The Falling of Grace (The Falling Series Book 2)

by Marisa Oldham

Ian gulps.

  “I’m going to go ahead and go get my coffee myself,” Michelle says, rising from her seat.

  “I just want to talk to you,” Ian says, once Michelle steps away.

  “We have nothing to talk about, Ian.”

  “We have a whole hell of a lot to talk about, Gracie.”

  Ian calling her Gracie tugs at her heartstrings. “Do not call me that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, lowering his head.

  “Look, Ian, I’m sorry, but I really don’t feel that we have anything to discuss. What happened with us is in the past and I don’t live in the past.”

  “Sometimes our history has tremendous freakin’ effect on our future.”

  Grace rolls her eyes with yet another huff. “What do you want from me?”

  “Can you just treat me like a decent fucking human being for five fucking minutes?” Ian raises his voice to a near yell.

  Grace’s mouth falls open. Appalled at the way Ian speaks to her, she rises from her chair, fumbles in her purse for money and throws it on the table. She glares at him one last time before she struts away from the table in silence.

  ~ ~ ~

  Ian leans back into the chair, closes his eyes, and rubs his face with his hands.

  “You’re not going to get to her that way, ass clown,” Michelle says, as she slinks into the seat next to him. “I thought you knew her better than that. Swearing at her is only going to piss her off more.”

  “Know her!” he yells. “Who the fuck is she? That’s not my sweet Grace.”

  “That is Grace. That’s the Grace you haven’t known for the last five years, the Grace you turned her into. And if you want to get to know her, then you’re going to have to listen to me,” Michelle says calmly.

  Ian leans on the table and focuses on Michelle.

  “Do you have any idea how bad you hurt my sister?”

  Ian closes his eyes and his chest hurts. “Yeah, I do.”

  “Imagine how she’s feeling right now, Ian. You show up out of nowhere. No call. No letter. No email. No nothing. Just, ‘Hey Grace, what’s up?’ You tore her world apart.”

  “I know I did.”

  “Do you really think a casual conversation is going to make all that go away?”

  “No, Missy, I don’t. That’s why I want to talk to her.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “I need to explain things to her.”

  “There’s an explanation?” Michelle says, folding her arms over her chest and shaking her head.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, Ian, I have no idea what you mean. There’s no explaining what you did. Everyone knows what happened that night. You got high and you cheated on her.”

  “I fucked up.”

  “That’s putting it lightly.”

  “So how do you propose I approach her?”

  “You don’t. Just leave her be for a couple days. Don’t show up here. Don’t show up at her place and don’t leave her any more notes. Give her some time to process her feelings. For fuck’s sake, Ian! She gave up on you years ago!”

  Ian’s chest aches again and he drops his head. Shame creeps over him and takes a hold.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to yell, but you…you’re such an idiot.”

  “I was. I know this. I just want to try and give both of us the peace we need. What I did, cheating on Grace, was the worst thing I’ve ever done. Can you imagine what it’s like to go through your life feeling so fuckin’ guilty all the time?”

  To his shock, Michelle places her hand on his. “It must be hard, but you made the choices that put you where you are today.”

  “Exactly. And I have to atone for them.” Ian pulls his hand from under Michelle’s and searches his pocket for his pack of cigarettes.

  “You’re still smoking? That’s a disgusting little habit, you know?”

  Ian laughs. “I just quit a week before I came here.”

  Michelle reaches for her coffee and drinks it as she stares at him. Her gaze makes him uncomfortable because he can only imagine the hateful thoughts that are running through her mind. Ian lights his cigarette and sucks the smoke into his lungs.

  “I better get going. I need to go check on Grace.”

  “Thanks for not ignoring me, Missy.”

  Michelle stands. “Even though you’re a total dumbass, I kind of feel sorry for you. I know you didn’t mean to hurt her—”

  “Never! I never wanted to cause her any pain and that’s what I want to tell her.”

  “But you did, Ian.” Michelle grabs her sunglasses and her purse. “Just give her a few days, okay?”

  Ian nods. He knows he does not have much time to waste, but he figures that Michelle knows Grace better than anyone else does.

  ~ ~ ~

  Grace sits at the grand piano that she has decoratively situated in the corner of her loft against her floor to ceiling windows. She tries very hard to get through the first chords of Fϋr Elise, but her fingers stumble over each other. She longed to play piano since the first time she watched Ian play, back when they lived with her brother, James, in Ocean View. During their first Christmas together, James had saved every dime Ian paid him in rent and helped Grace buy Ian a baby grand piano. Her eyes well up as she recalls how wide Ian’s eyes got and how he almost lost his footing. She distinctly remembers later that Christmas evening, sitting at the piano alone with Ian. The first keystrokes still sound clearly in her mind. She remembers wiping away his tears after he expressed his gratitude for the gift her family gave him.

  The knock on her door throws her back into the present. She rises from the bench and makes her way to the front door. Fully expecting it to be Michelle, Grace opens the door without looking through the peephole and comes face-to-face with Ian. It has been two days since she last saw Ian and although she does not want to rehash the past with him, her heart continues to ache.

  “What do you want?” she says, in a monotone voice.

  “I want to apologize to you,” Ian says, his big, blue eyes begging for forgiveness.

  Grace cannot stop staring into them. The years have been very kind to Ian. She can feel herself melting inside at his gaze. She catches a glimpse of two dozen pink and white roses dangling from Ian’s hand.

  With a deep breath, she pulls herself together. Her eyes narrow to slits. “If I let you in, will you leave me alone after you say what you need to say?”

  “Yeah. I just want to speak my piece. I think you owe me that much, Gra—”

  “I don’t owe you shit, Ian.”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I don’t mean it like that. I just really want to talk to you. I don’t have much time left here. Please let me in. I just want to talk.”

  Grace’s lips pooch out in anger. “Alright, come in. You get five minutes,” she says, as she walks to her couch. “Have a seat.”

  Ian takes a few steps inside the loft before he stops and whirls his head around and around looking at the loft. “Wow, this place is huge.”

  “Have a seat, Ian,” Grace says, again impatiently. As she sits on her sofa, she realizes how strangely his name sounds on her lips.

  His lips part in a gasp. “You have a piano?” he asks.

  “I just bought it. I’m learning. Slowly. Are you talking to me or do you want to use your five minutes on the grand tour?”

  “This is a nice place,” he says, hurrying to take the seat next to her.

  They sit in silence staring at each other. Grace does not keep track of how many minutes pass between them. She looks down at Ian’s knee, so close to hers, longing to touch it, to feel him against her fingertips.

  Her emotions jump all over the place. The memory of Ian getting head from the blonde girl the night she walked backstage and caught him cheating flashes into her mind. Anger boils inside her again. “Speak, Ian. You do remember how to do that, right?”

  He huffs and shakes his head. “You know, Grace, I knew it would be hard seeing you, but I didn�
��t expect you to treat me like this.”

  She honestly cannot justify her cruelty to him. She has no control over the conflicting emotions that are surging through her. One moment she wants to touch him and the next, she wants to throw him out of her home. “I’m sorry,” she says, softly. “Say what you have come all this way to say. Your five minutes is almost up.”

  Ian rests his arm on the back of the couch and focuses his eyes on Grace’s. “I never thought I would see you again. I searched for you in Ocean View and in L.A. I asked all your friends where you were, I talked to your brother. I searched for you for over a year, maybe almost two years.” Ian’s words are rambled and do not seem to come to him easily.

  Unimpressed, Grace rolls her eyes and takes a deep breath.

  “Please stop doing that,” he says, in a wounded tone.

  “Go on.”

  “I gave up on the idea of being able to tell you what I need to tell you until that shoebox fell on me.”

  “And what is it that you have to tell me? What could you possibly say that would make a difference, after all, these years?”

  Ian lays his hand on Grace’s knee and electricity emanates from his fingers. It flows from her knee, up her leg, into her stomach, past her heart, and into her mind. His touch sends shockwaves of emotion through her entire body.

  “I’m sorry, Gracie.”

  The moment he says it, she knows his words are true. His sincerity is written in the tiny, unfamiliar lines around his mouth, in the dark pupils of his eyes, and his clenched jaw as he waits for her response.

  “I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry that I fucked up,” he whispers. “I’m sorry that I ruined everything we had. It was the greatest, most hurtful, most devastating mistake I have ever made in my entire life.”

  Ian’s words break her. The look in his eyes, the warmth of his touch. The walls that Grace built around her heart for years tumble down. To her dismay, Grace’s eyes well up with tears. Don’t cry! Don’t you dare cry! She scolds herself.

  “I don’t want to make you cry. I just had to tell you how sorry I am. You deserved so much better. You deserved everything you ever wanted and I fucked it all up.”

  Large droplets of tears fall from her eyes and soak her cheeks. “Why?” she sobs. She can’t hold it back, not with the way he looks into her soul, not with the anguishing sound that comes from him. She cannot control her feelings any longer.

  “I had to let you know, that I know I messed it all up. I had to say I’m sorry because I am so sorry, Grace. I’m so sorry I hurt you in so many ways. I’m sorry I turned all our dreams into fucking nightmares.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Ian. I know you’re sorry,” she says, as she tries to get the words out through her cries, with her lower lip trembling.

  “I needed you to hear it from me. I needed you to look at me as I told you how sorry I am. There’s not a day in my life that I don’t wake up feeling sorry for all the lies and most of all for betraying your trust. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for any of it to happen. Everything got so out of control.” Ian’s voice quivers and tears form in his eyes.

  Grace’s whole body jerks with her sobs. Pain she has held deep inside for too long forces its way into her heart and takes over.

  “Shit, Gracie, please don’t cry. I owed you this. You have to need this just as much as I do.”

  Grace grabs at the agonizing pain in her chest. She tries to speak, but all that comes out are shrieks. Her painful howls bounce off the walls of her loft.

  “I loved you so fucking much, Grace. No matter what I did, no matter how much I screwed things up, I always loved you. I just want you to know that. I got caught up in all of it, the fame.” Ian grabs his head, rubbing his fingers over his temples. “The attention, the party scene, and the drugs just took me down. It was like this internal battle was always going on inside me. I tried to fight it, but I was so weak.”

  Ian grabs Grace’s hand and squeezes. “My mind was so lost and instead of being honest with you, I lied, thinking I was protecting you from the truth. I knew what I had to do and I just couldn’t bring myself to do the right thing. My addiction turned into a need that took over every decision I made and I couldn’t stop it.”

  “Not even to save us?”

  “No, not even to save us,” he says, before he buries his head in his palms.

  “So, you came here to tell me that you’re sorry and you loved me. Well, you did it. Do you feel better?” she asks, pushing her sobs back down deep inside.

  Ian takes a deep breath and lets it out. “No, I guess I just needed to get that off my chest and I wanted to tell you what happened to me after…after I saw you with Jaden.”

  Remembering the night that destroyed their relationship, when she caught Ian cheating on her and she, in turn, cheated on him with his best friend, Grace’s heart drops. “I’m not sure I’m interested in that story, Ian.” She spent years wondering where he had disappeared to and she now craves the truth about his vanishing act more than ever before, but instead she lies to him. She does not think she can handle much more discussion of the past.

  “I guess I should go,” Ian chokes out, as he rises from the sofa.

  “No, Ian, wait,” she says. While unsure if she wants him there, something inside of her does not want him to leave, either. She grabs Ian’s arm and pulls him back onto the couch. “Tell me, Ian. Tell me your story. What kept you away? Where were you all those months?”

  Ian relaxes back on the couch and takes a few deep breaths. “After I caught you with Jaden…” He looks at her with immeasurable sorrow falling over his expression. “After that, I got in the car and I shot up with heroin I had in the glove box. Then I took off. I’ve never been able to figure out exactly how long I was gone, but I think about a week. Anyway, I woke up in a ditch and my car was totaled. I had been thrown from the car. I hurt all over, but I was okay. I started hitchhiking because the car was a mess. I got into a van with a bunch of girls and honestly, I don’t remember anything that happened with them. My life turned into a whirlwind of flashes of memories of things I did, partying at bars, having se…” Ian trails off and a look of horror crosses his face at his slip.

  Grace leans over and puts her hand on his leg to comfort him. “The truth, Ian. You can tell me the truth. I won’t be angry with you, not now, as long as you are honest with me.” He needs to purge himself of those lost years as much as she does, even if she didn’t know it until he showed up at her door.

  He sighs and his face contorts with pain. “I slept with a lot of girls during that time. I didn’t even know their names, but the drugs didn’t seem to care.”

  His pain-filled expression relays just how hard talking about these memories is. Grace bites back the jealousy at knowing he was with so many other women while she died of heartache. It would do no good to express her feelings about his actions from years earlier. She strokes her fingers halfway up his thigh and back down. His face relaxes and his lips sweep up into a forced smile, a small thank you for her encouraging gestures.

  Grace puts her hand on Ian’s leg to comfort him. She can tell that rehashing these memories is hard on Ian and empathy for him overwhelms her. When his lips sweep up into a forced smile, she knows that he appreciates her consoling and it seems to give him the courage he needed to continue.

  “I have memories of waking up in these dumps, they were like drug houses. Bodies all around me, people just high out of their minds. The smell is something I will never forget. I may forget the details, but I’ll never forget that awful smell. Like sour, rotting flesh,” he says, shaking his head.

  Grace pities how ashamed he looks. “Would you like a glass of water?”

  “No, I just want to finish telling you all this crap. I’ve been holding it in for so long,” he says, as he gives her a reassuring smile.

  “Okay, go on.” Grace does her best to return a smile to him, even though her emotions are in turmoil.

>   “I can’t tell you how many times I woke up in my own vomit and piss. God only knows what happened to me or what I did, Grace.”

  Grace takes a deep breath. She always had horrible visions of what Ian must have been going through, but to hear it from him devastates her more than the assumptions she played out in her imagination.

  “The most grueling time that I remember is when I woke up in Vegas,” he says, and then chuckles just a bit. “I was lost without you, Grace.”

  Grace rapidly wipes a tear from her cheek, as if to disguise the fact that his story brings her to tears. She remains speechless as a lump grows in her throat.

  “I should backtrack a little. Before I woke up in Vegas, I went back to Jaden’s house. I slept in the field. I was stalking the house for about a week. Jaden had no idea I was out there. That’s when I realized that you were gone. Days went by and I didn’t see you or Michelle. It hit me that I had really lost you. I hit rock bottom after that. I have very little memory of anything that happened until the day I woke up in Las Vegas.”

  Grace swallows hard. The thought of him right there in the field at Jaden’s house disturbs her. For so long she thought Ian was dead, but he was so close to the home they shared. Rage toward Jaden swells up in her chest. She pushes it aside because Ian is what is important now, not how pissed off she is at Jaden for lying to her.

  To stop him from continuing to speak, Grace squeezes his knee. “Ian, take your flannel off. It’s getting warm in here.”

  He immediately stands and removes his shirt, laying it on the back of the couch, then retakes his seat next to Grace.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some water or tea? Or I have coffee, I think.” She smiles and purposely makes her voice sweet. Watching his painful past consume his face, she feels a little guilty for treating him so badly. No matter how angry he makes her, she cannot stand to see him suffer so much.

  “No, Grace, I’m okay. Thank you.” He smiles.

  She takes a deep breath in order to prepare herself for what else he has to confess. “Okay, tell me about Vegas.” Grace’s tight body language has eased and she relaxes on the couch.