Chapter Eighteen
Alicia
He’d been quiet after we came from the school and left so quickly I worried if I’d even make it outside in time to go back with him. Something happened back there at the school and more than the obvious. I saw it in the way he let go of my hand and wouldn’t look at me.
I saw it in the way he wouldn’t look at me now.
Gray’s hand squeezed his leather steering wheel, his right arm slack but only because Laura had it. She sat between us, her arms laced around Gray’s like an intricately woven strand. In her few bouts of fear I’d experienced around her I had fortunately never seen her come to the point of tears. This wasn’t the case now as the tears ran down her puffy cheeks.
Her face hidden, she pressed her cheek against her dad’s arm, out of the worst of it now and I wondered in my heart how much her tears had resulted from actual fear versus the result of what her fear had caused, an uproar in her dad coming to console her once again. She’d been doing so well.
I obviously couldn’t answer that for her, keeping to myself in the close-sitting cabin. Bumping along that silence remained but somewhere between the school and wherever Gray was taking us I suddenly wasn’t alone.
A hand came out, a small one on the seat. Laura didn’t look at me, but she didn’t need to.
I took her hand without reprieve, watching it fold in mine and somewhere along the way her breathing evened even more than when she’d been resting against her dad. I brought her peace I guessed, my hand coming down and rubbing hers.
It’s going to be all right, girlie.
It would be all right. She would get through this, but my stomach still turned by everything that happened.
Especially, when Gray noticed my handhold with his daughter.
He actually closed his eyes to it. Like it displeased him for whatever reason before opening his eyes on the road. I didn’t understand it.
What had I done?
I wondered if he’d even tell me, but then, we were suddenly parked outside of my aunt’s home, but no one was making any moves to get out.
I sat there, watching Gray continue his gaze at the open road despite the truck not moving. I wanted to say his name, something.
He spoke first.
“I need to take Laura home,” he said and I noticed quite quickly his statement had nothing to do with me. It didn’t include me at all.
I shook my head. “Gray?”
It was like my very voice caused him pain and I almost regretted speaking, my hand loosening from Laura’s. Rising up slightly, she looked at me, confused too. I supposed I got some satisfaction in the fact I wasn’t the only one.
I brought my hands into my lap, obviously realizing he wanted me to leave for some reason but not understanding why. I didn’t do anything wrong. At least, I didn’t think I had.
I said his name again and this time he actually granted me the honor of his eyes. This man had looked at me in many ways since meeting me, not all of them joyous and uplifted, but all of them at least fair which this didn’t feel like, his eyes narrowed at me in the ways of an enemy.
Not someone he’d just held less than an hour ago.
“I think you should go, Alicia,” he said, my heart squeezing with every word. “I think you should let me figure this out with my daughter.”
She panned from me to him, then back and sitting up, this conversation had her full attention now. She actually let go of Gray’s arm in the transition, looking full on at me then him.
He swallowed like he knew.
“You push,” he said, panning my way. “You always push so this time... This time try not to.”
He said the words so seriously and their message for me crystal clear. He blamed me for today.
He blamed me for everything.
I tried not to let them affect me, his words. I tried not to feel anything about someone I just admitted my heart to, like I said, less than an hour ago. I thought he felt the same way too. He told me as much.
In all this, I could be strong. I could show no feeling and be about my way, but then there was Laura, the little thing so smart, intelligent like her teacher said. Her big, brown eyes told me she understood all about what her father said, his rejection right in front of both of us.
She moved on the seat when I vacated mine and pressed her hands on the glass window after I closed the truck door. I tried to steel my emotions like I had in the truck, but as I watched her turn in her seat and press her hands to the back window of the truck I couldn’t help the burn in my eyes and throat.
I guess that made me human.