Page 81 of Holding Grace

Head bent, he turned and opened the door. “I can’t be here right now. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Without so much as a glance back at me, he stepped through the door, shutting it quietly behind him.

Michael knew that raised voices and slammed doors scared me. Even hurt and angry he’d done neither. That alone told me all I needed to know about who he was as a man.

I’d been so foolish to think he’d welcome me touching him out of any sense of obligation. All I’d wanted was to repay him a little of the kindness he’d shown me. Instead, I’d driven him away.

Chapter 30

Michael

I drove, no direction in mind, just needing to put distance between me and Grace. Windows down and music cranked up, I tried to blank my mind from the thoughts swirling through it. I forced it away from Grace again and again, my stomach churning and chest tightening every time she slipped back in.

When she’d kissed me, touched me, I’d thought that finally, finally she and I were connecting, that she felt for me even a fraction of what I felt for her.

To find out that she saw sex with me as payment on a debt – that she was doing it because she felt she had to – had hit me like a sledgehammer to the gut. It had torn me up, more than I wanted to admit, even to myself.

Grace was important to me, more so with every passing day. I was in this with her because I wanted to be, not because I felt obligated and definitely not as a way to get anything from her in return. How could she not see that? How could she not know?

After hours of aimless driving, I pulled into a rest area and sat looking at the stars through the windshield, the cold night air and silence calming me and helping me get my head back together.

I regretted walking out on Grace. I’d needed to go, to move, but at most I should have taken a walk around the block or something to talk myself down, not leave for the whole night. I hadn’t been thinking straight when I’d left. Now that I was, I turned the car around and headed for home.

I needed to say out loud to Grace what I’d been thinking all night and make sure she heard me. I’d meant to talk to her, I just hadn’t. I wasn’t ready to tell her everything, but there were things I needed her to know.

She was important to me, more so every day. I was with her because that’s where I wanted to be. And no matter what, I’d stick by her until she didn’t need me anymore.

That thought made me feel a little sick. The end of my time with Grace, whenever that would be, wasn’t something I wanted to think about. I knew it would come since she obviously wasn’t thinking long-term like I was, but that was in the future.

Right now, I needed to get home and find a way to get back on even footing with my wife.

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I OPENED THE APARTMENT door as quietly as possible and stepped inside. As I hung up my keys, I listened for sounds within the dark apartment. It was still early, just after 6 am, and I didn’t want to wake Grace if she was sleeping.

As I had that thought I heard quiet footsteps. Turning, I saw Grace walking toward me from the direction of her bedroom. She stopped at the edge of the main room, and I could just see her in the faint light from the small light we always kept on in the kitchen. She didn’t say anything, just hovered on the threshold twisting her fingers in the hem of the oversize sweatshirt she wore.