Another Alternative

What The Hell, Hannah?

Hannah's POV

"Just hear me out, okay?" Grace's eyes shone a bit darker as she stared at me.

"I-" I took a moment to think about whether I wanted to hear what she had to say. "Okay."

"Okay, I'd like to start by telling you I love you and I didn't mean to hurt you this bad." Grace began, clearly not understanding it wasn't her fault. "Also, can we go sit in a booth? This floor is really uncomfortable."

"Yes, absolutely." I hopped to my feet and offered my hand to help Grace up. She took it and we walked over to the booth I'd been refusing to serve until she had come back in the previous day. Holy shit. I thought. That was only yesterday.

"Is this?" Grace asked, pointing to the booth.

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"Yeah." We sat on opposite sides of the table. Neither of us made eye contact for a long moment. When I finally did look at Grace she was staring at her hands, fidgeting slightly. She darted her eyes to mine and grabbed my hands in one fluid motion. We both stayed quiet for a moment.

"What the hell, Hannah?"

"I know, and I'm sorry. It's just, I realized we could never really be together because Chester or whatever his name is was out there and not likely to be out of the picture and I know I shouldn't have been so affected by that but I was and Mamrie came in here to comfort me and I don't know what came over me and," I paused, realizing that sentence had yet to end. "And now I'm rambling. This must look so stupid to you."

"Not at all." Grace closes her eyes for a long moment as she speaks. "Go on. Please."

"Mamrie came in and I guess I was so heartbroken and upset that I-" I stop mid-sentence, not wanting to finish it. Come on, you pussy. She deserves to know. "I think I kissed her. I don't know, it's all a bit of a blur." Liar.

"Oh." Grace pulled her hands back and placed them in her lap.

"Yeah."

"Why did you," She shook her head a bit and snapped back into reality. "Why?"

"I don't know." I let out a pained breath. "I guess she was just here for me and a bunch of old feelings I didn't know I had came up. But it meant nothing. She was just a replacement because I thought I'd never get the real thing."

"No I-I get it. I really do. Please, finish the story."

"I think you know what happened next. Mamrie unsurprisingly and understandably reacted poorly to my drunken advances, stormed out and that's when you showed up." Grace leaned forward and I felt cool hands wipe away tears I didn't know were there. I let out a breathy laugh. "I don't know why I'm crying."

"I do."

"Care to enlighten me?"

"It's a sad story. Shocking and stirring, but sad." Grace takes my hands and brings them to her lips, kissing each knuckle individually. "I totally get it. I mean, you just got her back. She was finally going to be your friend again after all these years and then it gets fucked up like that again? That's enough to crush anyone."

"That's exactly what I thought." I must've had just an awestruck look on my face, because Grace looked confused for a moment. That look passed quickly when she no doubt remembered how much I'd had to drink.

"You should go sober up. We can talk about this later." Grace helped me up and walked me to my apartment next door to the bar. I spent the whole way staring at her and thinking about how lucky I was. And I wasn't wrong, I was damn lucky. This girl had not only forgiven me for kissing her best friend, but comforted me for the loss of an old friend. The second loss. I had to have been the luckiest person in the world.

And I was.

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A/N: Hey y'all! So I'm not 1000% with this chapter, but I hope you guys are into it. I've taken to updating on Sundays, in case you've not noticed. It may be on Monday next week though, I A) am not sure where to go with this and B) don't know how to execute where I want to go with it. Angsty angst is on the horizon, Troyler kiddos. Sorry bout it.