Where It Ends

| After 4 | Thirty-Seven Hours Later

I'm hugging my knees on the floor of Grady's closet. I can't stop crying or shaking. I should probably get dressed in anything I can get my hands on, but I can't make myself do that, either.

I don't hear any gunshots, and I suppose that's a good sign. Male voices are going on and on about something, though. It started out heated, but it has dropped a few notches. I could probably get the gist of what they were talking about if I cared to. If I could actually hear around my own heaving chest. I try tuning it out entirely and that just makes things worse. . .

I have a good feeling about you, Taryn. You will give Camp Merit an honest try. It'll make your mother very happy. It'll make me very happy. It'll be an adjustment at first, but, in a few months' time, I promise you, if I'm happy, you'll be happy. It doesn't take much. I'm a simple man. If you show respect, and a little faith and gratitude . . . if you give me that wide-open mind of yours . . . then, one day, you will wholeheartedly welcome everything life has to offer. And I can't wait to be a part of it. . .

With his hand low on my hip, he pressed his hot stinking mouth to my cheekbone, and it hung there long enough to bring everything he'd just said into the gutter.

Simple man . . . gratitude . . . wide open . . . everything life has to offer. . .

Oh, my God. My surroundings are swirling. My fingers freeze up and think I might vomit. And, of course, at the very worst of it, the closet door slides open. My wrist is to my mouth, and there's static chewing through my vision. I didn't even hear Grady coming.

When he sees me there, naked, shaking like a leaf, and dismally unwell in every sense of the word, I assume he'll be amused, disappointed, or disgusted. Something I feel like I deserve . . . for leaving Keith with the hope that I might come around. . .

Grady doesn't seem to agree that I brought this on myself. What I get instead is so much better . . . and so much worse than that. He squats down next to me, concerned. More than that, really. He's outright worried, and I'd never want that for him. It makes me wish he never found me here. I should have pulled myself together already. What the fuck is wrong with me?

I don't know why, but I resist his tug. He'd have every right to be annoyed or frustrated, but he only gets more firm with me. Amid another surge of sobbing and shaking, he scoops me into his arms, and goes from a squat to standing without any sign of strain.

I've done everything in my power to avoid the damsel in distress thing, with him and in general, and I've had some success with it. If that's what he truly wanted, he would have picked someone else by now. I suppose it's a good thing he's flexible and open-minded.

This is likely as helpless as I'll ever be. I suppose every man likes being needed every once in a while, and this is his moment. It'll be something he always remembers, but he won't ever gloat.

And so, I let him indulge. I let myself do the same. My body goes limp, and I cling to his neck. I fall apart because I have to, and because I want to. I can't hold it all in anymore, and I'm soooo tired of trying.

"It's all right." He kisses my hairline and sets me in bed. "It was just Mr. Dillard, the downstairs neighbor. He's old and paranoid, and when he heard the toaster fall, he thought we were under attack. He can be a pain in the ass, but he's harmless, mostly."

I nod and pull up the covers, tucking them beneath my arms. "I'm sorry. I—"

"Stop. . ." Kneeling beside me, he wipes away the hair that is sticking to my cheek and drapes it behind my ear. "I had my meltdown. You're allowed to have yours."

That's not what I'm sorry about, or at least not all I'm sorry about. Every time I'm with him, I feel like we're being punished for it, and that's no way to live. I'm not gonna give him up, so I guess I'll just have to figure out how to deal with it. Some of it is just bad luck and maybe that'll pass soon, and the rest, like the guilt, will be bearable.