As I stood in the doorway watching Grace and Jack get along as well as they were, it was almost like watching myself and Grace or myself and Jack. I knew the reality was I had been gone for three months and had left without telling them for a while. It was only because of Karen that they found out when they did. I didn't really blame them for replacing me in their lives with each other. I was glad that they were friends. I had always wanted them to be, as both were my best friends. Yes, Jack and I were both gay, and I knew Grace for a little longer. Did I feel closer to one than the other? Grace was my roommate, and Jack was, well, Jack. I'd die with both of them in a fire if I couldn't save them both. Karen, on the other hand. Well, the truth was I didn't really hate her and would go down with her as well. After all, Karen was Grace's Jack.
But there was a sting in me that I never knew could exist. Was I so replaceable? How could it be so easy for Grace to confine in Jack when I had been there for her for so long? Grace wasn't just my best friend. She was more than that. I once said that I wouldn't marry Grace even if I were straight. But in my heart, I knew that wasn't true. In fact, before admitting that I was gay, I thought about marrying Grace. Gay or straight, Grace Adler was the only woman I, Will Truman, would ever want to marry. Grace had to know that.
I didn't like the jealousy pain that I felt as I turned to return to my apartment. I knew that Jack assumed I was jealous of him and Grace getting closer. I also knew that Jack enjoyed me being jealous. So why couldn't Jack just stuck with Karen? Karen was Grace's Jack and Jack's Grace. The four of us are friends, but if you were to separate us into couples, it would definitely be Will and Grace, Jack and Karen. It was the way I liked it.
Jack once posed a question to me. When Grace slept with my brother Sam a few years ago, Jack told me I was jealous that Sam got to share a part of Grace that I never would. And truth, I was jealous that Sam had. I maybe was jealous of every man Grace slept with and fell in love with because they had her, and she wasn't mine anymore. No, I don't own Grace. But words don't begin to describe mine and Grace's relationship, nor do they need to. We are Will and Grace as individuals and a highly odd and a bit dysfunctional couple. Grace needs me. I need Grace.
So am I jealous of everyone Grace becomes close with? No, I worry sometimes, Grace and I won't be Will and Grace anymore someday. And that, that, well, scares me. I want Grace to be happy and have all her hopes and dreams come true. She deserves it. She may be crazy and drive me nuts sometimes. But I sometimes worry that Grace will find another "Will," and where would that leave me? Could this another "Will" be Jack?
I understood a little more how Grace felt when I became friends with Val a couple of years earlier. I felt a little neglected because she was so busy with her job. I never said it, but it was nice to have Val around, no matter how crazy Val turned out to be. But it was also nice to know that Grace sometimes worried too. How she rushed home when she found out I was sick only to see Val making me soup. Split pea, which, as Grace said, I didn't like. Grace always knew how to take care of me, and she made sure to nurse me back to health after Val left by taking the rest of the day off work and the next.
Grace often thought of herself before others, but never when it really counted, and that is why I loved her as much as I did. As much as I always will. I wasn't ready to let that go yet.