October 2000

She needed him to save her tonight.

Grace winced at the thought of it; she never liked to think that she wasn't the independent woman that she concocted in her mind. She liked to think that she could take control of her own life, that she didn't need to depend on anyone else to walk in and clean up her messes. She liked to think that she could make her own decisions, and that those decisions would be the right ones. But nothing in the past five months felt right. Nothing that happened tonight felt right. And as soon as she put an effective end to these proceedings, she immediately knew what she needed.

There was no other way about it. Grace needed Will, and she needed him now. Will would make sense of things. Will would have to know about the reasoning behind her actions, he'd have to know about Karen and the dreams and the girl's night and the kiss. The bookstore, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, New Year's. All of it. It would likely take all night, and into the early hours of the morning—she wouldn't be surprised if she could see the sky getting brighter from the rising sun as she spoke—and she would likely get berated, laughed at, or any other number of reactions to the fact that she had secretly been with Karen for over a year, but it was something she was willing to live with.

She couldn't take it anymore.

Scott was supposed to take her mind off of everything, and for a little while, he did. He took her to dinner, he showed her a good time. He said all the right things in a tone that came off as genuinely caring. He held her hand as they were walking down Sixth Avenue in a way that let her know that he wouldn't move too fast if she didn't want him to. To anyone else, it would seem like the perfect date night, and anyone else would want it to happen again. But Grace wasn't just anyone. And while she honestly enjoyed herself tonight, she found herself constantly thinking of Karen, knowing that she was home, or would be soon. So when Scott walked her to her door, she resorted to the last thing she ever thought she would cling to, the thing that she really didn't want to cling to but had to try in order to forget about her former lover. And before she could stop herself, she heard the words come out of her mouth.

"Would you like to come in?"

When she walked through her door, for a moment she didn't expect him to follow her. It wasn't as though she had been dropping hints all night about an intention to invite him back, so in her mind, it was obvious that he thought she didn't want him tonight, and maybe he had already resigned himself to the fact that he was going home alone this time. But she watched a smile form on his lips, she watch him nod his head slightly before taking a few steps forward and waited for her to shut the door behind them. She froze in her place by the door for a moment as he walked around and took in the surroundings. Right then and there, she had no idea what to do.

She wasn't expecting to get this far with him tonight. And if she had to be honest, she wasn't expecting to get this far with him ever.

He was the first one to speak inside the apartment, and for that, Grace was grateful. With a small laugh, Scott pointed at a couple of the boxes that Grace had still neglected to unpack and asked, "Did you just move in?" It was a genuine question—he had never seen her apartment before—but she took it as an insult, although she couldn't tell you why.

"No, I've been here for some time now. It's just that with work and everything, those last few boxes seem to have fallen by the wayside, and I keep forgetting about them."

It was when she spoke those words that she realized why his question had rubbed her the wrong way. She was comparing it to the way Karen had reacted to those boxes. Karen always thought that it was cute, that it made the apartment unique and solely Grace's. Karen thought it suited Grace's personality—which, now that she thought about it, didn't really bode well for her personality, but as long as Karen loved it she didn't mind it. But that wasn't the point right now. She compared him to Karen in that moment, but she realized that subconsciously, she had been doing that the entire time she had known him. The way he treated her, the things that he liked and didn't like, his mannerisms, the way he was in public. Everything he did, Karen did better, Grace was sure of it. And if that was true, then she was sure that she would continue to compare the two for as long as she was with him. But most of all, when it came to Karen, there was that inevitable fact, unwilling to ease its hold.

Nobody would ever compare to her. Grace had to let Scott go.

"I…I'm sorry." It was all she could say. He had no idea what was going on in her mind, and she wasn't about to fill him in on nearly a year and a half of chaos—beautifully sweet chaos, followed by tragically bitter chaos, but chaos nonetheless. Maybe she could keep it short. Maybe he won't ask too many questions; they had only been going out for a couple of weeks, after all.

"What are you sorry about?" he asked.

"I shouldn't have asked you up here. I mean…it was sweet of you to walk me to my door, but I shouldn't be playing with you like this. I'm still trying to get over my last relationship. And I don't think I'm ready to do…whatever it is we were going to do here tonight. I'm still not quite sure. I'm sorry if I've hurt you, but I know that if we keep this up, I'm not going to be the person you want me to be, or the person you deserve. I should have said something sooner, but I think I was still trying to make my heart move on the same track as my mind."

Scott let a few moments of silence pass by before he gave his answer. "Don't worry about it. It's only been a short time for you and I. Look, I don't know if I was a distraction to you, or if you thought that we could actually make something work. Either way, I don't regret sticking around. I'm glad I got to know you." He walked over to Grace and kissed her gently on the cheek. "Whoever is still on your mind…he must be really important if you're still hung up on him. Maybe you have another chance." He turned and left. As she closed the door, she could have sworn that she heard him mumble something—maybe a greeting to one of the tenants on this floor, maybe an expression of disappointment, she couldn't exactly make out the words. It didn't matter anyway. She kept her mind on the last thing he said before he left.

Whoever is still on your mind…he must be really important. Oh, Scott. If only you knew half of what Grace knew. If only you knew the reasons this person was still on her mind. If only you knew how important she really was (would Grace have gotten a dirty look for correcting him? Would he have been repulsed if he knew that the reason she couldn't be with him was because she was still in love with a woman? Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe he wouldn't have batted an eye. This was New York City, after all). Then maybe you would understand. Then maybe you would see why, while you are a wonderful person and at an earlier time in Grace's life, she could probably have had a lasting relationship with you, someone already swooped in and stole her heart.

But she truly is sorry.

And now, she needed Will. She needed him now more than she ever had. Because if anyone had the answer on how to get Karen out of her mind, it would be him, the most rational thinking person she had ever met, the only one who could keep completely level-headed even in the most chaotic of times. A million different starter lines were rushing through her head ("Hey, remember that Fourth of July when I was incredibly distant and I wouldn't tell you why?"). She was dreading it, but it had to be done. How else was she going to get out of this one?

Grace grabbed the diary Karen had given her the week before she left for the Virgin Islands. That was the key. If she told Will without any evidence, she knew he wasn't going to believe her. This was the proof. Will knew Karen's handwriting; she had signed legal documents for him, he peeked over her shoulder at the office every once in a while in curiosity over what she was writing. There would have been no way for Grace to forge something like this. Quickly, she flipped through it, looking over the words she had long ago memorized, and came across the last entry.

I love you. I don't say it nearly as often as I should. I love you, I love you, I love you.

It probably wasn't true anymore. Funny how things can change in just five months. Funny how you'll grab for anything in an effort to forget it all.

Funny how distractions never work.

She opened her front door and walked out onto the ninth floor hallway. Will was just across the hall, but it seemed like one thousand miles away. Maybe it was because she was moving incredibly slow. Maybe it was her mind telling her that she wasn't ready to let go just yet. But the pain was unbearable, and she couldn't put up with it. It had to be now. She closed her door behind her and took a step before she heard a soft sound beneath her. It sounded like a gasp, but not one out of fear or surprise. No, it sounded like an attempt to reach for air after the tears had stopped you from breathing.

Grace shifted her glance to the floor, and found a woman against the wall beside her door, head in her hands, silent except for regaining her breath. She was dressed all in black; to some it may seem as though she were subconsciously mourning the things she had lost, but that wasn't the case at all. Grace knelt down, set the diary beside her, and lifted the woman's chin.

She didn't stop until she was face to face with Karen.