Falling From Grace (22 page)

Robert immediately offered to help make it with Janice, and left me with one thought before leaving for the kitchen.
 
He cares about you.
 
Almost as much as I do.

Dad sat down near my propped up foot, touching the toes that peeked out from the cast, and sighed.
 
“How are you feeling, kiddo?”

“I’m fine, Dad.
 
More than fine, actually,” I said honestly.
 
“I’m not in pain, I’m not being forced to eat vile hospital food, and I don’t have to be poked and prodded anymore.
 
I’m great!”

Dad nodded, somewhat convinced, but it appeared as though something was weighing on his mind.
 
Oh, to be able to read his mind so that I would know what to say when he finally said it!

He patted my good foot, sighing once more.
 
“Grace, Graham is coming over in a few minutes.
 
He wanted to see how you were doing.
 
He heard about the accident and is very worried.”

I didn’t know what to say.
 
The cynical part of me said he was coming over to see the freak in a cast.
 
The hopeful part of me said he was coming over to say how sorry he was for hurting me, and that he wanted to be friends again, and more, if that’s what I wanted.

I wasn’t going to play the surprised fool at that admission.
 
I had genuinely loved Graham, and still did.
 
The seventeen-year-old girl I was felt thrilled at the idea of him possibly realizing how close he came to losing me and wanting to never take me for granted again.

I quickly went over in my head what I was going to say if he were to indeed express any type of remorse, twirling my fingers around each other in an effort to calm my nerves.
 
There was a knock on the door and I took a deep breath while Dad got up and answered it.
 
I could feel the nervousness in me vibrate up and down my body, and a pained, pinched feeling started to bubble in my heart; the memories of that Monday just one month ago was still fresh and new, much to my disappointment.

Dad walked into the living room followed by someone.
 
I looked up from my fidgeting fingers to smile at Graham, rather than grimace like I wanted to, but it wasn’t Graham who stood behind my father.
 
It was a girl.
 
One that I had never seen before, but whose face was so familiar I would have had to have been blind to not know who she was.

“Um, Grace, this is Lark Bellegarde.
 
She says she’s Robert’s sister.
 
Their mother sent her over here to see if she could fetch him,” Dad said to me while staring in awe at the beautiful girl standing next to him.
 
If ever a face could be used to illustrate the definition of angelic, hers was it.
 
If she smiled, I would have had no doubt that I’d hear music in my ears.
 
This was the same girl whose birth Robert had aided in his vision, I realized.

In that flash of recognition, she hissed at me.
 
It wasn’t audible.
 
It was in my mind.
 
She could read and project thoughts like Robert could.
 
Of course she could!
 
The look on her face was cold, contemptuous.
 
She was no fan of mine.
 
Join the club.

She blinked, shocked it seemed by my reaction.
 
It was then that I noticed her eyes, and what looked like a strange bundle of sticks she carried in her hand.
 
Lark, the angel’s sister, was blind!

I may be blind, human, but I can still see, and my powers are limitless in comparison to your weak, human self.
 

Though the voice itself was musical, her anger was shockingly cold.
 
It was like with every word she thought, along with it she sent a dagger of ice.
 
It hurt, and she knew it, even if she couldn’t see the reaction on my face.

Robert appeared suddenly, having felt the encounter between his sister and me, not only
hearing
it.
 
His eyes were steel again, cold.
 
Lark’s face was smug.
 
Dad stood next to Lark, oblivious to what was happening, that the two of them were having an argument completely in silence; an argument about me.

As if realizing that they had an audience, Lark fell back into character with ease, and delivered her lines.
 
“Rob, Mom wants you home now.
 
There’re two weddings this week and she needs you to help with set-up.”

Rob’s entire posture changed then.
 
He nodded stiffly and came over to me on the couch, kneeling down so he could speak to me on eye level.
 
“I’ll be back as soon as I can, but it won’t be for a few days.
 
You’ll have to make do with your dad’s cooking, but I did leave you with the best canned soup and tuna sandwich in the history of soup and sandwich combos,” he smiled at me and then leaned forward and kissed my forehead.

I looked into his eyes, seeing the hard metal soften slightly.
 
Why are you leaving?
 
Truth.

I cannot tell you that right now.
 
Just know that I’ll be back in no more than a couple of days.

Will you really come back?
 
I hated that I sounded so desperate.

I promise I will be back as soon as I can.
 
He brought my hand to his lips and kissed each fingertip.
 
I felt each and every single one all the way to the bottoms of my feet.
 
My fingers felt so sensitive, I thought I could feel the lines on his lips and the pulse that beat beneath them.

He stood up and winked at me, called out his goodbyes to Janice, thanked Dad, and dragged Lark out of the house.
 
It happened so quickly that Janice had barely walked out of the kitchen when I heard Robert’s motorcycle speed off.
 
Dad was muttering something to himself about kisses and boundaries when there was another knock at the door.

He turned around and went to answer it.
 
I was still glowing when Graham walked in, my father trailing behind, still mumbling under his breath.
 
Graham looked at me on the couch, my limbs in casts, propped up on pillows, and his features became incredibly anguished.
 
He walked gingerly towards me, as though merely moving the air around me would hurt me, and then knelt in front of me.

“Oh God, Grace, I didn’t know.
 
I didn’t know until just a few minutes ago.”
 
He looked at my leg in its cast, not knowing that it was completely healed underneath, and with his lip trembling, put his head down onto my lap.
 
“I’m so sorry, Grace-” his voice stumbled, and for a brief second, I could see the little boy who had cried when he saw what remained of his whale in front of me.
 
“I’m so sorry for hurting you.
 
You didn’t have anyone to turn to and I’m so sorry; I’m such a jerk.”

This was it.
 
This was what I had been waiting for.
 
This was what I had hoped he’d do.
 
And yet…it didn’t feel as good as I had thought it would.
 
Perhaps it was because I couldn’t stand to see him hurting, too
—
I never could
—
and here he was in obvious pain.
 
Perhaps it was because I knew that while his grief and remorse were real, my injuries were not.
 

Sighing, I placed my hand on his head, the act familiar and comforting.
 
He sighed, knowing that soon I’d be playing with his hair and telling him that he’d score a lot more girlfriends if he’d stop using so much gel.
 
Only this time I wouldn’t say anything at all.

And that quickly, with just those few words of remorse from him, we fell back into our old routine, as if the betrayal, the heartache had never even happened.
 
  
Perhaps I was an idiot for it, but this was Graham.
 
Nothing could erase the history between us.

Soon, Janice was asking him if he wanted to stay for lunch, since we were obviously missing our previous guest.
 
He agreed and took the spot next to me that Robert had occupied.
 
It bothered me
—
how deeply my heart had been broken, how miserable I had felt, and how easily all had been seemingly forgiven and forgotten by him.
 
I felt cheated somehow
—
I expected so much more from this
—
but accepted that for now, this was better than the alternative.

Graham stayed until dinner, when his mother came to visit with a tray of vegetarian lasagna in her hands.
 
He said he’d be over in the morning before school to see how I was doing, and then they left.
 
Dad hadn’t said a word until it was time for bed and I was trying to hop up the stairs with his help; pretending that I couldn’t walk was going to be tedious.

“Grace, how do you feel about Graham coming back into your life now that you have Robert in it as well?”

I didn’t answer until we were at my bedroom door.

“I don’t know.
 
I never
—
not in a million years
—
thought I’d be the girl with two guys in my life, two guys that I care about a lot.
 
Up until a few hours ago, I was still amazed that I had even one.”

Dad opened my door and helped me into my room.
 
I gasped.
 
It. Was. Clean!!
 
Janice must have done this; I wondered what she thought of my disorderly room…and where exactly she had hid everything.
 
Dad helped me hop to the bed and then went to grab me a pair of boxers and a tank top.
 
He sat down on the bed next to me then, getting ready for what appeared to be a long talk.

Eyeing the clothes he had laid out, I decided that I could wait to change.
 
This looked important.

“Grace, how much do you care about these boys?” he asked me.

“I care about them both a great deal, Dad.” I said shyly, looking down at some invisible speck on the floor to avoid having to look into his face while answering.
 
I knew that he’d hear the truth in my tone.

He took a hold of my right hand, cast and all, and sighed.
 
“I was afraid of that.
 
You realize what you’re starting here, right?
 
Two guys caring about the same girl
—
that girl caring about both of them?”

I nodded, understanding the point he was trying to make; but I also knew some facts that he didn’t.
 
“Dad, Graham and I are going to be nothing but friends.
 
He has a girlfriend, they’re ‘serious’, and no matter how close I may come to dying, he’s never going to look at me the way he looks at her.”

Dad put his hand under my chin and lifted my face up to look into my eyes, his features soft and warm.
 
“That’s his loss, Grace.
 
But…you wish he would, right?”

I didn’t know what to say to that.
 
Part of me did want him to look at me the way he looked at Erica.
 
It would be foolish to lie, especially since it wasn’t that long ago that I had wanted that so very badly that when it became clear it would never happen, it crushed me.
 
But there was that other part of me that knew when Robert looked at me, nothing could ever match the fire that burned inside of me
.
 
And I knew that I was more than willing to burn forever.

“I don’t know what I want from Graham, Dad.
 
Right now, his friendship is more than I expected, and I’ll take what I can get if it means having him in my life again.”

Dad seemed displeased by that answer, the aging lines returning to his forehead and mouth.
 
“He hurt you pretty badly, Grace.
 
I think if school hadn’t started, you’d still be in your room-” he held my face in both of his hands like he did when I was a little girl “-and I just don’t want you going down this road a second time, only to get hurt all over again.
 
By
either
of them.”

I raised my hands to cover his and squeezed his fingers, faking a wince as I did so to hide the fact that my arm wasn’t broken after all, and kissed his cheek.
 
“Dad, you know me so well, and yet you don’t give me the credit I deserve.”

He patted my thigh and kissed the top of head before standing to leave.
 
He walked to my doorway and then turned around.
 
“Grace, you’ve been the one constant in my life since your mother died.
 
Always kind hearted, always generous and genuine.
 
I always give you the credit you deserve.
 
I just think that you might not be aware of your own heart, not where love is concerned.
 
Love can make you blind to a lot of things, but most especially to what you really want and what’s good for you.”
 
And then he was gone.