I feel like it is my duty to mention that Grace is not Julie's mother, she is her stepmother. Julie loves Grace like her mother, but I know that deep down she misses Lilah. But Grace is truly awesome. She understood totally when Julie told her that I would be sleeping there. But really that's all the extra time I spent there. I didn't want to impose on them so I snuck back into my house to shower, eat breakfast and eat dinner. My parents, for all I know, didn't notice I was gone.
The next day I brush passed Candy as I went out the door. The three, four, of us were going to ambush Lewis, Maggie's ex-fiancé, at work, thinking for some reason that maybe he might be more susceptible there than at home. It doesn't make sense, I know, but that's the way we were thinking. Josh was actually the one who had gotten us the appointment with Lewis at his office, but once we were there, it was actually my mother who helped us. As I was introducing us, "And I am Charis Stevens…" He suddenly perked up. "Stevens? Is Rose Stevens your mother?" I nodded, a little guarded because, well, he knew my mother. But he was quite enthusiastic, "Well, she is just a business genius. I worked on a project with her for a couple of months, our firms were working together you know, and she saved the project all by herself. Your mother is an amazing woman." I nodded slowly thinking, Well, that's new, but I didn't say it, instead opting for, "Well I'm glad she was such a help."
Then we got to the awkward part, "Well, why did you need to meet me?" I sighed and said, "I feel kind of bad about this now. We," I motioned to the silent Julia and Josh, "Are writing a summer paper, for extra credit you understand, about post traumatic stress disorder. We have most of our information, but we need to interview a person who has been through trauma. Now, this may be hard, but I understand you fiancé was killed some years ago. Can you tell us a little bit about her?" All of a sudden I saw Damien jerk out of the corner of my eye, and I smelt burnt plastic. Maggie had arrived. I turned my attention back to Lewis, who looked a little shocked, and raised my pen as if to take notes. "If this is too hard…" I said. He shook his head, like someone trying to clear it. "No. Maggie is…was, the most beautiful, kind, gentle and…just all around good person I knew. I loved her more than life itself. She didn't mind that my parents hated her and her parents didn't think I was good enough, she wanted to marry me." There was a sense of awe to his voice and look of wonderment on his face. "I loved her and she loved me back…and then she, she got hit by that car. It was so fast and there, there was nothing I could do." I could see that he was being torn apart inside, that was why he was opening up to a group of kids. "I…I miss her so much. My parents thought I should go see someone, to talk about it but, I got over it myself. And Katie helped me so much…" He trailed off and shook his head again, "I'm sorry, I guess it's still hard for me. If you can wait until tomorrow, I can get some pictures and you can speak with Katie too." Josh took over from there and I looked at what I had written.
I gave a start. I hadn't written anything, instead I had doodled a picture of someone, I guess my idea of Maggie, getting hit by a car. Lewis was standing in the background staring, looking vulnerable. I heard a sarcastic voice over my shoulder say, "Close, but it doesn't look quite like me." I kept myself from looking until we were out of the office. Then I turned and saw Maggie for the first time. She did look a little like what I had drawn, but not much. She had mousy brown hair and freckles across her nose. Her eyes were the deepest, brightest blue I had ever seen, and I could see why Lewis might have fallen in love with her, slight sickly yellow glow aside. Then suddenly her face twisted and became ugly looking, "He still loves me, and I'm not leaving him again. So don't even try." Well even angels can fall, and even a nice person has a bitchy side, excusing my French there. I saw Julie and Josh look at each other, and when I looked back, she was gone.
