Disclaimer:Please refer to chapter eleven, then ten, then nine, then eight, then seven, then six, then five, then four, then three, then two, in which you will then refer to chapter one.
Author: This chapter actually has a special place in this black hole I have for a heart... It's kind of sad, but it explains what I have had in my head since the beginning of this story. I've gotten dozens of reviews- some asking for a little defiance from Grace, towards her mother... Well.... Relish in it.
To my dearest beta Luna, I wish you many hot summer days, with lemonade and your Kartik, for sticking with me.
Chapter Twelve: The Way Things Are
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-x-I wouldn't know what to do with another chance if you gave it to me-x-
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After being in Jasper's soothing presence, whether that presence be forced or instinctive, I found myself on edge. Dr. Cullen allowed me exodus only on the compromise that I would only take the Vicodin on a carefully planned schedule, and perhaps only when I absolutely needed it? I needed it, I knew.
My mother seemed to be under the same problem as me, the jump in emotions once out of Jasper's influence seeming to confuse and drain her. She was very angry with me. Her anger was often a silent kind. She rarely rose her voice at me. I remembered the day, which seemed years ago, when she snapped and broke the glass on the floor. But that certainly felt like years ago, and I was confident she would use the same tactics as she did before I started public school, to shame me. Start out with perfect indifference, don't give me the time of day. Then, slowly give me disgusted glances, and perhaps mutter something under her breath, something I would never quite catch, but understood the gist of. After that, she would go into a detailed explanation of exactly what I did wrong, and then insult my intellect, leaving me bruised. To wrap up the entire strategic package, she expected a full verbal recital of what I would not do wrong next time.
It always worked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her glance at me, her lips drawn into a tight pink line, and three lines between her turned her eyes to the road, and shook her head dismally.
Yes, it was only the beginning. I wished for Jasper.
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-x-I couldn't take the embrace of a real romance-x-
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"Cannot believe you," she muttered, turning the wheel sharply. "Of all the things you could have done..."
I bowed my head properly in disgrace, as was expected.
I tried to turn my thoughts to other things, the most important thing at the moment. The Cullens and Hales claiming that they were a family of vampires.
I tried to approach this impractical problem as logically as I could, and as fairly as was possible in a biased body. Ways it was possible; they didn't eat, as long as I had gone to a school. Of course, their unusual beauty was something you didn't see everyday- or ever. Their odd behavior. Edwards mind-reading. Alice's seer abilities. Jasper's empathetic abilities.
All things that went completely against nature... Was the entire world going completely insane, or was it just myself?
Even though I had at least a half dozen ways of it being true, it was completely overpowered by the fact that I was willing to stake my life- or at least, something else very important, on vampires being nothing but mythical creatures.
Nothing without a heart beat was considered living. Their the walking dead, Grace- what are you getting at, here?
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-x-I'm much better off the way things are-x-
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I narrowed my eyes.
Nothing living or dead could sustain life on consuming blood. But they do.
I groaned, and my mothers eyes snapped to mine again.
"Silence. I don't want to hear a word until I give you permission to speak."
I felt a sinking dread that I wouldn't be going over to the Cullen-Hales'. My mother may have a lightened heart when Alice was around- and Jasper, by force, she still did not like him much, do to him snubbing her at the hospital the last time I was there- but she would darken when she was with me. Her motherly instincts would suffocate everything else down.
Our house was there under the gray cloud cover, and it began to drizzle. The weather matched my mood. I felt a depression that I hadn't before. I missed him.
"Lunch will be served in half an hour. You will not eat it," she answered. "You may have a glass of water."
To stay hydrated, I knew.
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-x-And if you chalk it up, you'll see I don't really have a choice-x-
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I went upstairs, and sat on my bed, attempting to down myself in my own despair. Things had changed so much since I had began public school, and I didn't like most of the changes.
My wrist had a dull ache in it, the medication that they had given me at the hospital wearing off. I wished for Vicodin.
I pulled off my clothes apathetically, and showered. I didn't remember the shower, much, but once I was standing on the tile floor, cold and dripping wet, I knew I had showered.
I dressed in clothes that were black and white, because it was a fitting analogy of exactly how the world wasn't being. Nothing was what I thought it was, and I was about to face the one women who could still make me cry, even after fourteen years of living with her.
She was sitting at the opposite end of the table. She didn't stare at me, but down at her plate. It seemed we were still in the indifferent stage.
There was a glass of water in front of me. I took a sip every time she took a bite of her food- salad (I had a craving for vinegar..) or a drink of her own water.
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-x-So keep on calling me names, keep on... keep on-x-
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"I'm so embarrassed because of you," she said, shaking her head. Tears rushed to my eyes, angry tears.
Malicious thoughts filled my head. Of course I embarrassed her. That's all I ever did, correct, wasn't it? Embarrass her. Point my toes incorrectly in ballet. Mispronounce a word in German. Get the sentence structure wrong in French. Make a wrong diagnoses in Psychology. I was just a child of faults.
"What did you just say? What-" She hissed at me. My glass clanked noisily as I sat it down on the table, quickly, startled.
"Beg pardon?" I mumbled, honestly confused.
"Repeat yourself! And don't you ever int-"
"I did!" My fist hit the table. " And I did it again! What will you do about it?!" I shouted, putting my head in my hands, as sobs wracked my small frame. I felt humiliated at my shameful lack of control, but found there was such a release of tension in my shoulders that it was astonishing.
Her silence shocked me, so I poured it all out of my system. My anger at her never appreciating me. My fury at her pushing me so hard, even when I was tired enough as it was. The fact I resented her for being my teacher first, my mother second.
By the time I was done shouting at her, my eyes were so blurred I could hardly tell up from down, my hair was mussed from pulling at it, and my water had been knocked over from my fist slamming down upon the table one too many times.
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-x-So keep on calling me names... I'll keep kicking the crap till it's gone-x-
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And she still sat, silent.
Her hands sat lamely in her lap, as she watched my fury for once, out do hers. I wondered if I had looked the way she did, the one time she had ever really snapped, and broke the glass.
I realized she was crying a few minutes after my own tears had stopped, and I instantly felt the anger inside myself morph into guilt, as she cried silently, glaring at her plate like a child who had been told she would get no dessert.
"I-I... I never m-," my hands floundered, until they found a very safe spot in my lap.
"No," she answered firmly, her voice unaffected by tears. I winced. All hopes of going out tonight, were gone. I had done something completely unforgivable. I'd screamed at my mother- accused her of numerous sins which had seemed larger in the heat of the moment.
Honor thy father, and thy mother. Where had that rule, gone?
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-x-As soon as I settle, I bet I'll be able to move on-x-
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"No, you're... correct."
My head snapped up, giving me whiplash, and it was all I could do to simply stare at her in blatant shock.
"What were some of the names you called me? Neglectful? Pushy? You have so many more to add to the list, Grace. So many more," she murmured.
What had Lacey called me? Once more it slipped my mind, coming back again almost instantly. Bitch.
The water on the table dripped off, slightly, creating a small puddle on the floor.
"I'm a liar," she whispered, and it hung in the air between us, tangible in the air.
"I lied to you, for so many years, Gracey," I was shocked at the name. She hadn't called me that since I was a little girl of six, and when she probably had hopes that I would forget her ever being so sentimental.
"What do you mean?"
"Your father."
I waited for her to collect herself, and pondered over that word. My father, yes? What about him? Died by a drunk driver when I was seven months old. Had brown hair, blue eyes. Tall man, kind of lanky, but handsome. What about him?
"Grace," she struggled for words. "There are things I never told you. When you were little, I convinced myself that it was something you wouldn't understand, and something that would only burden you if you knew... But-" she faltered, and stared down at her hands again, refusing to meet my eyes. "But now, I think you should know."
I felt dread close my throat. What? What was it? Was it some terrible secret that would rip us apart? I loved my mother, no matter what. I shouldn't have yelled at her, I thought suddenly. She was still crying.
"Your father and I never married, Grace."
I let out a confused noise from the back of my throat, but she held up a hand for silence.
"No. Let me speak," she pleaded. I silently nodded. Yes, explain.
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-x-I wouldn't know what to say to a gentle voice, it'd roll right past me-x-
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"I was young, and stupid then. Hot-headed, and a risk taker. My parents didn't keep a close reign over me, they let me run rampant. They hardly payed my ways any attention- and that was what I strived for. Their attention. Nothing I did seemed to work, until finally one night... I met your father. He was... charming. Very charming. A nice guy, chivalrous. The perfect man I figured that I could take advantage of..."
She trailed off and stared at me critically.
"Are you understanding my words, Grace? Or must I spell it out for you..."
I blushed slightly, and tilted my head downward before she could tell it was there. She had seduced my father. I winced inwardly at the words, it made my mother sound like a... a common whore.
"It was a one night stand, and I never knew him outside of then. I don't even remember his name, Grace. The friend who was with me took our picture that night.. before- and I burnt it a few ago- after you saw it. I can hardly remember his face, even now... I was stupid, and I..." she trailed off here, as though she refused to say what she originally was going to say. "I refuse to let you do the same. When my parents found out I was pregnant, they legally disowned me, and then they died. They died of a house fire, before we ever made up... and I just, didn't want it to happen to you."
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-x-I'm much better off the way things are, much better if, better by far, by far-x-
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She finished, casting me a pleading look.
"I figured that.. if I pushed you in the ways I had never been pushed, and if I kept you close, that perhaps you would never stray down the path that I had."
She stood from the table, and walked towards me. She tracked through the puddle that had grown steadily on the floor.
She grabbed my chin gently, and tilted my face towards her, and when she looked at me, I figured that I was glad that I had looked like her. She was very pretty. Was I that pretty? What did Jasper think of me?
"You claim that I'm not proud of you- but it's the exact opposite. I'm so proud of you," she said fiercely. "You've accomplished things that I never dreamed a child could- and you aren't even a child anymore. You're a young woman- but Gracey... I just tried to squash out the defiance in you. I didn't want you to turn out like me. Pregnant, and homeless when you were eighteen."
"I'm sorry," I choked out, and she drug me out my chair to do something she'd never really done before- she hugged me. I grinned against her shoulder, somehow finding everything hysterically horrible, and realized that there was a noise in the background, something that hadn't been there before...
The doorbell.
"Alice," I gasped, and slowly pulled away, reluctant. There was so much to say. I wouldn't turn out like her. I wouldn't have a baby out of wedlock- in the back of my mind, I wondered if vampires could have children, but shoved this thought away, laughing slightly inside my head. My mothers eyes were wary of my reaction to her story, but at my gentle smile, she knew that this didn't change things for the worse. I had never needed a father. Nothing had changed.
"Go greet our guest," she murmured. "I need to clean up the water."
I gave her a bashful look, and hesitated, until she shooed me away.
I answered the door grinning like a fool, and Alice was smiling sweetly at me. Her arms slid unexpectedly around my shoulders- we were the same height- and she hugged me. She was freezing.
"I'm so happy for you," she said into my hair. I felt a little uncomfortable with the close contact- I hadn't initiated it. Friend or not- I didn't really like to be touched, so. As suddenly as they were there, the feelings disappeared. Jasper.
My hungry eyes sought him out, but in the- yellow Porsche?- that was sitting in my driveway, was no one... I frowned, dejectedly.
"Hello Alice," my mother greeted. Her eyes were fresh and green, and held no trace she had been crying. She gave me a small smile, and welcomed both me and Alice into the house.
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-x-Better by far, by far-x-
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Author: I'm a little wary. Don't think that the mother will become a darling little saint- mother of the year, because she won't. She will be just as pushy. Nothing has changed, I just turned the light on, a little. Now they won't be bumbling around in the dark, and neither will you, dear reader.
The song was called "The Way Things Are".
Review, pretty, pretty please?
-x-Ebony-x-