Through a fogged window, Grace sees James standing at the bus stop, snow falling on him, wearing the same flannel coat he always wears in the fall. When the girls make their way off of the bus, he raises his hand to wave at them with a warm smile.
Grace runs to him and collapses in his arms. His arms fold around her and she loses control as the tears flow.
“Welcome home,” he says, as he takes the back of her head into his palm and brings her closer. Michelle nudges her way under his other arm and also cries.
“My girls,” he says, as he hugs them tighter. “Come on now,” he says, as he takes Grace by her shoulders and stares into her eyes. “Try to calm down.”
Like a fish out of water, she gulps for breath, sucking it between her quivering lips.
Michelle throws her arm around Grace. “Let’s go home.”
They pile into James’ pick-up truck and make their way down the street. Still finding it hard to hold back her tears, Grace watches out the window as they pass by her familiar hometown.
Grace does not take time to reacquaint herself with her home. Silently she climbs the stairs to her old room. Briefly she notices that nothing has been moved out of place since the last time she saw it, but she does not have enough time to process this as of now. She crawls into her old bed as the pain in her heart branches out into her body. So many memories of Ian flood through her mind as the tears pour down her cheeks.
The tapping on her bedroom door wakes her. “Come in,” she says.
Heartbreak reaches into her chest and grabs at her heart. James steps through the doorway looking apprehensive and quietly walks to her bed where he takes a seat.
“How are you holding up, kiddo?” he asks, before he rests his hand on her hip and caresses her in a consoling way.
Grace musters up her best fake smile, but she can see by the look on James’ face that she is not putting on a convincing performance.
“Can I get you anything? Water? Food?”
“I’m not hungry, but thanks for asking.”
“Michelle said you haven’t eaten much since before you left L.A.”
“I just don’t feel like eating, James. I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
“Of course I’m going to worry about you.”
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t,” she says, as she turns away from him.
The room goes quiet for a moment and Grace closes her eyes, trying to push her heartache away.
“I’m sorry.” James’ words only cause her heart to hurt more.
“Please, I don’t want to talk about it.”
James forces his way onto the bed with Grace and wraps an arm around her. “I know you don’t, but I need to. I need you to know how sorry I am. I never should’ve kicked you out.”
“James—”
“Hear me out. If we’re going to live together peacefully, we need to talk about this. I need to get it off my chest. I honestly didn’t think you two would leave. I mean, I didn’t know you had somewhere you could go. I thought you’d go to the lake or the park and then come back a few hours later. I never…I never thought you go to L.A.”
Grace’s eyes fill with tears and her throat starts to hurt. Thinking about the day James kicked her out of the house only intensifies her emotional state.
“I’m so sorry, Grace. I overreacted. When you didn’t come back it only pissed me off more. I should’ve tried to call you. I should’ve came to L.A. and brought you home.”
“I wouldn’t have come home with you, James.”
“Everything that has happened to you is all my fault.”
Grace turns to face her brother with tears running down her cheeks. “No, it’s not. It’s Ian’s fault and no one else’s. We were happy until he started using. Everything was perfect.”
James wipes a tear from her cheek, “I’m so sorry this happened to you. If I hadn’t kicked you out—”
“I love Ian. He would’ve left Ocean View eventually and I would’ve followed him. You just helped speed along the process.” She sniffles. “It’s not your fault.”
James kisses her forehead and tucks the blankets around her. “I love you. I’m really glad you’re home.”
“I love you too. Thank you for letting us come home.”
James shakes his head. “This is always going to be your home. Even if I’m being a prick, the door is always open for you girls. You two are my life.”
He climbs out of bed and kisses her forehead once more. “Get some rest. Tomorrow is a new day. You just need to take it one day at a time.”
The next morning, Michelle sits on the edge of Grace’s bed with a plate of food in her hand.
“You need to eat.”
Grace hears the tenderness in her voice, but it does not change the fact that food is the furthest thing on her mind.
“I said I’m not hungry.”
“You have to be. It is physically impossible for you to not be hungry. Just eat, Grace!” she says, as she lays the plate on Grace’s lap.
Grace picks up a piece of bacon and slowly picks at it.
“I know you’re hurt. I know everything that’s happened to you is really, I mean, really screwed up, but you have got to snap out of it. You have to go on with your life.”
Grace drops the bacon on the plate, half eaten.
“What for?”
Michelle takes the plate and puts it on Grace’s nightstand. She wraps her arms around Grace. “For me, do it for me,” she whispers. “Do it for yourself. You’re worth it. You’re stronger than this.”
“I don’t feel strong.”
Michelle lifts her head to look at Grace. “I know you loved Ian and I’m really sorry he’s such a prick, but you can do far better.”
“I don’t need to hear this right now, Missy.”
“What do you need? Tell me. I’ll do anything.”
“This,” she says, as she snuggles into Michelle. “I need this.”
Three months later, Grace rushes down the stairs of her parents’ home and grabs a breakfast bar from the kitchen cupboard. She wears a light blue dress with buttons that line the entire front, with a white collar that adorns the top.
“Hey, that’s not all you’re taking to eat is it?” asks James, looking up from the television.
“Gotta go, I’m gonna be late!” she shrieks, as she runs out the front door. She can hear her brother chuckling as she flings the door shut behind her.
Grace hops into an old Ford Escort and tries to start the engine.
“Shit!” she gripes. “Start!”
The engine seems to heed her command and putters to a start. Grace is careful driving on the slick, icy roads, but is in a hurry. She pulls into the parking lot of a small diner. As she gets out of her car, she struggles to put her apron on.
“Shit!” she gasps again. She composes herself before entering the diner and clocks in for her shift.
She works nine hours at the diner and by the time she gets home she is exhausted. As she walks through the front door a gust of snow and wind join her. James peels his face away from the television and laughs at Grace, who is standing in the doorway with a frown on her face.
“Hard day at the office?” He laughs.
Grace plops down on the couch that is next to James’ chair and pushes one tennis shoe off with the other foot.
“What’s for dinner?” she asks, as she sniffs the air. A displeasing look falls over her face. “Oh no, what is she attempting to make?” Grace asks, looking toward the kitchen.
James looks at her and laughs. “I don’t know, but you might want to keep your shoes on in case we have to go out.”
Michelle walks into the living room with a plate for James. She puts it on the end table next to him, and he looks at it curiously.
“Umm, sis,” he says, cautiously, “what’s this?”
Michelle puts both of her hands on her hips. “What do you think it is, stupid? It’s chicken!”
James looks at Grace, Grace looks at James, and they both burs
t out laughing.
“Not funny a-holes!” Michelle shouts. “I did the best that I could!”
James gets out of his easy chair and walks over to the coat rack, laughing the entire way. He grabs Michelle’s coat, throws it to her, and then does the same with Grace’s.
Grace sits on her bed later that night laughing to herself about the amusing dinner she had with her family at the diner where she works. James and Grace did not let up on teasing Michelle about her “blackened chicken.” James insisted he was sending Michelle to culinary school as soon as possible.
At first, readjusting to life back in Ocean View was hard for Grace. Her heart was broken, and it seemed that nothing could repair it. Jaden would not stop calling her, so she had her cell phone turned off. Eventually, she found the job as a server at the local diner that is nestled off the highway that leads into Ocean View. Working helped to keep her mind off Ian and everything that had happened in Los Angeles. Sometimes when she is driving home from work, she passes by one of the spots where she and Ian used to hang out, and her heart sinks to her stomach. On one particular ride home from work a couple of weeks ago, she found herself sitting on the bench in the gazebo, where she spent one of her best dates with Ian, their first date.
She tries to keep her mind off Ian, but it is hard not to think of him. In fact, she thinks of him several times a day. The song that plays on the radio about heartbreak, the shirt of his that she found in her laundry basket, the shampoo that still sat on the edge of the bathtub downstairs. Everywhere she turns, she finds Ian.
The first place she thought to check was with Brandon and Bailey. She attempted to contact them by telephone, but a message said the number she called was out of service. After being unsuccessful in reaching them by phone, she mailed a letter, which was returned to sender with no forwarding address. She searched for them on the internet, but found nothing to go on. They apparently never set up email addresses and she found no social media sites for them, which was her last hope. Grace concluded that Ian’s aunt probably moved again to protect Brandon and Bailey from their father.
Grace spends many nights lying in her bed envisioning that Ian is dead somewhere in a ditch or an alley in Hollywood. The thought of him being hurt or dead terrifies her. Although she knows in her heart that anything her and Ian ever had is over, she is still concerned for him.
It has taken a lot of strength and tears for her to pick up the pieces of her life and get to where she is now. At the very least, she is proud that she has done that.
James offered her a chance to go back to college, but Grace believes that working will keep her mind more occupied, and off Ian and all that her life with him could have been. Just living under James’ roof again is enough, and she hates to ask him for anything more. Therefore, every day she puts on her blue server’s uniform and heads out to work.
Since she lost Ian, she has lost her motivation to work on her art. She has tried to pick up a pencil and draw, but Ian’s face plagues her mind and she cannot move forward with any new work. It has taken time, about three months of time and the unconditional love of her family to help put the pieces of her life back together.
She never thought it would happen, but she can now smile and laugh again. Her heart yearns for what was and what could have been, but Grace has decided that she can no longer live in the past. The future is all she can live for.
The Hathaways are all seated at their kitchen table on a sunny but cold morning. Grace is cooking breakfast for her family when the house telephone rings.
“Hello?”
“Grace? It’s Jaden.”
She finds herself speechless. “Ah, hi,” she says, warily, after a long pause. “How did you get my number?”
“I have my ways.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t mean to bother you. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“I, I’m fine Jaden,” she says, her tone serious. “I’m more than that. I’m great!” she exaggerates.
“Good. That’s cool. I’ve been worried about you.”
“Jaden, I’m cooking breakfast, so I really need to go,” she says, suddenly.
Grace turns and sees James and Michelle watching to her and listening to her conversation. She turns her back to them and faces the wall, lowering her voice.
“Okay, well it’s good to know that you’re doing good,” Jaden says, full of hesitation.
“Yep!”
“Okay well, maybe I can call you later?”
The tone of his voice makes her question why she is being so abrupt with him. Grace thinks about it for a moment. She was so fond of Jaden, and he never did anything to hurt her. They just made a horrible mistake by sleeping together.
“Sure,” she says, in a kinder voice.
“Cool! I will call you later. Talk to you soon!”
Before he can hang up Grace suddenly asks, “Have you heard from him?”
Jaden pauses for a moment before answering. “No. I’m sorry. No one has.”
She hears the sorrow in his voice and relates to it.
“Okay, I was just curious,” she says, quickly attempting to cover up her sadness. “Take care, Jaden, talk to you soon.”
Grace hangs up the telephone and holds onto the receiver for a moment before she turns around to find James and Michelle still staring at her.
“What?” she asks, then clenches her jaw.
James and Michelle start to fidget with their silverware and do not say a word.
Jaden’s call sparks a whole mess of emotions Grace has been trying to suppress for months. She lies in her bed and tears silently fall. She does not know why, but something possesses her to go out to the garage. She has not been out to the garage since the first week she got home. It holds too many memories of Ian. Memories she tries to block out. As she walks outside snow drifts onto her eyelashes causing her to blink rapidly. Standing in the falling snow, she remembers the Christmas morning when her and her family presented Ian with the gift of his studio and piano and a smile forms on her cold face.
Those were such glorious times, cherished times that have melted away like the snow that falls and melts on her cheeks. She opens the garage door and it creaks loudly, disturbing the silence of winter. The moonlight that shines through the garage windows is glowing off the barely touched, shiny, baby grand piano. Grace pulls the bench out and sits. She lifts the key cover and delicately slides her fingers against the black and white keys. Her heart aches for Ian. Where is he?
Hard, cold concrete cuts through Ian’s jeans. The deafening sound of a big rig truck and other vehicles rumble in his clouded head. Where the fuck am I? He pushes his body to a sitting position. He studies his surroundings while rubbing the back of his head. It hurts, in fact, his entire body throbs with pain. He attempts to stand up, but his head is too fuzzy and his arms collapse on him. Vomit rises in his throat.
A truck zooms by and the beaming headlights cause him to cover his eyes with his arm. He tries with no success to remember the events that led to him sleeping under a freeway overpass. He is freezing, his clothes are tattered, and his shoes are soaked. When he is finally able to bring himself off the ground, he searches through his pockets. They are empty. His cell phone is gone, along with his wallet. He has nothing but the clothes on his back. This is not the first time he has woken up in a strange place and could not remember why he is there or how he got there. Ian sniffs the air and the smell of vomit and urine are overpowering. His hands rush to his crotch area and the wetness between his legs disgusts him.
Looking around he spots a giant pile of vomit, right where he was just lying. This is all it takes for him to begin puking again.
He walks until he finds a gas station. After obtaining the key from the cashier, he uses the disgusting bathroom to try to clean up. Looking around the defiled restroom, he realizes he does not even know if he is still in Los Angeles. He recalls that on his walk to find this gas station, he was not walking through a city, he was walking throug
h the desert.
“Where the fuck am I?” he asks himself, as he takes a rest on the toilet. His life has no meaning after losing Grace. Stalking Jaden’s driveway for two weeks and never seeing her, alerted him to the fact that she was no longer living there. He spends time reflecting on what his life has become and decides that it no longer holds meaning. He needs Grace in his life, and he is nothing without her.
Ian looks himself over in the hazy restroom mirror and realizes he has lost a considerable amount of weight. He runs his fingers over his clammy skin and defined cheekbones, the skin seeming like a frail barrier between his bones and his fingertips.
He runs his finger under his sunken in eyes, “I look like hell.” He finishes drying his jeans in the hand dryer and pulls them on. They are stiff from being washed in the sink and are uncomfortable against his skin. He combs his fingers through his greasy hair, but it is no use. He looks as horrible as he feels.
The gas station attendant looks at him when he reenters the store. “Feelin’ better, dude?”
“Yeah, thank you,” he says, lying. He has never felt worse in his entire life.
“Well, happy Christmas Eve, dude.”
Ian had not realized it was Christmas Eve, let alone December. He hands the gas station clerk the key to the restroom and his eyes fall on a postcard that reads Welcome to Las Vegas.
Michelle’s voice echoes through the Hathaway home. “Wake up, wake up, it's Christmas morning!” she yells, as she thuds down the stairs.
As tradition goes, James has cinnamon and sugar spice candles lit, filling the home with the most delicious aroma. Christmas music joyfully plays in the living room. Michelle stands in front of the tree with only the gifts from her to her siblings and Grace to her siblings under it. Her head is cocked to the side in confusion as James casually enters the living room. Grace takes a seat on the couch, puzzled as well. The girls are used to a living room full of gifts on Christmas day. They look forward to it all year long. Grace wonders quickly if James is still angry with them and then shakes that idea from her head. They have all made amends, so that cannot be the reason why there are no gifts from him. Michelle looks at Grace and points to the lack of gifts under the tree, then looks at James, returning her hands to her hips.
The Falling of Love (The Falling Series Book 1) Page 22
