The way Greg drops his hands from the counter to his sides tells me all I need to know. My hand flies to my mouth, holding in the sob that wants to break free. I only met Tyler's little brother once. He was a cute kid. Well, more like a gangly sixteen-year-old who still needed to grow into his face and body. He had the same eyes as Tyler and a wicked grin and sparkle in his eyes that told me he was going to be a heart breaker.
"The date on Tyler's arm?"
"The date he passed away," Greg says, shaking his head.
Three months after Tyler disappeared from my life. "What happened to him?"
Greg rubs his chin, shifting his weight on his feet in a way that reminds me of a boxer trying to dodge a punch. "Road accident. He was in a coma."
"For three months?" Greg nods. "Fuck." A wave of nausea knocks me back in the chair, the sight of the cereal floating in the bowl now repulsive. All those nights, I cried, imagining Tyler in bed with another woman, imagining him moving on happily and forgetting me like I was nothing. All the days, I held my phone waiting for him to return my call, believing he didn't want to. Cursing him for leaving with no warning. Cursing him for shattering my life and leaving me to struggle through the process of putting everything back together. All that time, he was dealing with the trauma of losing his brother.
"I hated him," I whisper. "I hated him so much."
Greg shoulders bunch, but I can't look at him anymore. I let my eyelids fall, and I breathe slowly and deeply through my nose, feeling like I'm fracturing all over again.
After the darkest days, I came to a point where I could see the truth. Tyler wasn't the man I thought he was. I'd been duped into falling in love with a liar and a manipulator. I told myself he pretended to love me to take my virginity, and when he'd had his fun, he moved on to another unsuspecting girl. In my mind, I made him a villain of our story.
But it was never that simple.
"You didn't know." Greg's voice is low and smooth, but it doesn't iron out the self-loathing and pain I'm feeling. Knowing I couldn't have done more doesn't make me feel better either. I fold my arms across my body like they have the capacity to keep me together, but a sob still rattles my shoulders, and before I know it, I'm folding in on myself, and there's no way to prevent it.
Tyler needed me, and I wasn't there. He chose to deal with the most terrible time in his life without me. I could have supported him. I would have done anything he needed me to do to make things easier, but maybe that's the point. Nothing would have made it easier.
Pain is a personal and private thing. Even when it's shared, it's still something we experience alone. Was that why Tyler disappeared? He couldn't see a way of sharing his grief with me. His loss was too great, too overwhelming. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose my sister. She's always been my greatest supporter, and from the age of nine, she's taken over the role in my life that my parents abandoned for my father's job overseas.
I'm too wrapped up in my own scrambling thoughts to notice that Greg has moved closer. When he rests a tentative yet heavy hand on my shoulder, I feel the weight of it through skin and flesh and bone to my aching heart. I turn, finding him crouched on the floor next to my chair, his dark eyes as black as night but drawn wider with concern. There's such a steadying presence to him, and just like that, I realize why Tyler would ask this man to share me.
It's not to do with sex. It's not some weird kink that he's acquired since we parted.
This is about sharing the burden.
It's about providing more for me than Tyler believes he's able to provide alone.
Stability. Continuity. Steadiness. Permanency.
Greg is unmovable. An anchor in the roughest of seas. An impenetrable tank of a man.
And I'm weak enough to need what Tyler wants to give me.
My life is a mess. No job. No home. I'm about to take ten steps backward, and I don't want that. But wants and reality are often unaligned.
It should feel unnatural to turn into Greg's arms like a child seeking solace. It should feel like a betrayal to Tyler and me. I vowed to hold my emotions tightly bound with bitterness and hopelessness and to never trust again.
But the vows we make to ourselves are the most easily broken.
And when I turn my face to kiss Greg, I don't only break my vow.