When We Were Young

XLVI: distance

Taylor Zakhar Perez as Grayson Wallace

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"Look! It's Paquette et Marquise, a three hour drive from here!"

The plan is forming in my head too. If we went to this restaurant, they may still have records of their employees. We could get the name of this guy and hopefully find him on Facebook or on the internet somewhere. It is definitely an exciting and very real possibility.

"Do you think they'd still have his name?" My eyes widen, looking up at Gray, who is already on his feet.

"Yes--no--maybe, I don't know! But, I have to go, right? Or else I'll never know?"

His jittery energy is contagious and I immediately feel excitement. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself down and prevent myself from getting my hopes up too high. This was a start, but there would be a long road ahead, if this was even his father.

Gray's pacing now, hands running through his hair as he thinks. "Should we go today?" He looks at the clock, realizing it's already late in the afternoon. "We could get a motel... but, what would we tell Tate? Are they even open right now? Let me check..." He pulls his phone out of his back pocket again.

"Wait, wait," I put my hand up to halt him, a small smile playing at my lips. "Let's take this slowly, okay? There's no need to go tonight and I have work tomorrow, so I wouldn't be able to come with you."

He stops walking. "You're right, you're right."

Gray understands that his hopes are high, just as I do. I haven't seen his eyes glisten and his voice speak with such excitement in a long time. With that being true, it makes it doubly important to understand how to rein it in. It would kill me to see him disappointed once again by his mother and I'm not sure how Gray would handle it. This needs to go well for Gray's sake.

"What about we wait until the weekend?" I suggest, gently playing with the photograph in my hand. "I could tell Tate that I'm going to spend the weekend with my parents and you could say you're going camping with one of your high school friends or something."

It feels wrong to talk about lying to Tate, but if Gray wants to keep this from her for now, I am in no place to disrespect that. I'm just going to have to steer clear of the subject or I may just blurt it out. I'm just hoping Gray will tell her soon himself.

"That sounds like a plan. Could I see that again?" He holds out his hand for the photograph currently in mine.

I hand it to him and he takes a good look at the man his mother was being so affectionate towards. I can almost see the thoughts in his head. This man could be his father. This man could potentially unlock a family he always yearned for.

"Gray?" I unwillingly break him out of his trance. "When are you going to tell Tate?"

The uneasiness about keeping this from her has not worn off, especially now that it's sinking in that we will be actively lying to her. She doesn't deserve that. And we're digging up information about her mother's past too, so in a lot of ways, she really has the right to know. If we don't tell her soon, I'm not sure she'll understand why we waited so long.

Gray must feel the hesitation radiating off of me because he sits down in front of me. "I'm sorry. I didn't even think about how hard it would be for you to not say anything to her."

"It's not that." I break my gaze from his. "She deserves to know. Lily was her role model and she would want to know everything about her and be on this journey with you. I guess... it feels a little strange that I'm here instead of her. This is her mom."

He nods in understanding, biting his lip. "I love that you're here and I am so thankful. But, I agree that Tate should be here too. The thing is that I know she still holds so many of the great sides of mom close to her and so much of that has already been destroyed when the Sullivens told us their story. She wants to have a good mother, no matter that the reality is much darker. And I want that for her. This whole thing will inevitably reveal more darkness about mom, stuff that I'm prepared for and almost expecting. I don't think Tate is. She's had amazing memories with mom and I don't want to ruin that even more for her. Plus, there's a high probability that we won't find anything, so I don't want her to get her hopes up."

I know that in reality, he was the one who didn't want to get his own hopes up. Gray can already feel his own excitement and understandably, he doesn't want to get crushed. Telling his sister means that this is something real and he doesn't quite want to believe it's real yet.

I tilt my head, scrunching my lips to one side. "You're doing it again."

"What?"

"Protective big brother."

"Well--"

"I thought you had finally accepted that she's a twenty-year old full grown woman when you didn't react adversely to Mickey, but here you are again."

He rolls his eyes. "This is different."

"No, it's not," I insist. "Tate's capable and knowledgeable about more than you think. You don't need to protect her anymore. I say tell her."

Gray runs his hands through his hair, making his curls stand up in every direction. He looks to the side where he dropped the photograph while sitting down with me. There is a long moment of contemplation before he loudly exhales.