She craved me. And I her.
Then, it changed. One morning I woke up and Grace wasn’t out there making coffee. In fact, the coffee pot looked like it hadn’t been touched. No mugs were out and no lights were on. Her favorite part of the morning was already beginning to wane and she was nowhere in sight.
And the panic that gripped my stomach was unbearable.
I wheeled through the house, throwing open every door to try and find her. The laundry room. Her bedroom. Her bathroom. My bathroom. I checked the library and behind the couches. I checked underneath the breakfast table and around the bend that separated the living room from the bedrooms.
Then I rolled myself to the bottom of the stairs and prepared to throw myself onto them.
If Grace was upstairs and she was hurt, I was going to get to her. Whether or not my fucking leg worked.
But before I could, I heard a key slip into the front door. I whipped around in my chair as my eyes hooked onto the door swinging open. And there, with her hair piled high and her makeup running underneath her eyes and her baggy clothes wrapped tightly around her body… was Grace.
Holding two cups of coffee.
“Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “We’re out of coffee and I didn’t know. I hope that place up the street is good because that’s where I went.”
My heart slammed heavily against my chest as the panic began to recede.
Grace was okay.
She wasn’t hurt.
And I was way too attached.
“Hayden? You okay?”
Her voice snapped me out of it and I began rolling myself into the kitchen.
“We can go to the store later and get some more,” I said.
“Hayden, you seem upset.”
“Does the coffee have cream and sugar?” I asked.
I whipped my head around and saw Grace cock hers at me.
“Not yours, no,” she said.
“Good. Come sit. I’ll get us some fruit.”
“Hayden, are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
“I never said I was or wasn’t. Come and sit, Grace.”
“I didn’t mean to worry you if I did.”
“You didn’t,” I said quickly.
I drew in a deep breath as my eyes closed tightly.
“You didn’t,” I said as I let out a sigh.
“Okay,” Grace said meekly.
And it was the truth. She hadn’t worried me. She scared me. Frightened me.
Made me vulnerable.