Kiss Me

I FELL BACK and hit the floor hard. "Ow," I grumbled while rubbing my head. I was staring up at Grady.

"What are you doing?" he growled.

"What does it look like? Sleeping. Didn't you know it's totally normal to sleep sitting up?" My sarcasm was lost on him, so I sighed instead. "Can you help me up?" I lifted my hand, which he grabbed, and pulled. "What time is it?"

"Almost five."

I had been sleeping like that for hours.

"Have you been here the whole time?"

"Yep." I nodded proudly. "Well, I went to the bathroom at some point, but yeah, pretty much."

"I don't need a babysitter." He walked around me.

I peeked into his room and saw a couple of empty vodka bottles on his dresser, the sheets unkempt, and an overflowing laundry basket. "I can do laundry today."

"I can do my own shit," he said as he rifled through the fridge.

"I know you can, but I don't think you will."

He slammed the fridge door shut with a force that knocked some plastic cups off the top, startling me. I had never seen him like this before.

"Why should I? She's dead, Bay. Why should I do anything?” Tears threatened to surface. He coughed them back and continued, “You have Brandt. I have no one."

His words dug deeper, stinging as they carved their way to my heart. "You have me," I said very carefully.

"That's right. I have you, Bay." He bit through his teeth.

"What do you want from me, Grady? I miss her, too. I loved her just as much. I love you. I don't want to see you this way. I want to help you."

He was leaning on the counter with his arms folded across his chest, studying me. He was clearly buzzed. He pushed off the counter and approached me. I took a few steps back until the couch stopped me. The way his eyes drank me in as he came closer made me uneasy. My pulse quickened, and my stomach flipped. This was it. This was the end of our friendship. I could see it in his eyes. He stopped only inches from me.

"You want to help me, Bay? You really want to help me?"

He was angry, but the hurt escaped, too. I nodded. I was terrified to speak.

"Then, kiss me. Kiss me like you kiss Brandt. Remind me what it feels like to live. To love, for fuck's sake. Because all I feel now is hate and jealousy. I want what you guys have." He raised his voice. "I deserve it."

I shook my head and started crying.

"See? You can't help me. You stand there looking like her. You hold my hand like her. Your eyes look at me like her. All I see is her when I look at you, and it makes me want to grab you and kiss you and see if you taste like her, too. If you kiss like her."

I was crumbling because I knew this was the moment I would lose my best friend. Right now, everything had to change. Everything would change, and I would suffer another loss.

"Please don't, Grady." I sobbed. His hands were balled into fists, fighting what he wanted versus what was right. My heart was pounding painfully now. "You're scaring me," I whispered.

His face fell, and his eyes softened. He reached out and caressed my cheek. "I don't want to scare you. I just want to kiss you."

I let out a heartbreaking cry. I should have walked away, but my feet wouldn't move. I should have done more to stop him, but we were all so messed up now. We were a cluster fuck of madness, doing anything to just hang on one more day. His hand slid under my chin, and he raised my lips to line up with his. "Don't do this, Grady. We can never go back from this."

He thought about it for a second, but then tightened his grip on my chin and leaned in. I tried to pull back, but he tightened his grip harder and pinned me against the couch. I pushed against his chest as hard as I could, but he had at least a hundred pounds of muscle on me. I started whimpering. "Don't, Grady. Please, don't."

Just as his lips pressed on mine, the front door slammed open, and before I knew what was happening, Brandt was on Grady.

"What the hell are you doing, Grady?"

I fell to the ground as they wrestled around the floor. "Stop. Please, stop." My exhausted plea was absorbed by the sounds of them knocking into furniture. I needed to find the strength to stop this.

"Stop!" I screamed, but they ignored me. Just as Grady was about to punch Brandt, I yelled, "I'm pregnant!" That got their attention.

"What?" Brandt asked as he shoved Grady off him.

If Grady wasn't defeated before, he was now. He sat against the wall and refused to look at me. Brandt rushed over and joined me on the floor.

"You're pregnant? But we just… Are you sure?" There was a renewed hope glowing in his eyes.

"I have to get it confirmed, but I think so."

"It hasn't even been two weeks since we…"

"I know, and it wouldn't have even crossed my mind, but the psychiatrist encouraged me to test before I started the medication. I grabbed a test when I got my pills, and I took it when you were gone."

"Why didn't you call me?" His face scrunched in disapproval.

"I wanted to be sure first." I put my head down and sneaked a glance at Grady. He didn't mean to corner me. He was just hurting, and any anchor to reality was a risk worth taking. He got up, walked past us without a word, and slammed the front door closed as he left, causing me to jump again.

"Please, don't be mad at him, Brandt. He's grasping at anything he can to come back to us, but I knew this was going to be a problem. It's not me he has feelings for. You have to believe that. I just look too much like her. He's not going to be able to move on being around me. Around us."

He sighed loudly as he sat back against the couch. He buried his hand in his hair nervously. "I know, but I'm all he has."

I took his hand. "We'll figure this out. Together."

He turned and smiled. "We're going to have a baby."

I returned the smile. "We're having a baby."

Grady returned late that night. I heard him stumbling around as Brandt and I lay in bed. I cried quietly so Brandt wouldn't hear. I wanted to go out and talk to him before the morning, but I knew it was a bad idea. I needed to stick to the plan. Brandt and I were going to talk to him in the morning together. More changes were coming. Some bad, some good. I just hoped one day we would all be together again.

I WOKE UP before Brandt. The sun was just rising, so I slid out and left the room to make coffee. Grady's door was open. My heart dropped. "Brandt!" I shouted. "Brandt, wake up." My voice was shaking. Brandt raced out of the room.

"No," he said. He rushed to my side.

"He's gone," I muttered. The closet and bathroom were empty. "Did he, at least, leave a note?"

Brandt searched the apartment, but only found Grady's cell phone.

"But how are we going to get in touch with him?" I asked, horrified.

"I think that was the idea, Bay. We can't."

I shook my head in disbelief. He cut us out. He was gone. He was doing this alone.

"This is what we wanted. He needs to move on." Brandt was trying to reassure me, or maybe he said it for himself.

"I know, but not like this. Not angry. Not with no way to reach him. How will we know if something happens to him?" Another thought pierced me. "How will he know when I'm having the baby?" Tears welled in my eyes.

Brandt walked over and took me in his arms. "He'll be back, Bay. He loves us. He just needs time. He'll be back."

But he didn't come back. He didn't call. Brandt and I had finally gone back to my parents' house, but in the end, it was just easier to have an estate sale. I packed up important papers—which wasn't more than a box—photo albums, and a few things I had to keep. I kept one of my mom's necklaces my dad gave her on their first anniversary. It was a simple silver circle tag with their initials engraved on it. She wore it all the time, but not the weekend they died.

It was strange, but I kept my sister's iPod. She was glued to her music, and I knew every time I listened to her playlists, I would picture her lying on her bed doing homework and singing off-key.

I kept a few articles of clothing that smelled like each of them and then donated the rest. I was doing surprisingly well with the whole thing. It took a few weeks to do it, but I did it, and now the house was empty.

I stood on the front lawn and stared at the For Sale sign. I had debated on keeping it, but I would never be the same person that grew up in that house, whether I was in it or not, and it wasn't home without them, so I let it go. Brandt put his arm around my shoulders.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay. It's surreal standing here outside my own house and feeling like a stranger."

"We'll make a new home together somewhere else."

"I know."

He rested his hand on my belly. The doctor confirmed my pregnancy. I was four weeks. I hadn't imagined having a baby so soon, but I was ecstatic. A family was something I’d always wanted, and I considered this to be a fate baby. It was meant to be, and it gave me a reason to live. A reason to find happiness again. Purpose.

"I miss Grady," I whispered.

"Me, too, Bay. Me, too."

I thought about him so often it was unhealthy. I feared the worst but hoped for the best. I wanted him to find his purpose again. To learn how to live without Tessa, but I was also selfish and wanted him here with us. I wanted our baby to have an uncle, but I couldn't be sure he would ever return.

"I have a surprise for you."

"You do?" He was always great at lightening the mood.

We drove back to his apartment. He reached over and took my hand. It took time for little things like this to become natural again, and I was glad they had. He caressed my hand with his thumb as he held it close to him. When we pulled into the parking lot, there was a moving truck in front, and two men were loading it with furniture.

"Is that our bed?"

"Surprise," he announced.

"Surprise what? Are we moving?" Oh, no. We couldn't be moving.

"Yep, are you excited?"

My face held every expression except excitement. I was a mess. I was scared, nauseous, and most definitely, not excited. "Grady won't be able to find us," I managed to choke out.

Brandt's smile dropped. "Bay, we can't live based on what we think Grady's going to do. I know how hard it is for you to be here. We need to start over."

I knew he was right. "I'm sorry. I just need time to adjust. You know I don't do well with change, but I know this will be good for us."

"Grady has my email, and he's still co-owner of our company. If he wants to find us, he will. I would never leave if I thought he couldn't."

"Where are we going?"

"To a little beach community on the outskirts of San Diego."

"Oh, wow. We really are moving."

"It's been a month since the accident, and this community is still grieving. Every time we go to the grocery store, we pass memorials. Every time I read the paper, there's a new story about another family that perished."

"I know, Brandt. I get it. I run into my parents' friends all the time. It's hard hearing the condolences all the time. Makes it hard to move on. I think a fresh start where no one knows us is a great idea. I just hope Grady will join us one day."

"He will."

"Can you take me somewhere before we leave town?" I asked.

"Of course."

The movers were done, so we went through the apartment to make sure nothing was left behind and then dropped the keys off with the building manager. We were meeting the movers at the new place in the evening, so we had time to visit our family's graves. We stopped by the flower shop and picked up a few bundles of forget-me-not flowers. Brandt wandered to his parents' graves and left me surrounded by my parents' and Tessa's.

The gravestones were simple. I had "Forget Me Not" engraved on all of them. It was a theme continued from my wedding, and it held a special importance to me, but it was hard standing here. I hadn't been back since the funeral, and it was probably too soon, but I needed to say goodbye before we left.

"I should say something profound, but all I really want to say is don't forget about me, because I will never forget about you. I want to believe you're still with me. I want to believe you'll see this baby be born from wherever you are, because believing you are gone is just too much." I held the flowers in one hand and my mom's necklace around my neck in the other. "I just have to believe that you’re watching over me."

Brandt joined me. I split the bouquet and placed some on each gravestone, including his parents'. I stopped and turned around as we walked away.

"To new beginnings." I blew them a kiss.