Part VI: That Girl

Lily Manning knew something was up the moment Rick asked her oldest daughter where his son was. Grace blushed horribly and stumbled over Eli getting a call from a friend and taking a cab to said friend's house. What made it even more suspicious was Eli himself walking in a few minutes later (while Grace was still attempting to explain) with his mother.

"Okay, what's going on?" she finally asked.

All eyes turned to Lily for a moment. She saw Eli and Grace both look away wearing guilty expressions. That, she expected. What was unexpected was Rick looking guilty as well. "Someone's not telling me something and I want to know what."

No one moved. Her eyes fell on Jessie, who squirmed. "Don't ask me. No one tells me anything." Lily looked at her youngest daughter, who wore the same expression.

She looked back at Grace, who was busy studying the floor. "Grace?"

Brown met brown when she looked up, but Grace couldn't hold her mother's gaze. "It's nothing, Mom. Everything's normal."

Now Lily was sure something was wrong. "Eli?" He said nothing. She looked at the other mother in the room, the one who looked so desperate to discuss the problem – but she knew Karen would never betray Eli. Lily couldn't hold that against her. Finally, she looked at her husband. "Rick?"

"Lil—"

"Don't do that. Everything's not fine and I want to know what's going on!" She felt like such a child in that moment, reminding herself of Zoë at nine. When she hadn't gotten her way, she'd often throw a tantrum, yell, and stomp her feet.

Rick knew he had to tell her, she was his wife and he didn't fancy sleeping on the couch. His son was shifting nervously, though. Eli didn't want Lily to know, at least not yet. He breathed a sigh of relief when Grace finally stepped forward, taking a slight nod from Eli, and went to her mother. She took Lily's hand and led her out of the room.

Her mother followed silently until they reached Grace's bedroom door. "Gracie?"

"I'll explain everything," Grace told her. She opened the door and allowed her mother to enter. The brunette was sure to close the door behind her. There was no point in giving the eavesdroppers an advantage. "You have to promise to not freak out."

"Grace—"

"It's not bad, Mom. But it's a lot and I just don't want you to react before you think about it." She sat beside her mother on her childhood bed. "Okay?"

Lily nodded. "Okay."

Grace stopped for a moment, unsure of where to start. Her mother knew about the childhood crush on Eli. She could remember the older woman being relieved when she started dating different people her senior year. Lily had been glad Grace was moving on. "I had…sex with Eli when I was a sophomore."

"Grace!" her mother admonished. "You what?"

"It's not as bad as it sounds," she explained. "I was in college." Grace noticed her mother looked relieved and immediately realized she'd thought she'd meant her other sophomore year. "We were both adults and consenting. I thought I loved him and that it would mean something."

The older woman frowned, her brow creasing. "It didn't?"

Grace shrugged, not sure of the answer. Finally, she said, "I think it meant different things to each of us. Finally being with him put some meaning to all of the hours I spent wanting to be with him. I was nineteen and Eli Sammler was the only boy I'd ever…wanted like that. Since the first time I talked to him, I knew my first time would be with him."

"Wait, you were a virgin?" When Grace nodded, Lily felt an odd sense of pride. Her daughter had been nineteen and with someone she cared deeply for, whether she loved him or not. It'd been the exact opposite of her first experience – fifteen behind the bleachers during Homecoming. "Go on."

"Eli and I were in different places. Geography was only one of the problems. After he went back to New York, I got tired of waiting and flew up. I met his girlfriend."

Lily raised her eyebrows. "Girlfriend?"

"I'm not sure if they were together when we…" she trailed off. The brunette could feel her cheeks burning. "I went to see him and met her. I remember thinking they lived together, which Eli said they did. I came back from New York heartbroken, but determined to finally move on with my life. That's what I've spent the last four years doing."

"If it's all ancient history, why's it coming up again?"

"Eli told me yesterday that he loved me. That he was in love with me."

"He what?"

Grace nodded. "He said he wanted to be with me. I turned him down last night, because I've moved past that point in my life. Today, while we were out, he asked me to reconsider. Eli wants until New Years to prove that he's changed and that his feelings are real. I never agreed, but somehow we had this uncomfortable exchange about love and beauty and he left."

"That's the whole story?" Lily questioned. "How are Karen and Rick involved?"

"I'm not sure. I guess he told them both."

Her mother studied her, trying to decipher her feelings without asking. The dark-haired woman could remember a time when Grace would have jumped with joy at the idea of being with Eli. Lily couldn't deny how impressed she was that Grace had her life together. "Do you care for him?"

"I'll always care about him, Mom. It's Eli. We've been together too much to cut him out of my life."

"But you don't feel for him what he feels for you?"

"I don't think so." She sounded uncertain even to herself. "I'm not sure if I've turned him down because I don't feel…that, or because I'm afraid of being her again."

"Who?"

"Jennifer…Cassidy…Carla. Any of the nameless girlfriends Eli paraded through here. I don't want to be that girl."

"How do you know you would be?"

"I don't," Grace shrugged. "I have no way of knowing. But if I'm not with him at all, then I can't possibly be that girl."

Lily studied her daughter, not liking what she was hearing. It seemed to her that Grace was letting fear make the decision for her. "Gracie, are you afraid of loving Eli?"

"No," she answered. The brunette turned the answer over in her head. "Maybe."

"Do you love him?"

She didn't know how to answer. It seemed that nothing but her feelings for Eli were filling her mind lately, however Grace didn't understand where the feelings came from. "The little girl in me will always love him. Part of me is overjoyed that he finally noticed I'm alive. I'm so much older now, Mom. He and I don't talk anymore; we've barely been in the same room for five years. We're stepsiblings."

Her mother could understand. Lily had long ago accepted a tiny part of her heart would belong to Jake. He'd been the first man she'd really loved. He'd been the person she'd given her whole self to. Losing him had nearly destroyed her. "It didn't matter before," she said gently. "Why does it now?"

"We're not kids anymore. We can't throw caution to the wind, everything and everyone else be damned. It would never work." Grace watched her mother carefully. She waited for some kind of response, some kind of verbal affirmation that she was making the right decision. She desperately needed someone to tell her she was right.

Lily didn't say anything, however. After a moment, she wrapped an arm around Grace and hugged her tightly. Her baby wasn't a baby anymore and it was up to Grace to make the right decision. She was the one who needed to soul-search and find the answer. If she loved Eli, she wouldn't let him go. Standing, Lily left Grace on the bed and exited the room. She looked back at her daughter, seeing her eyes threatening to spill over with tears. This was on Grace.


Rick found his wife in their bedroom, a blanket pulled over her body. "Lily?" he asked gently. She lifted her head and smiled. "Can we come in?"

"We?"

He moved to the side and she saw his ex-wife accompanied him. Sitting up, Lily nodded. "Yeah. We should talk about this."

Karen entered the bedroom of her ex-husband and new wife with hesitation. This was their private sanctuary – a place she should never be. She was encouraged when the other woman smiled warmly at her. Rick closed the door behind her. "I guess Grace told you."

She nodded in affirmation. "It's a bit of a shock."

The blonde could understand, having felt the same thing earlier. "It's something we should have expected. They were close for a long time." Karen took the armchair when Rick joined Lily on the bed. "But yeah, shock is pretty accurate."

"What do we do?" the man asked. "Is there anything we can do?"

"They're adults," Lily reasoned. "Eli and Grace wouldn't be doing anything wrong." She glanced at Karen and said quietly, "Would they?"

"They're not blood relations."

"Still, they're dating could divide the family. If the break-up was messy."

"How do you know they would break up?" Rick asked. "I mean, they could stay together and get married."

Both women shrugged. Karen said, "They're young still. It's improbable."

"I know what my son told me," he told them. "I saw the look in his eye when he said it. He loves Grace."

"I agree," Eli's mother said. "He feels incredibly guilty because he couldn't shut his feelings off."

Lily hated to be the voice of dissention, but it was up to her to play devil's advocate. "There are still a lot of factors. For one, they're eight hundred miles apart. Neither of them has been in a very committed relationship. These things take work – add all of the extra factors and it could be a disaster waiting to happen."

"Is it really our place to make that decision?" Rick asked. "If they should decide to go ahead and try, then our disapproval will only hurt them. I think the only thing we can do is support them."

"And if it destroys our family?" Lily asked quietly.

"We have to love them, Lil. We're the parents and it's the only thing we can do."

They all three knew he was right.


Grace was sitting on the couch, staring into space when Eli sat beside her. He didn't say anything, just reached over and took her hand. He gently locked their fingers and let their hands drop between them. Grace didn't respond to his action.

He knew she was upset and felt bad because he was the reason. Eli knew he shouldn't have said anything. Grace was happy and he'd intentionally disrupted that. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

She looked over at him. "Why?"

He didn't answer. "I used to apologize because I felt like I had to. I would do something that upset someone and even though I didn't care, I'd say I was sorry. I guess I felt responsible."

"Is that why you said it?"

Eli shook his head. "The last thing I wanted to do was cause you pain."

"Why do you care about me, Eli?"

"Why shouldn't I care about you, Grace?" He smiled and squeezed her hand. "You're light and beautiful. You know how to laugh with your whole being. You never abandoned me when I screwed up." He turned his hazel eyes to her brown. "You are always the person I come back to. I knew what love was, Grace, when I met you. Sometimes I don't think I understood until you taught me, though."

"We could be really bad at this." Grace exhaled and a tear slipped down her face. She held herself still as Eli caught it with his thumb. "We might destroy something good."

"We might," he agreed. "Or it could be what we've both been waiting for."

"How do we know?" she questioned. "How do we know if it's right or wrong?"

Eli leaned forward and kissed her gently. He briefly swept his tongue over her lips, but tasted salt and immediately stopped. "Does it feel right or wrong?"

She studied his face, trying to read how he was feeling. His body was stiff and slightly turned away, as if he was totally prepared for another rejection, but his eyes... His eyes were pleading with her. Grace couldn't resist their appeal, and this time she was the one who kissed him, bringing her free hand to his shoulder in order to pull him close. She deepened the kiss with one sweep of her tongue, going with what her heart was telling her.

She'd loved him once and never really let go of that. There was a chance things would fall apart for the both of them – there were a lot of things they hadn't talked about – but for this moment she wanted to be with him. "Eli," she sighed.

It felt so good. She was finally giving in to what she'd felt for so long. He was the one who broke the kiss, pulling back. His eyes were full of love for her and she smiled. "We have to take this one step at a time," Grace said softly. "We can't…" she lifted her eyes upward and hoped he understood. "There are a lot of things we have to talk about still."

Eli pulled her into a hug and kissed her hair. His heart was overflowing with love for her. "I love you," he whispered.

"Eli…"

He sighed deeply and apologized. "But I do, Grace."

She put her fingers to his lips to stop his words. It felt awkward, him apologizing for loving her. Grace knew first hand loving someone wasn't something you could flip on and off. Either you did or you didn't. "I just need some time."

Eli closed his eyes and nodded. He wanted to be with her and was willing to do anything she asked. "Anything you want."

Grace studied him like that, not sure what he was thinking. Things were so odd between them now. Even though she told him she'd changed – that she'd gotten over her infatuation with him – sitting here like this, she felt just like that girl again. Eli was sitting right in front of her, wanting to love her, but she didn't think she could. Things between them weren't right and she couldn't pretend anymore.

He opened his eyes when he felt her move. "Grace?" he asked. His smile faltered when she didn't turn around. She said she needed more time, but to Eli it felt like her decision was made. At that moment he wanted more than anything to be back in New York.


Author's Note: The next couple of parts might be slow in coming out - I hope to finish this soon, but I'm balancing writing with work and sleep. I have Part VII finished, but nothing beyond that. All in all, I think it's only going to be about 10 parts. Maybe I'll find some time and can finish the story by the weekend.

Thanks to all of you who are being patient and reading. Your responses really make it worth it.