Page 47 of What Remains of Grace

Grief had stepped into her body, and she’d just . . . let it. Then, silence.

Her breath came in ragged pulls, her palms slick with paint and sweat. The smell of latex and salt hung heavy in the air.

Every head turned toward her. Then, the room froze. No one moved. No breath, no sound. Just the hum of the overhead lights and the drip of the paint sliding off the counter.

She felt the weight of every stare pressing in on her.

One man’s eyes were wide with shock; another’s brows pulled together, unsure whether to step in or back away.

Someone looked at her with sympathy, soft and sad. The way people are when they realize they’ve just witnessed something private, something they weren’t meant to see.

She stood there, staring at the mess, mortified. “I—Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

She dropped to her knees and started trying to scoop the paint back into the container with her hands, babbling as she worked. “It was just a board, I know that. It was just—Grace wrote on it. That was the last thing she—”

“Jenna.”

Cole’s voice came from somewhere above her, calm but sure. When she didn’t respond, he crouched down, boots scraping against the tile, and got on his hands and knees beside her. The movement drew the crew’s eyes, but the quiet authority in his tone told them to stay back.

He didn’t touch her right away. Just stayed there, level with her, waiting until she finally looked up.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Breathe.”

She tried, but it came out in hiccups, uneven. “It was just—she wrote on it—”

“I know,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. He leaned in closer, his shoulder brushing hers, close enough that Jenna could feel the warmth of him even through the smell of paint. “You’re okay.”

His hand found her wrist, gentle but firm. “We will clean this. You don’t have to.”

Her breath hitched. Cole’s proximity was both grounding and dizzying at once, his voice low, his presence filling the air like something solid she could hold on to.

“Look at me,” he said quietly. When she did, his eyes leveled her the way nothing else had in weeks. “It’s just paint. That’s all this is. We’ll fix it.”

Without breaking her gaze, he shifted his body toward the men behind him in a way that clearly said, Give us a minute.

They nodded and wordlessly went back to work, the shuffle of movement filling the space again.

He stayed there another moment before adding, softer still, “You’ve been carrying too much. Let someone else do the heavy lifting for a change.”

The words broke something loose in her chest. Her shoulders sagged, and she nodded, silent tears sliding down her cheeks violently like the monsoon that had come every afternoon this week.

“I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I’m crying.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, and you don’t have to have a reason.”

Embarrassment overcame her all at once, “I’ll go get cleaned up.”

“Good idea.” He said with a small laugh that seemed out of place.

Outside, the afternoon heat pressed down like a weight. Jenna walked until the drills and voices blurred into background noise, scrubbing paint from her hands with a towel she’d snagged on her way out.

The bayou waited ahead, mangroves twisting into the water like they were holding everything in place.

When she reached the edge, she eased to a stop, and the stillness rushed in, too loud, too sudden.

She thought about Grace, about how she’d spent ten years choosing distance over discomfort. She thought there would always be more time; she’d called less and less after Brooks died, she’d poured everything into work because it was easier than calling home and hearing Grace’s voice break through the phone.

She’d told herself she was protecting them both, Grace from her sadness, herself from Grace’s joy, but now it just felt selfish.