Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,343

so very deep. It’s a ravine, and I’m at the very bottom. It’s toxic, and I breathe great lungfuls of it, like a miner in a cave with no light, no air. Every morning I promise myself I’ll do better. I’ll get better. I’ll eat. I’ll shower. I’ll be kinder to my husband. I won’t take this pain out on him. As soon as my mind surfaces from fitful sleep, though, I hear Zoe’s heartbeat again, trapped in her chest like infant fists banging against the fragile cage of her ribs, longing to be free.

Thump, thump, thump.

A drum in the thicket of dense forest, her heartbeat reaches my ears, drawing me—an auditory illusion, I know, but it’s the only real thing I can find in the dark to hold on to. I run toward it, desperate to see her, to hold her one more time. Branches bite my face, rocks shred my feet as I follow the sound of that heartbeat, the drum in the jungle. I stumble and fall face first into an empty clearing. It’s deserted, desolate, and every morning, bamboozled by that sound, I pull the covers over my head again.

Even my body plays tricks on me. It betrays me. My breasts surge with life, engorged and ready to feed, but it’s a joke in bad taste because no one eats from me. I’m unessential. No one needs me to survive, and what I need, I can’t find.

My body is a haunted house. Those who lived here are dead and gone, and my soul is riddled with ghosts. Phantoms travel the halls, walk the rooms, raising the hairs on my body, but when I look, there’s no one there.

As I face myself in the bathroom mirror, I feel guilty about the things I said to Grip. I’m aching with the memory of what we should have, but lost. When I meet my reflection, I see a shell of myself, a husk of who I used to be. Living with this dense darkness, this haunted house, this abandoned womb, I don’t think I can be that girl again.

Chapter 44

Grip

“OKAY, I’m actually done with the first draft.” I sit on the unmade bed and press the phone to my ear while I talk to Charm. “I finished all but one before Zoe . . .”

I was going to say before Zoe came, but all Charm or anyone who knows our situation would hear is before Zoe died. I let the words dissolve in my mouth. That’s what she is to others: an epitaph with no dashes, not a year she was born and a year she passed away, but a solitary day, mere hours.

“Okay,” Charm says, that hesitation in her voice like everyone else’s, like she’s not sure it’s safe to talk to me yet. “Look, Grip, we can delay this again if we need to.”

“No, it’s fine. Your production team has been really patient, and I appreciate that.” I glance at the stack of printed pages splayed on the bed. “All the poems are finished. I was just doing a final read-through.”

“If you’re sure,” Charm says, a bit of relief in her voice. “That’s great. Just email it.”

“Cool.”

Silence pools on the line, and I’m not sure if she has more to say or if she’s waiting for me to go.

“Um, how’s Bristol?” Charm asks. “I called her, but it went to voicemail. I haven’t heard back, but I figure she’ll call when she’s ready. I don’t want to bother her.”

I didn’t want to bother her either, the first day, the second, the third . . . but we’re at day ten, and I think it’s time someone bothered her and shook her out of this. I’m probably the only one who can reach her, but who’s gonna reach me? I run a hand over my head. I need a haircut, a shave. Have I showered today? Have I eaten? I’m as bad off as Bristol is, but afraid to express it, to let her know. This kind of grief, it’s impossible to bear, but this, what Bristol is allowing, what she’s doing to herself—it’s unsustainable. I love her too much to let it go on.

“Grip?” Charm prompts. “Bristol? How is she?”

“Oh, well, not great.” A heavy sigh falls between us over the phone. “I mean, we’re not great, but I guess that’s to be expected. We’ll get through it, but it’ll take time.”

And I’m not sure how.

“I’ve known Bristol a long time,” Charm says. “Longer than you have,