Page 14 of Grace

I must have hurt him, but it was the right decision at that moment—I wanted to keep him away. He took two steps back and left me in the darkness, but my resolve held.

“Goodbye, Chase,” I said, and disappeared behind the safe walls of the house.

I ran upstairs at once, into my room, and closed the door. The farther he was, the better. The more walls between us, the easier it would be with time.

“Are you okay, Grace?” Daisy asked.

“Yeah,” I lied.

“I just had to take Nikky a sweater and some money. Go back to sleep,” I said with a smile, then sat on my bed.

For a long time, I watched the starry sky and the circle of light beneath the streetlamp in front of our house. Suddenly, I had an irrational urge to look outside. I stood up silently and crept over. I closed my eyes and kept repeating the same thing: He isn’t here, he isn’t here, he isn’t here.

But as soon as I opened my eyes, my breath caught in my throat. A figure stood on the pavement on the other side of the street, thick gray smoke wafting from his mouth, an orange glow in the night, a dark shadow on the asphalt. I jumped back carefully, mindful not to wake Daisy. My ribcage felt tight, my heart raced, and my whole body was cold and shaking.

I took a step toward the window… the dark shape was gone, but all the bad feelings remained. I sighed, exasperated, and crawled into bed without taking off my clothes. I pulled the blanket up to my cold nose and looked at the face of my friend, who had just lost her virginity in the room next to mine—with my brother.

I felt terribly ashamed of how prejudiced I’d been about their “relationship.” I had no right to judge anyone when, that very same day, I’d gotten this close to Chase while going on dates with Billy. I turned onto my back. My heart was racing dangerously, and all the feelings swirling inside me made my throat constrict. That day, I hadn’t only hurt my brother’s feelings—I’d hurt Chase Baker’s, too.

The difference was that Jamie’s soul was paper-thin and warm, while Chase’s was hardened, pitch-black, and cold. He definitely wasn’t insulted to his core the way Jamie must have been—to whom I promised myself to apologize the next day.

I stared at the posters on the wall, so full of strange, inexplicable emotions that I felt like crying.

Mom had an explanation for this, too. You know, honey, girls are sensitive. To this day, even little things can make me cry. But that’s fine. When we cry, our soul is cleansed and becomes bright again.

I couldn’t believe we only had two more weeks before the next school year started.

Daisy’s family made the most of the last day of summer: they rented a camper van and drove to Silver Lake, near Los Angeles, to camp. I was sad about her leaving, but she’d promised to bring me a souvenir I’d never forget.

Fall was knocking on the door, and my old clothes were starting to feel too small. Whenever I got bored, I reorganized my wardrobe and wrote lists of what I’d need. I also spent time lying in bed, reading stupid teenage girl magazines—going through gossip about young, talented stars, filling out crosswords, and answering the quizzes on the last page that claimed to tell me which boys were the best match for me. They were ridiculous. Every tabloid contradicted the previous one about who The One should be, as if my personality had changed in half an hour. Smiling, I tossed them into a heap.

I was taping posters I’d just taken out of the magazines onto the remaining bare spots on my walls when someone knocked on my door.

“Come on in!” I shouted. I was tiptoeing along the narrow headboard of my bed, trying to put up my newest find.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall?” Dad asked playfully.

“I’ll get up if I do,” I answered, my heart in my throat as adrenaline surged through me. My tongue stuck out and moved around as I struggled to keep my balance.

“You always do, honey.”

When I finally managed to tape the thin, glossy paper into place without damaging it, I turned to Dad with a victorious smile. He looked at me with love in his eyes and pride on his face.

I jumped down onto the middle of the bed, making my plush toys bounce, then straightened my legs and landed on my butt.

“I want to talk to you, Grace,” he said in a grave voice.

“This sounds serious,” I replied, pulling a pillow into my lap.

“Because it is.”

His face was a mask of discomfort, making my heart twist into a knot and crawl up my throat. I desperately hoped my parents didn’t know about Jamie and Daisy’s one night stand—the evidence of which I’d helped them get rid of.

Dad rubbed his tired eyes behind his thick-rimmed glasses, then sank his fists into the pockets of his light beige linen pants, nervously kicking the rug with the tips of his shoes. He was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt tucked into his pants, with a brown belt that matched his loafers. My parents’ sense of style was stuck in the ’80s.

We got our hair color from Dad and our eye color from Mom. Both of them were pale—they worked indoors. The slight slouch in their posture hinted at the long hours they spent sitting. They both lived with constant pain in their tight shoulders and necks, and arthritis in their stiff fingers.

Dad was a renowned IT specialist at his workplace, and he was really good at what he did. A conservative, hopelessly romantic computer guy… No wonder Mom had fallen for him right away.