Page 110 of Grace

“It doesn’t matter, Grace. The only thing that matters is right now.”

His gaze caresses my face, his voice cherishing my body, his words trapping my heart.

His very presence makes me dizzy, breathless. I’m painfully, hopelessly in love.

“I’ll go get you a souvenir while you get a hold of yourself,” he says, a glint of playfulness in his brown eyes. He winks at me, making my insides melt. A wistful sigh slips past my lips, and my gaze flickers to the worn jeans hugging his ass.

He strolls over to the shooting gallery wearing a bored, nonchalant expression. He lifts the air gun. His biceps bulge under the short sleeves of his T-shirt. I’m burning to touch him—the sight of his body sends a shiver down my spine. My lower belly is heavy with sweet poison. He rakes his predatory gaze over the targets and picks the most valuable prize: a huge plush teddy bear. He pulls the trigger. The gun cracks and the target shatters. The sharp sound makes me flinch. My stomach shrinks to the size of a walnut.

He looks at me with a tight, cold smile and cool mirth in his eyes. He presses the white teddy bear into my arms, then holds me with his gaze, staring at me like I’m magic made flesh. Time crawls by, excruciatingly slow, like the Ferris wheel. We get stuck in the moment as our gazes melt into each other. Warmth and sunlight fill my heart.

I know this whole thing isn’t real—can’t be—because Chase isn’t a good guy and my mind isn’t sane. Still, at this moment, I feel like we’re just a normal couple on a date. Like he’s just a boy and I’m just a girl.

We’re surrounded by a kaleidoscope of colorful lights, iridescent bubbles, and countless balloons. We smile at each other, then start walking to the Ferris wheel. The park’s noise follows us like a movie soundtrack—the machines jingling and whirring, roller coasters and carousels clanking, screams and laughter rising, the crowd’s countless voices blurring into one.

I’m weary to the bone when I sink into the passenger seat. We’ve tried everything. And I’ve tried every dessert, which threatens me with severe diabetes. I think I’d puke if I had to force down one more bite. I rest my hand on the little bump of my belly and melt into the soft seat of the Chevrolet.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “I’ve already forgotten what it’s like to just live, without fear or anxiety, without thinking about what your life was before…” Here, I swallow the rest of my words and glance at him from the corner of my eye. His eyes are on the road. The night suits him. Warm streetlamp light plays over his sun-tanned skin and dark hair, his mysterious eyes and muscular arms. The radio is off—only the engine’s steady hum fills the silence between us.

“I’m sorry.” His voice is quiet, cold, and somber.

Chase doesn’t understand how much I mean with that simple thank you. For the past four years, every time I looked in the mirror, I saw a girl who didn’t know who she was, what she wanted from life, or who she’d become. But these few days with him—pretending with him—made me see color again. Because… life kept moving, no matter how I felt. I was the one who stepped out of its current, and got stuck in that room of fear, grief and pain.

What happened to me—what he did to me—was horrible, incomprehensible. But I want to tear the chains off me: the chains of fear, loss, pain, and anger that bite into my flesh and hold me in place. I have to stitch up the bleeding hole in my heart and open myself to the world again. Because if I don’t, the world will treat me like a stranger, too. I’ll be an outsider, pounding on its door, disappointed and furious—a spectator in my own life, locked out. And that door will stay closed until I start actively living my own life.

Fifteen-year-old Grace McCarty was full of dreams and plans. Of life. Of momentum.

I’m going to get that girl back.

As soon as this trip is over, I’m going to start a new life.

The life I have always wanted.

Chapter 13

Grace

“Just as there is no rainbow without rain, so there is no healing without pain. Everything bad lasts until you face it.”

(Rob Lawson)

New Helena, Nebraska

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“The motel is another hour.”

“I can’t hold it that long. This trip is getting daunting and exhausting. We just drove seventeen hours to get back to Nebraska—to New Helena—where there’s absolutely nothing. Sleeping in the car sucks, and I’m running out of clean clothes. We’re just going in circles around Oklahoma, hoping that lunatic won’t find us. Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana… None of those states were on my bucket list, but I’ve been to them anyway. Just like the Gulf of Mexico. I seriously can’t believe your brother hasn’t found out anything.”

Chase hits the brakes, and the wheels creak as the car slows. He makes a sharp U-turn, and we head back to the small local bar at an easy pace.

“You didn’t have to take that turn like that,” I tell him, because my head smacked the headrest.

“Your words made it sound like you wanted a little more excitement in your life.”

“I managed to forget for a second.”

“Forget what?”