Falling From Grace (Grace Series)

by S. L. Naeole

  “So, I heard you’re a free bird. No more broken wing, eh?” Stacy joked as she sat down next to me, filling up the void that Robert had left behind.

  I nodded my head, and looked at Dad, waiting for him to tell her she had to leave, or explain the conditions of my grounding. He seemed to be waiting for me to do the same. Sighing and rolling my eyes, I turned to Stacy. “I’m kinda grounded, Stacy, and I can’t have any friends over for the next two weeks so we’re going to have to cut this visit short.”

  Ugh, it sounded like I was ten, and not two months shy of eighteen. I didn’t understand the need of such a harsh punishment for doing nothing wrong. And hadn’t Dad been the very one who said he didn’t want people thinking I was weird? Surely healing and then being punished for it wasn’t normal!

  Stacy’s face seemed crestfallen as she realized she had to leave. “Well, I guess I’ll go then. I’ll see you in homeroom tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be there.”

  She bobbed her head, as if accepting that little piece of information was somehow some poor consolation prize to staying. I was overwhelmed by the amount of information that small gesture told me. She was genuinely disappointed that she couldn’t spend time with me. I couldn’t help but hug her then, the feelings of gratitude completely taking over and reducing me to a pile of chewed up emotion.

  And, unsurprisingly, she returned the hug, squeezing me as tightly as she could because she wanted to.

  When she left a few minutes later, I decided that it was about time I started making dinner again. I hadn’t done so in almost two months, and I was sure that Janice could use the break. Seeing that she already had the fixings for meatloaf out, I got to work on mixing the meat, breadcrumbs, eggs, and seasoning. As I shaped the loaf on the pan, I had to admit that my life was also shaping out pretty well. Even if I was grounded for the next two weeks.

  THREE

  I had feared that the two weeks of being grounded would have dragged on forever, especially once the talk about how quickly I had healed began circulating around the school, but I hadn’t thought about just how many hours a day I spent in classes—with Robert in half of them—or just how easy it was to simply head up to my room and find Robert sitting or lying on the bed, as if he’d always been there.

  He’d always welcome me as though I had been away for hours rather than a few minutes, with strong arms, and kisses that were sweet and tender. But they were also hesitant, as though he were holding something back from me, and I wasn’t sure what or why. I wasn’t about to complain though. Sweet kisses from Robert, no matter how contained, were far more than I had ever expected, and certainly had no cause to think I deserved them.

  I was also surprised at how comfortable I was with having him staying with me in my room, falling asleep with his arms around me, his heart beat and his steady breathing lulling me to sleep each night. I’d always wake up with his arm across my waist, a vise keeping me from lashing out in my sleep. “One day, you’re going to have to tell me what I’m dreaming about that causes me to be so rough with you,” I had told him after the fourth time I had woken up to feel his arm pressed on me.

  He had smiled and said that he couldn’t make it out, that there were far too many dizzying images in my head while I slept, and he wasn’t about to strain himself trying to decipher it all.

  On the last day of my grounding, Stacy and Lark both decided that I’d be joining them on a shopping trip in celebration of my freedom. The idea of a day of girly bonding seemed so foreign to me, I was genuinely frightened at the thought; they were shopping mall kind of people—I was most comfortable in a thrift store. But Stacy wouldn’t take no for an answer, and Lark could see all of my excuses before they were even out of my mouth, so she always had a reply on the ready if ever Stacy stumbled for one. I knew then that Stacy and Lark had become friends because there wasn’t anyone else anywhere who could match wits with the two of them. They were kindred spirits, even if Stacy remained ignorant to what Lark truly was.

  It was a point that I brought up on the way to the mall that night. Lark had the highly coveted front passenger seat, while I had the cramped rear. It was, Lark explained, easier for a blind person to enter and exit the car from the front than from the back. I pictured a very large bull and a very large pile of steaming dung that spelled out a very obnoxious phrase after that explanation. She snorted, and I shook my head and laughed.

  Will you tell Stacy about what you are?

  Lark was quiet for a bit, then she sighed. I don’t know. I’ve never told anyone what I am. I don’t know how to judge a person’s character worthy enough to do so.

  In the back of my mind I could hear Ellie’s comments about the test that the electus patronus were given in order to prove their loyalty. What about that? What about seeing if she passes the test?

  Lark seemed to take that suggestion into consideration. I admit all of this is very new to me. I’ve never enjoyed your kind; humans are always so depressed and self-destructive. Your wars, your politics, your incessant need to possess gets annoying after a few centuries. And yet, with all your written history, you still repeat it! Einstein was right when he said that insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

  Stacy, who had been singing along to the radio throughout most of the silent conversation between Lark and I, noticed how quiet we were. “What’s up with you two? Are you mad at each other or something?”

  Lark and I both laughed; I a bit more nervously, while Lark’s was simply one of amusement. “I can’t be mad at Grace. If I were, Rob would never let me hear the end of it.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at that, because it was true. She had said it, there was no getting around it. “I’m simply enjoying listening to you sing, Stacy. You know, you’ve got a pretty good voice.” And I meant it. My head perked up at that admission. “I didn’t know you could sing.”

  Stacy shrugged her shoulders. “Fat lot of good singing is going to do me here. My parents have it set in their minds that I’m going to graduate, go to college and become a doctor, or lawyer, and then, when I’m twenty-five, I’ll marry a doctor or lawyer—Korean of course—and give up my career and have babies.” Lark and I looked at each other. We both knew that she had meant her mini-rant to sound sarcastic, but what it sounded more like was sad and hopeless.

  “Well, you could always go away to college and take a few singing courses there,” I suggested. “Your parents will be here, so it’s not like they’ll know, right?”

  She shook her head, turning the car to park. “You don’t know how lucky you are, not to have been raised by a Korean Mom. She plans on moving with me into the dorms, as my chaperone, because she says American boys cannot be trusted. She forgets that she’s the mother of five American boys herself.”

  Lark hissed.

  I was about to laugh at her comment when she suddenly slammed on the breaks, sending my head careening into the headrest. “Ow.”

  “Oh goodness, I’m sorry Grace. I forgot. I shouldn’t have said that stuff about not being raised by a Korean Mom. Ugh, how stupid am I?” Stacy moaned, her little face turning red with embarrassment and hurt. “I didn’t mean it. Oh dear.” She seemed torn between apologizing to me and parking the car. Parking won out when the honking started—her sudden stop had nearly caused an accident behind her.

  I patted her shoulder with one hand while rubbing my nose with the other. “It’s okay, Stacy. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Stacy sniffled, disbelief in her eyes.

  “Suck it up, Stacy. She said it’s okay, so let’s go and shop. I’ve got a great idea for our Halloween costumes, and I want to check out the fabric store,” Lark complained, her eyes rolling at Stacy’s mini-pity party.

  “Yes, let’s go and see what Lark’s got up her sleeve,” I agreed, not knowing what exactly she was talking about, but welcoming the subject change nonetheless.

  Stacy laughed, as though I had cracked some incredib
le joke. “I forgot, you don’t know, do you?”

  I looked at her, my ignorance obvious. “What?”

  “Well…this year’s homecoming ball was cancelled and instead, there’s going to be a Halloween Carnival with a costume contest, and Lark entered the three of us in it.”

  “Wh-a-a-at?” My shock was genuine. “When did this happen? And why wouldn’t I know about it?”

  Lark picked at an invisible piece of lint on her blouse, something that went completely unnoticed by Stacy, and I could almost see the millions of gears in her head working overtime trying to find a way to give an explanation that didn’t reveal the truth without it actually being a lie. “Tell me, Lark, or I’ll ask Robert.”

  She threw up her hands. “All right, fine. It happened yesterday, and you wouldn’t know about it because I wasn’t planning on telling you until Halloween. I guess I just forgot to tell someone else that it was supposed to be a secret.” She threw daggers at Stacy with her eyes.

  Stacy, not realizing the danger she was in, laughed at the comment. “There’s a cash prize for best costume, Grace. There won’t be a homecoming queen or king this year, so everyone can participate, and Lark’s idea sounded awesome, considering the theme.”

  “What’s the theme and how much is the prize for?” I asked, not wanting to know what the actual costume was. I had a strange feeling that the theme would have something to do with agriculture and Stacy and I would end up dressed as the cow to Lark’s farmer girl.

  Lark snorted as Stacy answered, “It’s that song about three being the magic number; isn’t that awesome? The prize is for three hundred bucks! Think about what you could do with your share of that money, Grace!”

  A hundred dollars? That would go straight into my meager savings account and accrue pathetic interest, that’s where it would go. I shook my head. “What is your idea, Lark? What are you plotting in your head for this costume contest?”

  She puffed up and grinned. “We’re going as three Goddesses. Greek, to be exact. None of that made-up stuff you see on the internet.”

  It was my turn to snort. “Like I could ever be a Goddess.”

  Stacy groaned, “Grace, you don’t even realize how much you’re envied right now. Not only did you crush Erica at the soliloquy reading last month, but you’re dating the hottest guy in school. That does a lot to change the way people look at you.”

  “Can you not refer to my brother as the hottest guy in school? I have to live with him and I don’t want that phrase running through my head when I smell him in his nasty sweats and sneakers,” Lark protested, which drew a peal of laughter from me.

  I couldn’t picture Robert wearing anything that smelled nasty. I couldn’t picture Robert wearing sweats for that matter. He was always dressed impeccably, while I was the frump in thrift store shirts and jeans.

  Lark, having heard my thoughts, uncharacteristically put her arm around my shoulder. He doesn’t care what you wear, Grace. It wasn’t you in a designer gown that he kissed, was it? No. It was you in boxers, with no makeup, no fancy hairdo, no fancy jewelry. Just you.

  I hadn’t thought about it that way. I had been so wrapped up in trying to convince him how I felt, what I had been wearing had been of little consequence. I looked into Lark’s face, and saw her grin. Stacy came up on the other side of me and wrapped her arm around my waist. The three of us stood there in the parking lot embracing, myself in the middle, and I couldn’t help but start giggling. I didn’t care if Lark and Stacy both thought I was completely nuts. The giddiness of having girlfriends that I could talk about boys with, and the fact that there actually was one that I could talk about seemed like such an impossibility just a few months ago, and yet here I was, living the impossible.

  Looking like an odd set of conjoined triplets, the three of us started walking towards the mall entrance, the topic of costumes on our minds.

  ***

  Halloween and Homecoming both fell on the same day this year, which explained why the homecoming ball had been cancelled and the carnival set up in its place. The theme for the costume contest was made clear with all of the posters that had plastered the school walls for the past two weeks; Heath’s Halloween and Homecoming were clearly visible on every bright yellow and orange piece of paper, each capitalized “H” in big, bold letters.

  Lark, who had found some incredibly inexpensive fabric with Stacy the day after our shopping trip—having not liked anything we had seen the night before—had spent most of her free time holed up at home, sewing our costumes. Stacy had offered to help, thinking that Lark’s blindness was a handicap to her, but Lark insisted that she could do it herself, that being blind had allowed her other senses to be heightened. It was true, of course, but Stacy couldn’t have known that; the rejection had left Stacy miffed and Lark upset that she had hurt her, and confused because she was upset.

  Robert and I had spent every day together since the night of the wedding, with him spending most nights lying next to me, innocently holding me while I slept. I had thought that perhaps as time went on, his affections would grow stronger, his kisses more demanding, but everything had seemed to level off for him.

  And, though I always felt the incredibly heady rush of blood and fire whenever he would brush his lips gently across mine, there always seemed to be something missing, and I could never place my finger on it; I could tell by the way he was breathing that he was just as affected as I was, but I had come to realize that part of it was due to how I felt. I often took for granted the fact that everything he physically felt, he felt through me. If my reactions to his touch were cataclysmic, his would be as well, although in a much milder sense.

  Graham had been distant with me since the night of the wedding, and I understood why. It was difficult for him to watch as Robert and I walked through school, oblivious to most everything else save each other. Although there were no overt displays of affection between the two of us, it was hard to miss how close we were, connected through something other than just something physical, and I knew how that must have felt to Graham, because a couple of months prior, it had been my heart that had been aching.

  I wanted to talk to him about our friendship and where it stood in relation to my relationship with Robert, but it seemed that neither of them could deal with my wanting some kind of dialogue with the other. Robert had lamented that until he could control his jealousy, it would be best if I stayed away from Graham, and Graham had insisted that Robert was trying to control me because of the fact that he was jealous. Of course, Robert had been extremely upset that Graham was aware of how he felt, which only further complicated things.

  And the one thing that stood at the back of my mind, the thing that worried me the most, was always in my line of sight. Erica hadn’t been suspended, but she had been put on probation and received a D on her soliloquy, and that only seemed to fuel whatever form of hatred she felt for me. When Robert and I would arrive to school, especially on that Monday back, she was there. It was as though she had been waiting all weekend at the school to tear my eyes out.

  I had been terrified until Lark suddenly appeared, her lips pulled back over her teeth in a nasty snarl, her walking stick folded in her hand. “You will leave Grace alone, or I will make your life a living hell. And believe me when I say this, I can.” I knew that the sudden appearance out of nowhere was enough to have startled Erica, but the fierce look in Lark’s sightless eyes, and the way her words came out like a growl were what kept Erica from acting on whatever plans she had concocted since that Friday.

  However, that did not stop her from making idle threats directed at me to her friends, nor did it keep her from intentionally crashing into me while walking through the hallway. I was constantly on my guard, paranoid that when I least expected it, she’d exact the revenge she seemed to be clinging to with determined desperation.

  Being pulled in so many directions, with so many different emotions running through me was draining. So when Halloween finally arrived, I looked forward to dre
ssing up as something else, pretending to be someone else—escape this life for just one day. Stacy had picked Lark up at the Bellegarde house that morning before arriving at mine, costumes in hand.

  My Grecian gown was a knee length mass of soft white fabric that draped in the front and hung low in the back. The straps at my shoulders were twisted knots of the same fabric joined with plum-sized medallions that had been embossed with the head of a lion on its face. A ribbon of gold wound and crisscrossed over my abdomen, finally tying in the back. It was the second most beautiful dress I had ever seen in my life.

  Unlike that off the rack design that my brother got you, this was made by me. It’s a Lark Bellegarde original, and one day, when you have a bit more fashion sense, you’ll appreciate it for what it is.

  I rolled my eyes, having heard enough of Lark’s sarcasm to know better than to get riled up. As Lark wrapped the golden laces around my waist, Stacy was busy trying to turn my hair into a mass of ringlets. “I don’t think your hair wants to cooperate. I’ll just pin half of it up and leave the rest down.”

  I shrugged my shoulders, not really caring either way, knowing that the two of them would look decidedly far more beautiful than I would. I felt something wrap around my feet and glanced down. “You didn’t make sandals, too?”

  Lark’s head bobbed up and down as she wrapped golden straps around my calf, “I’ve been making these for ages. It would seem that the only way that they’ll ever be appropriate is with Grecian fashion, so I finally have a legitimate excuse to wear them.”

  Knowing that for her, “ages” actually meant “ages”, I couldn’t argue to the contrary. And I also couldn’t fault her on her design either, because when I looked in the mirror to assess her skill at costume design, I was amazed. “Lark, this is beautiful.” I turned around to see how the back looked and nearly stumbled over in shock. “There’s no back!” I gasped.