“I’m just wondering. I’ve told you about Jason, but you’ve never said anything about anyone.” I follow his body language, sitting up and crossing my legs.
“Was there ever someone else besides Jason?” he asks and I shake my head.
“No. I had a few boyfriends, but Jason was the only one I thought I loved,” I admit.
“Thought?” he smirks, already assuming the answer.
“Yes, thought,” I confirm with a smile, playfully smacking him in the chest.
“Good, that’s what I want to hear,” he says happily, swinging his arms around me, pulling me closer.
“Grant?” I ask again and apprehension flows through me. Since it’s obvious he’s dodging my question, I fear I’m about to find out a hidden secret about him that I may not want to know.
“Jessa, I don’t really want to talk about the past,” he tells me, but he has to know at this point I’m not going to let him brush it aside.
I wiggle out of his arms and sit up, my knees resting along the side of his stomach. “You know I’m not going to stop asking, right?” I cock my eyebrow at him and he grins.
“Yeah, but it was worth a try.” He shrugs his shoulder, exhaling a deep breath. “Are you sure you want to know, Jessa?” he asks, peeking at me through his eyelashes. I nod and surprisingly, he immediately starts talking. “Just like you, I thought I was in love too. I met her my senior year of high school when she’d transferred in.”
“What was her name?” I interrupt him, and he releases an exasperated breath.
“Lizzy,” he reveals. “Anyway, I met her in chemistry class. We ended up being partners. Long story short, I assumed I loved her until…you.” He gives me a small smile, reaches over and kisses me.
“That’s it?” I question, fully aware he’s holding back from me.
“What else is there to say?”
“I don’t know, Grant, maybe, like what happened?” I sarcastically ask him, and he blows his breath out the side of his mouth.
“You want the whole story, don’t you?” he clarifies. I’m never one to take half the truth and wait patiently until the bomb drops on my doorstep. Although, judging by the expression on Grant’s face, I’m terrified that I’ve just walked into a mine field.
He takes a sip from of his water bottle, trying to delay the inevitable. I wait patiently for him to divulge more of his past, praying this is the last of Grant Bishop’s secrets. “Okay…like I said, we met senior year and started dating almost immediately. I think I told her I loved her within two weeks and she said she loved me. Looking back on it now, I guess I was desperate to find someone to love. Losing my mom made me crave love, especially the unconditional kind, and Lizzy gave me what I needed. She didn’t have much family either, just a drug-addicted father and a mother who worked more hours than she was home. We spent all our time together and even talked about marriage after college. Although I had planned on attending Western, she was going to go to community college first.”
He takes another sip of his water and my stomach clenches in anticipation of what he’s going to reveal next. But I’m the one who wanted to know, so I need to face the fact that another girl loved Grant once upon a time. “Her home life started getting bad when her mom got back together with her dad, making Lizzy’s life miserable. Not only was he passed out from being high most of the time, but strange men and women were always hanging around the house. I went over there on more than one occasion, sneaking her out of her bedroom, and we would walk around the block until the party either broke up or everyone passed out for the night.” He stops and stares at me, as though questioning if I’ll be okay once I hear the remaining part of the story.
I place my hand over his. “It’s alright, Grant. I can handle it,” I assure him and he nods.
“Come here,” he requests and I scoot up, letting him hold me. “It was not only the anniversary of my mother’s death, but it was also Super Bowl Sunday. Lizzy had been grounded, but I begged her to come with me to my mom’s gravesite. She was reluctant, but I pushed and prodded until I finally wore her down. I convinced her that her dad would pass out soon and not even notice she was gone. Sneaking her out of her bedroom window, I walked her to my car that was parked down the street. I took her to the gravesite to introduce her to my mom.” He rubs his hand along my shoulder, feeling how tense my body just became. I can’t help but think that he’s never taken me there. “We got back to her house and saw that the driveway was empty, so we thought we were in the clear. Lizzy was just going to go in to change and put a pillow under her comforter so we could go to my friend’s party. We only got half-way up the walkway when her dad stepped out. Lizzy stopped and starting walking backward to me. He was higher than I’d ever seen him, and Lizzy seemed scared. He screamed and yelled at both of us, because she wasn’t supposed to leave the house.” Grant shakes his head, as if reliving the memory, but wanting it to stop.
“Lizzy tried to calm him down, but it seemed like whatever she said just got him angrier. Eventually, he slapped her and that’s when I stepped in front of her. He immediately started challenging me. I really tried to keep it together, but hearing Lizzy’s cries behind me, I couldn’t contain myself. Anger at everything he’d put her through seeped into my pores and I started punching him over and over again until Lizzy pulled me off. I told Lizzy to get her stuff, that we were going to leave, and she wouldn’t be coming back. When we walked into the house, her mom was lying on the floor by the couch with blood running from her nose and mouth. Lizzy ran to her in hysterics, falling to her knees, but her mom was already dead. We didn’t know what had happened before we got there, but I called the paramedics and the police.” Grant looks down at me and I give him another reassuring nod.
“When the police came, we were all questioned. The paramedics took her mom’s body away and then her dad was taken to the hospital. Lizzy just sat in the middle of the room, where she rocked back and forth with a blank expression on her face. The police took her to the station and I followed in my car. Since she was already eighteen, she didn’t have to go into foster care, and I thought it’d be the perfect time for us to make a break from Western. But it seemed she had another idea.” His voice is slightly shaky and he pauses for a moment before continuing.
“I went to the bathroom while she was talking to the detectives. When I came out, she was gone. The detective told me that they’d just released her and assumed I’d taken her home. I ran outside to see if she was waiting for me, but the streets were empty. On the windshield of my car, there was a folded-up letter. It pretty much said that I deserved better than her, and that she was leaving town and I shouldn’t look for her. But I knew the real reason. She blamed me for making her sneak out of the house, and how could she not? If I hadn’t been so selfish, she would’ve been home. Of course, I still hopped in my car and drove the streets, but it was as though she had vanished.” He stops talking and takes a deep breath.
“It tore me up, Jessa. She didn’t even come back for her mom’s funeral. I’m not even sure she knows how it all happened. See, her mom died of an overdose, not because of a beating from her father. But her dad still got three years in prison for the drugs they found on him.” He seems dejected, but he gives me a small grin. “Her dad was the man in the diner that night, the one with the dagger tattoo on his arm.” I nod my head, remembering him clearly.
“So you never heard from her again?” I ask, hoping like hell he hasn’t.
“No, and I was messed up for years. Probably all the way up until I met you. It’s what kind of made me not want to fall in love,” he confesses. And although his story breaks my heart, I can’t help but feel pleased to know that I’m the one who brought him back.
“Do you ever think about finding her?” I bite my lip in apprehension of his answer.