by TJ Rudolph
“You shouldn’t do that alone; you can’t find all the cool places on your GPS. You should let me show you around,” he said. “Maybe next weekend?” he offered.
“What’s wrong with today?” I asked.
“I have something going on today,” he said and his face suddenly changed from playful to hard and serious.
“Okay,” I agreed. “Next week sounds perfect, thank you.”
He looked at his watch and got up abruptly. “I have to leave,” he said.
“Chase?” I spoke up as he was almost out by the door. “Did I say something wrong?”
His face softened. “No, baby, I just forgot to watch the time.”
“Friends, remember,” I warned him.
He walked back toward me, chuckling. “Yeah, I remember,” he said planting a kiss on my cheek. “Later, friend,” he smiled as he closed the door.
I put my hand on my cheek when he left, my heart pounding madly in my chest. I couldn’t allow him to affect me this way; I was the one who suggested we be friends.
A few minutes later I watched by the window as Chase pulled out of the driveway. He had a look of anger, or maybe it was heartache, on his face, and I wondered what could bother such a seemingly carefree person. But more importantly, I wondered why I had this longing to make that hurt go away.
***
I walked around aimlessly in the house for the rest of the morning, I was hoping that Aaron would appear but he didn’t, so I got dressed and decided to take a walk around campus. As I was about to leave, I heard a knock on the door again. I quickly went to open it and was surprised when I saw Agatha standing there.
“Agatha,” I smiled, “what are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call, Grace, I just wanted to see you.”
“No, I’m really happy to see you,” I hugged her. “I just thought you were someone else.”
“Oh really? I am glad you are settling in and making friends.” Agatha walked in and surveyed the place. “This is nice,” she said. “I brought you something.” She walked back into the hallway and handed me my guitar bag with my guitar inside. “You left this at home.”
“Thanks,” I gave her a half-smile, both of us knowing that I intentionally never brought it with me. It stirred up too many painful emotions.
She went into full mother mode as soon as I closed the door. “Are you getting enough to eat?” she asked as she opened the fridge to check my food supply, “and drinking all your vitamins?” She peered inside my cupboards.
“Yes,” I said, realizing how much I missed her. I watched her walking around opening and closing cupboard doors. You would never say from her perfect figure and young appearance that she is…was… a mother to a teenage son. She sat down on the couch and patted it, “come sit,” she said. “Tell me how you’ve been. Chris and I are having sleepless nights worrying about you.”
“You really shouldn’t worry; I have been enjoying it so far.” I went to sit next to her. “The only thing is that Dad hasn’t called yet,” I told her.
“I’m sure it’s the bad reception, honey, he will call you as soon as he can.”
“I know,” I told her feeling hurt anyway.
“And College? Did you make lots of new friends?”
“College is fine, friends not really,” I blushed, not wanting to divulge any information about Chase. Mostly because I felt guilty that I was moving on with my life and Aaron was gone.
“Well,” she said, “you better make some soon. I don’t want a repeat of what happened at home. You know Aaron is not here…” she trailed off. Starting the conversation we both wanted to avoid. The tears in her eyes set off my own.
“I miss him; it’s so hard being here without him, knowing that we were supposed to do this together,” I told her.
“I know,” she said as she held me.
“There is a beautiful running trail that I know he would have dragged me on,” I told her and we both laughed through our tears at the memory of Aaron always trying to convince me to get fit.
Agatha let go of me and wiped away a tear that was rolling down my cheek. We spent the rest of the afternoon crying and reminiscing about Aaron and the more we spoke, the more I realized just what an amazing person he was. No one would ever be able to replace him or make me feel the way he did.
After Agatha made something to eat, she left with a warning that I should cook wholesome foods, and make friends and I promised her that I would.
All that crying left me drained and was still wiping away a tear or two when I heard another knock on my door. I thought perhaps Agatha had forgotten something, but when I swung the door open, Chase stood there smiling at me. His smile quickly faded, which I could only assume was a result of him seeing my red, puffy eyes. He stepped inside without invitation and closed the door. “Grace, are you okay?” he asked but before I could answer him, he wrapped his muscular arms around me.
I didn’t know what came over me, but I just let everything go, and he said nothing while I silently sobbed. After a few minutes of him holding me, he lifted me up in his arms and carried me to my bed. He put me down and lay down next to me with his arms still wrapped around me.
I knew that what was happening was weird since we didn’t know each other, and I knew Chase probably realized in that moment that I was crazy. But being with someone who was unattached to this situation and who didn’t share in this awful heartache, felt comforting. He held me until my tears stopped rolling and my breathing became heavy. I was too drained to tell him to leave, so I eventually drifted off to sleep with him still holding me in his arms.
Chapter 4
The sun in my room woke me up the next morning and I momentarily forgot that there was someone else lying in my bed. When I turned around and saw Chase next to me, I jumped up and put my hand over my mouth to stop the scream that was threatening to come out.
I walked into the kitchen and paced up and down. Now that I had my wits about me, this whole situation seemed completely messed up. I heard footsteps coming from my room and I cringed. I didn’t want to face him.
“Good morning,” he said cautiously.
“Good morning,” I whispered. “I’m sorry about last night, I just had a crazy girly moment,” I said with my back still facing him.
I could hear him walking closer to me and then felt the heat of his body on my back. He took my hand and turned me to face him. “It’s not crazy and you don’t have to tell me what’s going on. Just tell me that you are okay?”
“I am,” I told him and stared up into his apprehensive brown eyes. “Thanks for staying with me last night.”
“It was nothing, that’s what friends do, right?” he said with a hint of trepidation in his voice.
I nodded and looked at the time. “I had better get ready for class,” I said as I moved past him.
He gently grabbed my wrist, “Grace, call me whenever you need me okay?”
I gave him a tight smile and walked into my bedroom. When I shut the door, I was gasping for air. There was something weird happening between Chase and I, and I didn’t want to think about it. I wouldn’t allow myself to go there. It was unfair to Aaron’s memory and it was unfair on me. Chase was a heart breaking philanderer, and I had enough heartbreak to last me a lifetime.
When I came out of my room, Chase was gone and there was a note on the black counter top.
I will bring over some food later. We can watch a movie or something.
Call me if you need me
Chase
I stared at the note. Besides Aaron, I never really had any friends so I wasn’t the best person to judge whether or not this could actually be a ‘bff’ situation where Chase was concerned. But deep down I knew I was heading for trouble.
I arrived at my first class early, which was English literature. It was my first time in this class because the professor wasn’t available during orientation week. As soon as I sat down a girl came to sit next to me. She had brown curly hair, matching ski
n tone and deep set dark green eyes. She had the complexion of a porcelain doll.
“Hey,” she said, “I’m, Bobby.”
Strange name, I thought, and even stranger that she chose to sit next to me, since the entire auditorium was open.
“Hey,” I smiled suspiciously, my paranoia driven by watching too many movies with mean college girls in them. “I’m, Grace.”
“Nice to meet you, Grace,” she smiled genuinely and I relaxed. The seats started filling up fast and the professor walked in. Mr. Farrel was younger than I thought and quite handsome, with a full head of curly ginger hair and square-shaped glasses.
We went through one of the books we would be reading for the year which also happened to be one of my favorites, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and by the time class was over I had a pretty good sense of who Bobby was and that I would like her as a friend. We had most of our classes together, which I hadn’t noticed before. In each class, she begged someone to swop seats with her, so that she could be next to me and I also noticed that she was very persuasive.
Lunch time, we headed to the cafeteria to eat together; we both ordered a sandwich and while we were waiting, I heard someone dragging one of the metal chairs. From the corner of my eye I saw the chair being put down next to me and when I looked up, I looked straight into Chase’s still concerned brown eyes. I wished he would just forget the whole incident of last night.
“Okay if I sit?” he asked. I shrugged my shoulders.
“Hey,” Bobby said as she extended her hand across the table, “Bobby.”
Chase flashed her a million dollar, charmer sort of smile. One that was obviously reserved for his future conquests because I had never seen it before. “Hey, Bob, nice to meet you.”
He leaned closer to me, “I’ll see you tonight, just wanted to check how your day was going,” he told me, both of us knowing that there was a deeper meaning behind that statement.
Bobby put her head in her hands and sighed as she watched Chase walk off. “Is that man real or am I still dreaming?” I burst out laughing.
“Oh, sorry, Grace,” she snapped out of her day dream. “I didn’t mean to check out your boyfriend, but does he have a brother?”
“He is not my boyfriend,” I said quickly “and I don’t know him well enough to know if he has a brother.”
“Either way,” Bobby told me, “I’m staying away from that, the way you two looked at each other. I am sure you will be more than friends soon,” she grinned.
I shook my head. “Let’s get to class,” I said, trying not to show how much her comment affected me.
I floated in and out of my next two classes; I couldn’t stop thinking about what Bobby said. Did Chase feel it too? I didn’t want to give him any ideas; there was no way that I would ever date someone like Chase Ryder. He would use me and toss me, that was his MO and I wasn’t going to change that. Why was I even considering being with Chase any way, I must be losing my mind?
The last class of the day was art practical, my favorite subject. Miss Demerol was everything you would expect from an art teacher; she was the complete opposite of our art theory professor. She wore a colorful dress and smiled throughout the entire lesson.
“I would like to give you your first assignment,” she said. “Everyone is to paint their interpretation of a chapter out of their lives; it should be something personal that caused you to grow in one way or another. It will count toward your final grade at the end of the year. When the lesson ended, Bobby and I exchanged numbers and I headed to the art studio. I was eager to start on my painting assignment.
When I walked inside, I was welcomed by the smell of paints. I closed the door and shrugged my bag off my shoulders.
I knew what I wanted to paint and I wanted to do it perfectly, so I spent several hours on the underpainting. The moonlight started trickling in through the window alerting me to how late it was getting, but I wasn’t done yet. I turned around to get my bottled water out of my bag and was startled when I saw Chase leaning against the wooden door frame with a crooked smile on his face.
“You look beautiful when you paint, peaceful,” he said with a sudden aggrieved look on his face.
I wiped my hands down the front of my apron. “How long have you been standing there?” I asked him, trying to ignore the fact that he just called me beautiful.
“Not long enough,” he sighed. “I was waiting for you to come back to your room, the pizza is getting cold.” He moved closer toward me.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I stammered, “I lost track of time.”
“Shall we?” he said as he walked to the door and presented his arm. I looked at it. “Just friends, I promise,” he said.
“Fine,” I said as I locked the door behind me and cautiously hooked my arm through his. We walked in uncomfortable silence to my room, where he politely excused himself and went to fetch the pizza in his room.
When he returned, he flopped down next me to me on the couch and he slotted a movie into the machine, it was a comedy I had never watched before and I laughed nervously as I realized how close he was sitting. I must have fallen asleep some time during the second movie, because when I woke up, there was a blanket pulled over me and Chase was gone.
I got up to lock the door but when I came closer, I saw the key on the floor and the door already locked.
I stood staring at the door shivering. I was adamant that all I could ever be to such a dangerous man was a friend, so why did it feel like I was free falling straight into Chase Ryder’s arms?
I decided that I was going to try to put some distance between us, maybe I should hook him up with Bobby. She seemed to like him. But the thought of it left me feeling sick to my stomach.
I needed to see Aaron to clear my head, although that sounded crazy even to me, needing to see a dead person to feel sane. Never the less, I hadn’t seen him in days and I needed to. I looked at the red clock standing on my kitchen top. I had a few hours left until I needed to get up for school, maybe strumming a few chords on my guitar would bring him here, he always loved to fall asleep while I played.
I went to fetch it in my bedroom closet and sat down on the bed. I looked at the guitar and instantly became misty eyed at all the memories it invoked of him.
I thought of the very first day Aaron saw me playing; I was sitting in the back yard learning to play a difficult song. I had finally mastered it when he came up behind me. He listened to me play until the song ended and when I looked up I saw him standing over me with glassy eyes. He told me that he had never heard anything more beautiful and from that day on he always asked me to play him something when he was having a rough day. I would play for him and most days he would fall asleep while listening to me.
I strummed the guitar as I thought of which song to play. I ended up playing the song nothing compares to you with tears rolling my down my face.
“Hey,” a familiar voice interrupted me, “why the sad song?”
“Aaron,” I breathed relieved when I saw him standing at the door.
“Don’t stop, Gracy, it’s beautiful.” He walked toward me and lied down on the bed.
I finished the song, put the guitar next to my bed and went to lie next to him. I didn’t want to say anything; I didn’t want him to disappear again. I had a sense of calm and although I knew that this crazy euphoria would end sometime, I wasn’t willing to think about that yet. So I did what we did so many nights in my room, I looked into his blue eyes and he watched me until I fell asleep.
When my alarm clock buzzed, I opened my eyes slowly knowing that he would be gone.
I looked at the empty space next to me and dragged myself up. I quickly hopped in and out of the shower and dried my hair. The season was changing and the mornings were getting colder. I put on a pair of black jeans, a red jacket over my white t-shirt and my black boots. When I stepped outside the air was as chilly as I suspected and I rushed over to the English building. When I walked in Bobby was waiting at the door.
