How to End a Love Story(85)

“Why the fuck do you think?” Grant answers, and walks to the kitchen for a glass of water.

“If this is about”—she waves a hand as she follows him into the kitchen—“about your birthday party . . .”

“When I said I was in love with you, yes,” Grant mutters, and drinks his water.

“You knew,” Helen starts, and there are tears of frustration in her eyes. He wants to kiss them away, which is stupid because she hates being comforted. “You know why it’s impossible.”

“You keep saying words like impossible but I think maybe you thought it was impossible to tell your parents I was working on the show until you had to do it,” Grant says.

“Okay, but doesn’t my parents’ reaction to that prove my point exactly?” Helen says. “If I told them everything, it would be . . . it would be the end of their world.”

What about mine? he thinks dramatically, but doesn’t say it.

“I don’t know what their reaction would be, if you told them everything,” Grant says finally, trying to keep his tone measured. “They’re your parents. If you think it’d be bad, you’re probably right. But . . . we’re grown adults, Helen. We don’t need permission from anyone but each other.”

“Right, because all the healthy relationships are the ones where they have no one but each other.” Helen laughs, short.

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“I never . . .” She looks away from him, as if she’ll find the right words in his cabinets somehow. Good luck, he thinks, those cabinets work for me. “I never wanted this to be anything but temporary. It was fun, and convenient, and maybe the fact that it was a little taboo made it exciting—”

“Don’t fucking do that,” he says. “Don’t cheapen this.”

“The point is, I never saw a future here,” she says. “I was upfront about that. If your feelings changed, that’s . . . unfortunate, but there’s nothing I can do about how I feel.”

“Unfortunate,” he mutters darkly. “That’s me, Grant Shepard: Unfortunate.”

“There’s literally a million other people out there we could be happy with,” Helen says softly.



He looks up at her sharply then. Helen feels the air leave the room.

“Do you want me to beg?” he asks. “I’ll beg. Please, Helen.”

Grant closes the distance between them in a few short strides and suddenly she’s in his arms, and he’s kissing her forehead, then her cheek, her neck, her shoulder. She can feel the shape of please, please, please forming against her skin with each kiss, and he’s sinking onto his knees, kissing her hands, and her heart is breaking.

“You said once it’d be easier if we could say nothing’s happened,” he says softly. “We can still do that. We don’t ever have to . . .”

Helen laughs humorlessly.

“Something’s happened,” she says. “This, this thing between us, it’s the farthest thing from nothing.”

A muscle ticks in Grant’s jaw.

“I’m in love with you,” he says.

Helen pulls her hands away from him. She sinks down to the floor and leans back against his cabinets, tired. “I wish you wouldn’t say that. It makes things so much harder.”

Grant laughs to himself. “Right.”

He stares sullenly at her shoes and Helen wishes she could reach out and touch him.

“We said either of us could end this, at any time,” she reminds him, instead. “It was supposed to be . . . painless.”

“It doesn’t feel painless,” he says. “Does it?”

He looks up at her then and her breath catches in her throat. There’s something piercingly vulnerable about his expression, and she can’t bring herself to lie to him.

“No.” She swallows. “It doesn’t.”

“I’m not crazy—you felt it too, right?” he asks. “This thing between us, it’s different, it’s . . . special. That sounds so fucking lame. It’s not special, it’s . . . it’s a feeling, in my gut, like—like I’ve been waiting for this. For you.”

Helen nods mutely. “I felt it too,” she whispers finally.

“So what, we’re supposed to just . . . give it up?” he asks, grimacing. He drinks his water and she wishes she’d asked for a glass too.

“I want to be happy. I want to be healthy,” she says softly. “I can’t do that with you. There’s always going to be some part of me that wonders if the reason it’s happening at all is because of some fucked-up thing in our past.”

Grant shakes his head. “That’s not the reason this is happening.”

“Maybe if things had been different.” She swallows. “Maybe if we’d met again later, or if we’d never known each other in the first place.”

Grant laughs shortly. “I’m glad we’re together now,” he says. “I’m sorry it didn’t happen sooner.”

“I think you’ll be glad we ended this in a few months,” Helen says, and he’s already shaking his head. “You’ll meet someone who’s fun and interesting and who can love you back without . . . without all this tortured drama.”