Page 76 of Fall From Grace
I would step into the living room where Dad would sit on the couch in silence then he’d cry. I’d sit down with him because I knew I needed this just as much as him… I wanted to cry too. All of these bottled up emotions were slowly consuming me, but he got up and walked upstairs when I tried to be next to him.
If Mom was here, she’d know how to fix us but she wasn’t. She was gone, and she was never coming back. She’d never be able to stitch Dad and me together.
I pulled out my phone again and stared at her text in the darkness of the living room all alone… Still, I didn’t feel like I was worthy to cry for the woman I loved most in this world. The ones that fell down my cheeks that night didn’t count. I didn’t make a peep, no matter how much I wanted to scream. I thought I was holding it all in.
The day she was buried, I followed Dad out the door and climbed into his truck with him. He didn’t speak to me. He continued to ignore me as we drove to the cemetery. Still, as the silent tears slid down my cheeks, I held it in.
Noah was there trying to hold me and I distanced myself from him again. And I knew he was starting to sense it because the fear in his eyes became terror.
I let him drive me home afterward but instead of taking me home, he pulled off beside the road. “You’ve done nothing but cry the last few days. Please, Grace, talk to me,” he begged.
I thought I was holding it in? I made sure not to cry… Only Noah was right, it wasn’t my tears I was holding in, it was my words, my voice. I hadn’t spoken since the hospital.
I pulled my phone out again and stared at Mom’s text. “Grace, whatever dark thoughts you’re having, let me take them from you… Please don’t,” his words convinced me that he knew exactly what had been plaguing my mind since she passed away.
“Noah,” I croaked, “did Mom know where you lived?”
“Grace,” he was begging me again, and my stomach was churning. “Stop. Our love didn’t kill her.”
More tears. “Did she?” I asked again.
Noah looked like he was crying too. “Yes,” he finally said.
I sucked in air before screaming as I broke into tears. “Mom,” I found myself saying, and screaming all the things I wish I didn’t have to say.
“Stop apologizing, you did nothing wrong,” he broke down with me as he grabbed me and pulled me into him. I pushed his chest but he held tighter. “It was an accident, accidents happen every day.”
“She was coming to get me. Dad hadn’t wanted me to see you but I convinced her anyway.”
“Grace!” I knew he wanted me to open my eyes but I couldn’t.
“My dad won’t even look at me!”
“Just a few more months, Grace, and I’ll be on my own. Come live with me then.” I opened my eyes and met his beautiful blues. That sounded beautiful, wasting away on Noah in a small apartment… But I no longer saw that future. It wasn’t fair for me to love Noah when I lost Mom, and Dad lost what I wanted to have.
“You’ll be eighteen, I won’t…” I yanked my arms from his grips. “I can’t leave my dad, we just lost Mom. I just lost her.” Saying it made me start crying again.
“Grace, I won’t let you push me away,” he whispered inside his Jeep, but I wouldn’t look his way again.
“I’m not pushing you away, I’m leaving you.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Yes, I am! Take me home.”
He started driving again and with the wheels turning, the heaviness in my heart grew. I hardly gave him time to park before I jumped out of the Jeep. I heard him get out and run to catch up to me. He jerked me around to face him. “I can’t just leave you alone when I know you’re hurting, please, just let me hold you. Let me take care of you!” he pleaded with me. “I cared for her too, and I know how painful it is to lose your mom.”
“You don’t know! My mom centered her world around me while yours didn’t even know she was in this world half the time,” I said the words before I could think of what it was I said. He looked taken aback and I stepped back. “Just, please, Noah, let’s end this… before I become this ugly person that you’re gonna hate.” I met his eyes and hoped it would make him understand as I rubbed my hands over my hair. “There’s this ugliness I feel growing inside of me. I feel like it’s going to get worse, not better.”
“Yeah, it’s going to get worse… before it gets better.” He stepped forward, cupping my cheeks. “I don’t care. Be ugly. Show me how damn ugly you can be. I want all of it, just don’t leave my arms. You know it’s where you belong.” The way he said things stirred my craving of him so easily… so easily that I found myself moving into his arms instead of away.
I placed a peck on his lips, but Noah placed his hand into my hair and tried to consume me with a real one. I pulled our lips apart. “I’m going to be okay without you, and you’re going to go on without me like we did before we met for the second time.”
I stepped back and he reached for me. “Stop… I feel like I’m really losing you,” he croaked.
“Don’t get the apartment. Don’t come to my high school. Stay at Dean’s until you finish high school so you can save up money and go from there.”
He looked at me like I had lost my mind… or broken his heart. “You know I can’t do that.”