Well TeeJay, this is for you. Yeah, bringing Adam into is does make sense. It's funny how that slipped my mind… this has been a bit rushed so I apologise for any typos I haven't spotted.
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Grace had fallen asleep hunched up in the closet, the diary still in her lap and her face stinging from the tears. She jumped up as she head a tap on the window. Stirring, she realised where she was and got up to get into bed. Grace doubted she would sleep again but went anyway, the noise forgotten, disregarded in her mind as an imagining.
Tap. A pebble bounced off the window and Grace knew she hadn't imagined it.
'Grace?' She heard her name, sounded out slowly, painfully into the night air. Recognising the voice, she opened the window. 'Hey.' Adam looked up at her from the garden. Grace didn't say anything; she knew no words are needed. She grabbed her keys and went down to meet him; concerned that buzzing him up would disturb her father. They haven't spoken since the hospital; Grace preferred to keep it that way, for now at least.
He was sat on a wall by the door, waiting for her. Letting the cold air assault her skin, Grace walked over to meet him. He stood when she got close, and even in the darkness she could tell he'd cried.
'I should have been there Grace. Joan tried to call me and I never picked up…' Guilt was the look in his eyes, the same guilt eating her alive because she hadn't been there when it mattered.
'It's okay.'
Adam knew she had been with Luke. Luke had been there. Luke had held her and told her she was okay and done all the things he should have been there to do himself. He wasn't jealous, more disappointed in himself for not sensing something was wrong all on his own, the way close friends often can when their partner is in trouble.
Grace guessed at what Adam was thinking, how they were both the same now, both Motherless. She didn't want to be the same, she wanted her Mom back, flaws or no flaws.
Adam knew the girl stood next to him was close to breaking down again, a rare moment of weakness that hurt so much more for her because it meant she wasn't invincible. He thought back to when Elizabeth had died, groping around in his memory for words that he could now repeat to her, desperate to console her as she deserved…
'She's gone Grace. She... she killed herself.'
He had slumped across her shoulder, howling the way only a child can howl, comforted only the way the shoulder of a best friend can comfort. She had let him cry for a long, long time.
'It's okay. You're okay. Shhhh…'Those words seemed inappropriate now; there was no howling.
Eventually she had pulled him up by his shoulders, she fingers warm against his cotton t-shirt.
'Look at me Adam. Look.'
He had looked. She reached out to wipe a tear from his cheek.
'I'm here. I'm always going to be. Okay?'
'Yeah.'
He sat back down on the wall. She took a seat next to him.
'I'm glad you're here Adam.'
That's when he saw it, a tear brimming from the corner of her eye. It broke free and trickled down her cheek. He reached out and caught it.
'Look at me Grace.' She looked, eyes bright. 'I'm here. I'm always going to be.'
Grace had mouthed the words to the last part, remembering when they had been hers. 'Yeah,' she murmured, before resting her head on his shoulder, to be comforted the way only a best friend's shoulder can comfort. 'I know.'
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