done,” she murmurs.

“You don’t know that,” he says quietly.

“There was nothing you could have done,” she repeats, shaking her head. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I thought I was going to jail,” he says, and laughs in a choked kind of way. “I was mostly worried about me.”

“That makes sense,” she says. “You were just a kid. You didn’t know what could happen. It was scary.”

Grant presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“You . . . of all people . . . should not be comforting me. My life has gone really well since then,” he says. “It’s so fucked-up.”

She covers both his hands with hers, hoping the extra weight feels comforting even in the darkness of his vision, and after a moment, he silently laces their fingers together.

“You can tell me, you know,” she says, so quietly she feels compelled to repeat it. “You can tell me about that night. If it helps to have someone to—to remember it with.”

They’re both still for a moment.

Grant takes a breath, and then he starts.





Twenty-Three




Whenever Grant remembers it now, it always feels like flashbacks, like—and it sounds so dumb to him, out loud—like his memory turned into a montage.



He remembers the party he was at, a last-minute decision to attend Brianna Peltzer’s last-minute party, celebrating nothing but another Friday. He had vague plans to see Lauren DiSantos afterward—but the party wasn’t Lauren’s scene.

He remembers the bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon someone handed him at the start of the night, the sweat on the glass, the way having a beer in his hand always made him feel older and more world-weary, like he was already at college. He remembers looking up and seeing his ex-girlfriend Desiree, and the forbidden attraction of ex-girlfriend, as a concept. She’d picked up his hand in a knowing sort of way and pulled him onto the dance floor. They danced. They kissed.

“Give me a ride home,” she whispered against his ear.

He’d had only a sip of his beer, while everyone else at the party was still drinking.

It had seemed like the right thing to do.

They pulled up to Desiree’s driveway shortly after midnight. There was the familiar oak tree out front where they’d taken prom photos a week ago. Grant and Desiree had been together since sophomore year. It suddenly seemed strange and sad that they weren’t together anymore. Desiree looked over at him from the passenger seat, and he knew she was thinking the same thing.

“I’m scared of what happens next,” Desiree said. “After high school.”

“Me too,” Grant said, even though he’d never thought so before. He’d gone through most of high school with the impression that he hadn’t met the real version of himself yet; he was excited to start the next chapter. But seeing Desiree in his passenger seat, in her old familiar driveway, he suddenly knew he was telling the truth.

“Do you want to come in?” she asked.

Grant doesn’t remember exactly what he said. Instead, he remembers the fullness of Desiree’s lips and the way they curved up a little at his response. He remembers brushing back the hair on her shoulder, the soft light of the driveway breaking through the curtain of blond. He remembers laughing as they dodged the sprinklers on her parents’ lawn, and the way her finger looked pressed against her lips as they tiptoed upstairs to her bedroom. He remembers feeling a stab of guilt as he thought of Lauren DiSantos—he’d said he would be at her house by midnight. He could be a little late.