Page 80 of Piece By Piece

For once in his life, he had no idea where to begin.

CHAPTER 13

Grant didn’t sleep at all.

He lay in his bed and just stared at the ceiling, listening to the island around him.

He ran every version of every conversation through his head, like a crossword puzzle he just couldn’t solve.

The problem was that there was no clever clue or hidden theme or structural trick that would make the letters rearrange themselves into something that didn’t hurt.

The grid was broken.

He’d broken it himself, the way he broke everything in his life.

Not with force, but with absence, with the careful, systematic removal of himself from the things that mattered most.

Around four o’clock in the morning, he gave up on getting any sleep and went into the kitchen.

He made some coffee and sat at the table where he had designed the stay crossword and looked at the empty grid sheet that was still sitting there.

Pencil marks were faintly visible in the lamplight.

He had built that puzzle with so much care, chosen every word and every clue, like a small declaration disguised as a question.

And he had meant it. He had meant all of it. And then he had gone and done the opposite.

He thought about Owen.

Not the grief of losing him, not the absence, but the man himself, the way Owen had moved through the world, his arms open, his voice loud, using his heart first.

Owen, who had never once chosen the safe option.

Owen, who had driven three hours to a county fair one time just to wave crosswords in the air because his little brother was way too shy to talk to strangers.

And then Owen had died at thirty-eight years old.

In the three years since, Grant hadn’t lived at all.

He had existed.

He had maintained.

He had built his perfectly designed and perfectly controlled empty life and then called it peace.

Liza had walked into that life and made it so noisy and messy and full of things that he couldn’t control.

And he’d loved every minute of it. Been terrified of every minute, too.

And when that fear got too big, he’d done the only thing he ever knew how to do.

He’d run.

Not physically, of course.

Worse, he’d run while staying in the same room.

He’d locked the doors and shortened texts and canceled plans and then turned himself into a black square.