"My love, she is my saving grace
She holds me through the winter
Knowing well that I will leave
Still, she holds me closer"
-Johnathan Rice, "The Acrobat"

1999: Age 39

From the diary of Karen Walker: "This is how I know you'll break my heart."

When all of this is said and done, what she will remember most is how strong Grace's hold on her was that night. She will remember marveling at how sleep had not weakened the redhead's strength. She will remember questioning whether or not she was actually asleep, because she couldn't recall a time when she was held so tightly so late at night. She will remember the fleeting thought that Grace could read her mind-or, at the very least, she understood what she meant after all-and was doing all she could to keep her from leaving. She will remember the fleeting thought that it would just be easier to wake up with her in the morning, that it might hurt less if she did. She will remember telling herself that it would certainly hurt worse if she had to look Grace in the eye. She will remember reassuring herself that this was what she had to do.

She will remember all of it: this was the only thing she knew for sure.

Karen looked over at the clock on Grace's nightstand, watching it shine 5:45 on her. Her body had let her sleep for a couple hours, but it would not let her miss her window for escape; she knew that Will started his morning routine at seven sharp, that she had little more than an hour to make a clean getaway. She could feel Grace's breath on her neck, the even in and out caressing her skin like it was trying to soothe her into staying. But she had a one-track mind; nothing could stop her now. She sighed and slowly tried to loosen Grace's hold on her, careful not to wake her as she took the redhead's hand and gently moved it from her waist. Her legs were tangled with Grace's the way they had been every night they spent together, and it was the first time since they met that she wished they weren't. Every time she made a move to free herself, every time the mattress started to give, every time there was a creak of the springs, she paused to make sure Grace wasn't waking up. But the redhead was oblivious. She wouldn't see it coming.

The dark haired woman stood bedside for a moment, waiting to see if Grace would move. When she didn't, she tiptoed her way across the room to get dressed. Karen knew it was insane-the floor was carpeted and she knew it wouldn't creak under her feet-but she wasn't about to take any chances. She kept her eyes on the redhead as she slid back into her dress and fumbled with the zipper.

Grace hadn't budged; if Karen was going to do it, she had to do it now.

She grabbed her purse and slowly pulled out an old notebook filled with her words, her secrets, her past. This diary had weighed her down for so many years. She could never go back and read everything she had written before; she had already lived through it all once, and she didn't have the stomach to live through it again. But then Grace came along, and she found herself going back through her words about the redhead during long nights at the manse with nowhere else to turn. The hurried extra entry she wrote the night they met, filled with baffled electricity. The relief wrapped around the lines about finding her again, about making sure she could never lose her. The anger at herself as she wrote about that kiss, the one Grace stole during Stan's party that sent everything into overdrive. The comfort, the trust. The pure love of it all. It made her forget her history. It gave her hope. But now, as Karen held her history in her hands, she realized that Grace would be relegated to the pages that could never be read again.

Everyone leaves; they always do. It doesn't matter if they meant to or not. Intentions are nothing until they're acted upon. And every single time she trusted someone, they vanished into thin air when she needed them the most. It wasn't about to happen again; she would make sure of that. She needed to protect herself; she needed to turn the tables. She looked down at the diary, gingerly flipped through the pages, gazing at her handwriting without processing the words. This was why she needed to leave.

This was why she needed to let go.

Karen found the tote Grace brought to work every morning and quietly rummaged around in it until she found a pad of sticky notes and a pen. In the blue of the early morning, she peeled off a sticky note, pressed it to the diary and wrote down the only goodbye she could think to write: This is how I know you'll break my heart. She sneaked over to Grace's side of the bed and rested the diary on the nightstand. Grace had always wanted to know more about her past. If things had gone differently, if Will had come home when he was supposed to and they had any sort of plan they could put into play, she might have told the redhead herself. But at least this way, Grace would still get it all in Karen's words. That is, if she cared to read it.

She stood over the bed, Grace resting peacefully, curled up in between the sheets, and she knew she shouldn't tempt fate. But she couldn't help herself. She pulled the comforter up to Grace's shoulders and could feel her relax under the warmth. She softly ran her fingers through the redhead's curls and pressed her lips to Grace's forehead, lingering a few moments longer than she knew she should. By the time she pulled away, she had mustered enough strength to walk away.

On her way out, she couldn't shake the image of Grace smiling in her sleep.

Karen opened the door slowly before she put her shoes on; if this was going to be her last night here, she wasn't about tiptoe around Will's door to keep her secret. She knew she had a little time before his alarm went off. Part of her wanted to stand in the doorway, just like this, waiting for him to come out of his room and discover what had been under his nose all along. But she couldn't do that to Grace; after everything, she could never do that to Grace. Her heels clicked softly against the hardwood floors as she walked out of the redhead's room and out of apartment 9C. When she closed the front door behind her, she was surprised that it felt so final. She guessed that was how it was supposed to feel.

She didn't need much from the manse, just a few clothes, her makeup, that bottle of wine she had been saving for herself. Take what you need, make a swift exit, she kept telling herself on her way there. She could stand being inside that house about as much as she could stand being at Grace's right now. She should have been in and out in a minute. But she saw the suitcases when she walked in the front door, and she cursed her luck. She knew Stan was supposed to come home today; she just didn't realize he meant the earliest possible moment. Karen wondered what the hell was so important here that would require a red-eye back to Manhattan as she grabbed the car keys and slipped them into her coat pocket. She was about to make her way upstairs when her curiosity made her stop in her tracks.

The dining table. The hefty little present she left for Stan, thanks to her shiny new lawyer. It seemed like it was another lifetime when she placed those divorce papers on the table for her husband to eventually find. It was another lifetime, one where it didn't seem so terrifying to cut her ties to one person because she was holding the gentle hand of another, where walking to the other end of the tightrope didn't seem so bad when she knew there was someone to catch her. She had been so wrapped up in her week with Grace that she had completely forgotten about what she had done, until now. Stan probably didn't see them. He probably went straight upstairs to get some sleep. The papers were probably still there. They would probably pack the same punch she hoped they would once Stanley did see them. Probably.

But there wouldn't be any harm in double checking.

The dark haired woman made her way through the foyer, deeper and deeper into the manse until she reached the dining room. She turned on the light and gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness. When she looked to the table, she saw that the divorce papers were gone.

Karen's nerves were thrown into overdrive. She knew that this was something she'd have to deal with once Stan returned; she set it in motion, she would see it through. But to know that he was somewhere in this house with her plan for her future in his hands was too much to take, especially after leaving Grace. Maybe she could slip out of here before he notices; it wasn't like it couldn't be done. Go to Vermont, spend a couple of days in solitude, come back with a clear head, deal with it later. She knew, regardless of any future (or lack thereof) with Grace, that this was what had to be done; she simply couldn't fake it anymore. But she had already put it off for nearly two years; what was another few days, in the grand scheme of things? It wasn't like she was running towards some brilliant future anymore.

She wasn't running towards anything good.

Karen rushed upstairs and grabbed a suitcase. She started blindly throwing things into it; whatever she forgot, she surely had in the cabin. She just wanted to get out of here. She wanted to start that drive. She wanted to be alone. She moved until the suitcase was full and zipped it up. She slipped her hand into her pocket to run her fingers against the metal of the car keys, that feeling of reassurance that soon, she will be at peace. When she wheeled her suitcase to the hallway, she saw that a light was on a few doors down. Stanley was awake, in his office, doing god knows what. Karen could go on as if she never noticed; part of her thought she should go on that way. The quicker she got in the car, the quicker she could leave all of this in the dust. But she knew he had the papers. And in spite of it all, she wanted to hear what he had to say.

Devil. Nothing was ever easy.

She left her suitcase behind as she made her way towards Stan's office. She hovered in the doorway for a moment, watching him pace the length of the room, unsure if he realized she was there. The divorce papers were on his desk; he had to have looked through them by now. Karen took a breath and realized she couldn't put it off any longer. "Stanley," she said softly.

Stan stopped, but he wasn't able to look her in the eye just yet. "Do you remember," he said after a moment, "that stretch of time when we didn't speak?"

You mean when you neglected to tell me you were married? Or the other month for absolutely no reason? Karen bit her tongue at the thought. She didn't want to be defensive, she didn't want to be cruel. She didn't want to automatically blame him. She wanted to hear him. She wanted to give him a chance. She stayed silent, nodding even though she knew he couldn't see it.

"Three years of silence. I was miserable because I had lost you. So when you called me out of the blue, I promised myself I would do whatever I needed to make sure I wouldn't lose you again." He finally looked up and met Karen's gaze. "I wish I could pinpoint the moment I broke that promise."

He was so genuine that it took Karen by surprise. All that time spent in silence, she was bound to move towards the wrong conclusions, to stay with them until they become the truth. Underneath it all, Stanley Walker was not a bad person; he was simply the wrong one. But that wasn't his fault. They were both tired. They had both taken comfort in the connection without wondering how to keep it growing. They both thought this was the final stop. She never meant to be the one who realized it wasn't.

"I don't know if it was one particular moment, honey," she finally said. "We just slid into it so slowly that we didn't even notice."

"I should have noticed. I should have done something. I'm sorry that you were so unhappy."

Confrontation would have been easier, Karen knew. Get fired up, shout over the walls her history made her put up. She wouldn't have to face any feelings she didn't want to face, because anger always overshadowed everything else. But Stan sounded so defeated, so vulnerable. And she couldn't take it. "I wasn't making things much better," she conceded. "At some point, I just stopped trying. It seemed easier that way. But it wasn't fair to either of us."

"We could try again. Get back to the way we were. Clean slate."

"Stanley," Karen sighed, "we've been here for so long. I think we need to move on."

"Is that what she wants?"

She hoped to god her poker face was solid enough to keep the shock inside, where it belonged. It was just like Stan to figure it out, to keep it all to himself. For a moment, Karen wondered if he was actually aware of the times Grace was here, running to the emptiest parts of the manse, where no one else had set foot in ages. But that couldn't be it; if she was barely aware of him most days, she could only imagine how rarely he was aware of her, of them. When it came down to it, she put no effort into hiding it, and he wasn't stupid. She just wished she could ask when he figured it out.

Karen shook her head; there was no use trying to deny the last few months. "It doesn't matter," she said, her heart sinking as she said it, because right now, in this moment, it truly didn't. "I'm not doing this for her. I'm doing this for me. For us. You and I, we both deserve something more than what we have."

The look in Stan's eyes...she had never seen anything like it before, at least not from him. That unmistakable look of defeat. He knew she was right. And he knew there was nothing more that could be done. "I used to think I knew what you needed," he said softly. "Now, I'm not sure if I ever got it right."

"You did. For a while, at least. We were almost there; we just...we never quite seemed to get the hang of it, did we?" she asked with a sad smile.

"I guess not." Stan was silent for a moment, unsure of what to do. He stood there, studying his wife-the way she wrapped her arms around herself, her hand traveling up to her shoulder and back again as if she was reassuring herself, supporting herself when that should have been his job all along-before he offered up the only thing he could think of. "What do you need now?" he asked.

Such a deceptively simple question. Almost four decades in, and she couldn't think of one instance where she was ever sure of what she needed. Every time she came close, something always swooped in to show her she was wrong. Even now, she couldn't give him a definite answer. But she knew he needed one. She looked to the papers on his desk and gave him the only answer she could think of. "I don't need anything but a signature, Stanley." She wasn't bitter when she said it; she was merely resigned to the fact that they finally ran out of options. He nodded as he sat down at his desk and held the papers in his hands. She couldn't watch him do anything with them. She lowered her gaze to her feet and walked out of the office, grabbed her suitcase in the hallway, made her way out the front door and into the car.

She forgot how long the drive to Vermont was when there wasn't a smiling redhead in the passenger seat to keep her company.

When Karen walked into the cabin, she knew she would have to face at least a hint of Grace; what she didn't realize was how much of the redhead lived within the walls of this place. Her magazines mingled with Karen's on the coffee table. The mug she always drank out of sat on the kitchen counter ("Why put it away when I'm going to use it every morning?" Grace had asked; it made the dark haired woman laugh at how easy the logic was). Upstairs, Karen would find the perfume Grace had left behind, the robe that had been tossed to the bedroom floor during happier times. There were notes all around the cabin that Karen could never seem to throw away, for no other reason than they were in Grace's handwriting. Heading into town, be back soon was held up by a magnet on the refrigerator. I love you today was on the back of a takeout menu. They littered the table tops and rested inside drawers, a thousand words that were so trivial and so meaningful all at once. She thought of them and wished this wasn't the only place she could think of to go. She wished that when she brought Grace here, they hadn't turned her space into their space.

It had only been a few hours since she left, but she already missed Grace so unbearably much.

Karen eyed the phone by the staircase for a moment and considered her options. By now, Grace had woken up and realized the dark haired woman wasn't there. She had probably seen the diary on the nightstand, the note on top of the diary. She might have read a few pages. She might have tossed it to the side. She might have told Will; she might have kept her mouth shut. She might be angry at Karen; she might be confused. She might feel better if Karen called her to explain everything. Karen might feel better if she could just hear Grace's voice for one second. They might be able to work it out. She inched towards the phone and picked it up, running her fingers along the numbers without pressing down, tracing the line that would connect her to her redhead in no time at all. She was about to dial when she heard that pesky little voice in the back of her mind.

Think about what you're doing. She wanted to laugh; she had done nothing but think about it. Take a step back. Sleep on it. Easier said than done. You wanted the space; take it. But was it really what she wanted?

She put the phone back in the cradle, and she climbed up the stairs to her bedroom. She couldn't call now, not when everything was so fresh. She didn't want to run on too much emotion and too little sleep. When she let herself fall into bed, she realized that Grace probably didn't want to hear her reasons anyway. At least, not right now.

Maybe it was a mistake, slipping away in the early morning hours. Maybe she shouldn't be here. Maybe she should have waited to see if Grace would keep her word, or at least waited long enough so that she could give a voice to her own doubts. Maybe it could have been fixed. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Karen didn't know. The thoughts fighting for space in her mind mixed with the long drive made her too exhausted to want to put this puzzle together. And it was too late to turn around and go back. Not that she would have had anywhere to go right now. She pulled the covers over herself and closed her eyes.

She'd figure it out after she woke up.