LITMIR.BIZ

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touch seemed the way to go.

      Grace climbed into the car, her body tensed from head to toe. He slid into the driver’s seat, and though the rational part of his mind told him not to look, he couldn’t help himself. When it came to Grace, the other part of his brain too often took over.

      She was curled up in her seat, forehead pressed to her knees. He opened his mouth to tell her to buckle her seat belt, but clamped it shut. He’d just drive with extra caution.

      “I’m not going to cry.” Her voice was muffled by her knees.

      “Praise every available deity.”

      She laughed. “I like it when you’re funny. It’s much better than pretentious-asshole Kyle.” She turned her face so her temple rested on her knees and she looked at him, just the hint of a smile on her lips.

      He looked at the windshield. “I wasn’t really trying to be funny.”

      “Things were fine when he was locked up.” Her voice was a whisper. “No, they were good. Great. Why does it have to change?”

      “The unknown tends to screw with us a lot more than what we know for fact.”

      “Yes! Exactly. I don’t even know if he’d try to hurt me, you know? I mean, we’d only been on three damn dates, so it’s not like I was the love of his life. Maybe he doesn’t even care that I testified.” Her vigor faded and she slumped in her seat. “And maybe he does.”

      “Grace.” What could he say? What was there to say? He knew the weight of uncertainty, the oppressive bulk of it. He remembered reading The Crucible in high school and thinking it felt a lot like the way being pressed to death must feel. Except lucky Giles had an end. This way, you just felt it all the time, that heavy weight, that struggle to breathe.

      He’d done what he could to circumnavigate it, but he knew his way wouldn’t fit Grace. She was too bright and vibrant to mold herself into something else, someone else. So he had no advice. Only silence.

      “Did your parents beat you?”

      The question didn’t surprise him, but he never knew how to answer it. Had he been hit? On occasion. But beaten in the after-school–special sense? No. And now, well, it didn’t constitute beating if he dished it right back. “Not exactly. What happened to us isn’t the same.” Not at all. Grace was innocent. He was not. “But I know what it’s like to try to beat something and feel like you’ll never win.”

      Grace rested her hand on top of his. Kyle let the feeling of human contact, human comfort, wash over him for a minute. Just a minute. Any longer and he’d take more than he deserved.

      “Let’s head home.” Kyle lifted his hand from Grace’s and turned the key in the ignition. Part of him wanted to see what expression he would find on her face, but fear bolstered the rational part of his brain and he kept focus on backing out of the parking spot.

      “It’s nothing to feel ashamed of.”

      But that was exactly what he felt, what drove him. Shame. Of everything he’d let happen in that trailer for eighteen years. Of everything his father still could bring out in him.

      * * *

      GRACE WAS SPRAWLED on Jacob’s bed, painting her fingernails a bright purple. She was not thinking about Barry. She was not thinking about losing it at the gym. And she definitely wasn’t thinking about Kyle being understanding and nice. About how he was more complex, more kind, more fascinating than she’d ever given him credit for.

      Instead she was thinking about how she was going to wring Jacob’s neck for ditching her again so she’d felt compelled to go to the gym with Kyle. Maybe he’d thought she’d have Mom for company, and maybe at the time she’d been happy he was giving her lots and lots of space, but still. He was a grown-ass man, and would it kill him to stand up to his girlfriend?

      So a little payback was in order. Step one: fill his room with nail polish fumes.

      Grace studied her purple nails and smiled. Mission accomplished. Step two: wait for him to get home and poke and prod him over being such a wimp when it came to women.

      Jacob opened the door and immediately scowled when he saw the nail polish bottle. “Okay, what did I do this time?”

      “Oh, I don’t know. Ditch me every night this week ring any bells?”

      He threw his keys and wallet onto the nightstand. “First, I thought you wanted space. Second, I know.” Jacob sighed and kicked off his shoes. “I suck.”

      Grace frowned. It wasn’t like him to give in to her so easily. “What’s up with you?”

      “You and Kyle will be happy to know that I broke up with Candy.” Since she was sprawled across his bed, he took a seat on the floor, leaning his back against the wall.

      Part of her did an inward jig, but putting on her big-sister hat, she remained outwardly neutral. “It’s not like you to do the breaking up.”

      He tapped his fingers on his knee, frowned at the floor. “Even I can be forced into breaking up with someone when there’s an ultimatum involved.”

      “What was the ultimatum?”

      Jacob closed his eyes, bounced his head against the wall. “Idiotic.”

      “Ah, so it was about me.”

      He opened one eye and studied her. “Self-absorbed much?”

      Grace only had to lift an eyebrow to have him deflating.

      “Okay, maybe partially about you, and me wanting to stick around the house more than take her out.”

      “I know I should keep my mouth shut—”

      “But you’re not going to.”

      “She was awful.” Not nearly good enough for her brother. He had a bad habit of being unable to do anything alone. She couldn’t remember a time since high school when Jacob had gone more than a few weeks without a girlfriend. “She wasn’t even nice.”

      “You’re right.” Jacob nodded solemnly. “I don’t know. I just...” He shook his head. “It’s not fun being alone.”

      “You’re not alone.”

      “You know what I mean.” He gave her a pointed look. “We seem to have opposite fears.”

      She folded her arms across her chest and flopped back on his bed. “It’s not fear. I like being alone.”

      “You like not taking a risk.”

      She shrugged and stared hard at the ceiling. “So what?”

      “So Barry was one guy.”

      Grace knew that. Intellectually. But the intellectual part didn’t always win. She’d grown up with Barry, had known his family; going out with him should have been safe and easy.

      But it hadn’t been, and the fear that it could happen again meant even the prospect of a date made her break out in hives. The prospect of something new left her feeling like an insecure teenager.

      Knowing it was so damn stupid didn’t change how she felt, though.

      She wondered how much Kyle dated. His trauma had stemmed from his family, but in all the years she’d known him, she couldn’t bring to mind any women in his life. Maybe the mention of a date, but never a girlfriend.

      Maybe he was gay. She smiled a little, thinking of the moment in the kitchen when he’d been awfully close, and just as affected as her. No, she didn’t think that was it.

      And wasn’t it interesting that when she thought of that moment and Kyle, she didn’t get that sick, nervous feeling over the prospect of something new?

      “Do you know what happened to Kyle?” That wasn’t what she’d meant to ask, but, well, why not ask?

      Jacob

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