Crossing The Grey

E p i l o g u e

6 days later...

I look at my watch again. She'd be halfway across the Atlantic by now. She'd be sitting in first class, sipping her champagne and mentally adjusting to her new life in London. Her new life that didn't involve me. And what was I doing? Staring out the window at yet another dreary Seattle day, pining for her like some lovesick teenager. Again. I turn around to gaze again at the large painting on the far wall of my office.

The Trouton.

It had arrived three days ago with a note:

I know you liked this one.

Think of me when you look at it, please. I'll never forget what you mean to me. I'll never forget you. You know why I need to do this.

Thank you for New York.

Yours, always

C ~ xx

I'd memorised that note. I'd run what had felt like the circumference of Seattle with that note clutched in my hand like it was part of her. It hadn't changed a fucking thing. I didn't know why she had to do it. I knew nothing except that she was still gone. That's what I felt when I looked at the Trouton. Hopefully time would change that. She wasn't dead, but she may as well be. She hadn't chosen me. She'd chosen another life. And for that I couldn't blame her. Not really. When I'd suggested to her that night at The Bowery that we could have the fairytale she'd asked me to tell her what it looked like. Our Fairytale.

I couldn't answer her.

I'd simply stared at her in silence until she'd smiled that sad smile and asked if she'd be able to touch me in our fairytale. I hadn't been able to answer that either. I wanted her to touch me - I knew that much. So I'd said that, eventually. But in the end I hadn't been able to convince her that we could make it work. I hadn't convinced her that I could give her what she needed and wanted.

Worse though, was that I also hadn't been able to tell her that I loved her. Those words had died on my tongue, helpless and wasted. I was a fucking coward. I'd been a coward 8 years ago and I'd been a coward six days ago, and I was still a coward today. Yet more proof that Gideon was right. People didn't change.

The sound of the door opening rips me from my thoughts, thoughts as bleak as the weather and as dark as my fucking soul. Oh so I was poetic as well. The sound of a human toppling onto the marble floor by the door an instant later distracts me further. As I cross the room towards the noise, the delicate heap of crumpled limbs looks up at me, clearly mortified.

Her eyes widen as she drinks me in, taking the measure of me. She looks surprised, perhaps even a little awed. Her face is one of powder blue eyes framed by pale skin and dark hair. Pretty. Innocent looking, and from her place on the floor gazing up at me from behind those wide eyes... submissive.

"Miss Kavanagh, are you all right?" I stretch my hand down to her. She just gapes at me as though I've spoken a foreign language, before taking my hand, allowing me to pull her to her feet. "Christian Grey," I confirm, shaking her hand lightly. It's small and soft in mine and the tips cold.

"I'm Anastasia Steele," she says quietly. Who? Where was Kavanagh's daughter? "Miss Kavanagh has the flu. She asked me to fill in for her, I hope you don't mind Mr Grey?" she asks. She sounds nervous, timid.

I tilt my head and regard her curiously. "So then, you're studying journalism as well?"

"No," she shakes her head. "English Lit... Kate's my roommate."