The Wedding Rehearsal Game Broke Me Completely Chapter 10

The Wedding Rehearsal Game Broke Me Completely Chapter 10

Grayson’s eyes went red, his whole frame swaying like it might give out.

“But this past year without you, I haven’t been okay. Not even close.”

“I always thought you’d just always be there. I never imagined you’d actually leave.”

“Not until you disappeared completely, new number, no way to reach you, did I realize I’d never find that version of you again. The one who only ever had eyes for me.”

He rushed to explain, desperate to sever every last thread of the past.

“I already cut Sienna off completely. Transferred her out of state.”

“I know exactly what her possessiveness and her own agenda were about. That whole ridiculous game, start

to finish, it was on me. I’m the one who let it happen.”

“If I could do it all over again, I’d never treat you like that.”

I let out a faint smile.

“Grayson, you’re not stupid. You really never saw through Sienna?”

“You always knew.”

“You just liked watching me spiral over your coldness. Liked the rush of having total control over how I felt.”

“You were so sure I’d never actually leave, so sure I couldn’t live without you, that you treated me like entertainment, over and over. Cashed in everything I ever felt for you like it was a poker chip.”

Grayson stood frozen, unable to argue.

I didn’t keep blaming him.

“Honestly, I always knew.”

“All those years of the Ghost Game, it wasn’t something forced on me.”

“I chose to keep backing down. I volunteered to be the one who disappeared.”

“But I don’t blame who I used to be.”

“She just wanted so badly to hold on to whatever little warmth she’d managed to find.”

For a moment, my mind drifted back to some summer years ago.

Back then, freshly out of the children’s home, timid and small, I’d huddled alone in some corner.

And a much younger Grayson had walked over through the shade of the sycamores, hand in hand with Sienna, pigtails, pink bow, and held his hand out to me.

That was the only light that had ever gotten through my gray childhood.

But the friendship back then had been real. And so was everything that came after: the wearing-down, the being overlooked.

Watching the perfect, unshaken calm in my eyes, Grayson finally broke.

He covered his face with both hands, but the tears kept coming through his fingers anyway.

A man who’d always carried himself above everyone else, who’d never once lost his composure, was crying now, ragged and small.

“I’ll change! I’ll be better, I swear.”

“Lucy, I can’t live without you. Twenty years, I got used to having you around a long time ago.”

I said, quiet,

“Well, I got used to some things too.

“Used to being treated like I wasn’t there. Used to vanishing from your world.”

I stepped back.

“So let’s keep playing.

“Keep pretending I’m just air that isn’t there, until you finally forget me.”

“Grayson. Isn’t that the one thing you’ve always been best at?”