Hey everybody! I'm back with another chapter! Thanks for reading and enjoy the story! And in case you missed it in the last chapter, I have shuffled the dates of the story around, so the War of the Fortnight Festivities have not yet begun in this story.

A week made a difference, a big one, and to my surprise, the person who made the biggest difference of all was none other than Dr. Rainier. Logic had never been very powerful over me, but somehow the way he used and talked about Jamie and Alexei made it very obvious that there was truth in those words.

It was amazing how much better I felt when I could be around Jamie and Alexei without this pit in my stomach or constantly feeling nauseous. They loved me. They would never hurt me. Now my brain believed it just as much as my heart.

With the weight of all that happened lifted from my shoulders, I started to feel so much lighter. The constant reminders of Spence were disappearing. I didn't dream of the assault. The number of reporters and cameras outside the gates was becoming less and less with each passing day. Somehow with everything out in the open, I felt better, I felt more like I'd once been so long ago, before all the bad things started to take over.

Tea on the terrace wrapped in my mother's blanket with her book in front of me, I tried to distract myself. I was reading the Great Gatsby, her favorite. She loved Nick the narrator, but she could talk about the romance between Daisy, Jay, and Tom forever. For the first time in a long time it felt okay to hold on to something of hers. It wasn't burning me anymore.

"Gracie," It was Jamie. He sat in a chair beside me and just looked at me, "I don't know how you're doing that. It's like a million degrees out here and you're in a blanket. I'm sweating just looking at you."

"I feel fine, maybe it's because I'm so tiny."

"Yeah, make sure you drink some water or something so you don't get dehydrated." I yupped him and in the corner of my eye I could see him scowl, "What are you reading?"

He peaked over at the page and probably recognized the character names.

"Gatsby? That was mom's favorite."

"I know."

I had never been able to enjoy the story like she did. I wasn't much into reading as a kid and by the time it became a required reading course when I was a high school freshman, I was still reeling from her loss. I barely focused on the story, I just let the hurt sink in with each page, each line we came across that she would recite, and the chilling ghost of her words that would fill my head. That was then though, and this is now. I think I'm starting to understand why she loved the story so much, but I'm not sure why the thought of Gatsby made her so unhappy. It wasn't that Jay made her upset or she didn't like him, her story just made her sad and put her in a mood.

"What's with the face?" Jamie pinched my face to get my attention, "What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I just don't get it. Why did mom love this book so much?" I'd read other books of hers from the shelves in her room and this was the only one without her annotations and messages up the margins.

"Maybe she related. She said she read it in high school, that she never believed her first love could end like Jay and Daisy's, that she was always hopeful back then and it reminded her to stay that way."

"First love, huh?" I stood from the table and retreated back inside the embassy, Jamie following closely behind.

"Gracie, where are you going?"

"I just need a minute." I shut myself in the first bathroom I could find and sat on the floor. It was gross and unsanitary, but sitting on the floor was better that collapsing when my legs got weak.

I looked at the mahogany paneling on the wall and it all came rushing back once again. The assault. The sea air. The itchy sand in my sneakers. The fight. The tree. The names carved into it, the teenage fantasy of a love lasting forever.

"Jamie." I knew he was in the hall waiting for me.

"What's wrong, Gracie?"

"Everything. I know things that I didn't want to and now I can't stop thinking about them."

"Tell me what it is. Please." I opened the door and Jamie picked me up under my arms and set me back on my feet, "What is getting to you this much? I thought Dr. Rainier was helping."

"On the island, before Spence caught up with me in the woods, I found something. Something that had to do with mom. I didn't know what to do when I saw it. Mom's aren't supposed to have pasts, or at least pasts that their children get wrapped up in."

"Grace, what did you find?" he grabbed my shoulders. Gracie was out the window, I must be worrying him.

"Her name was carved into a tree with a boy's, or he was a boy then, but now he's a man and-"

"Grace there are a lot of people with the name Caroline."

"Yeah, but I know Dominic."

"What? Who is Dominic?"

"The former Prime Minister's body guard. He and mom grew up here in Adria together. She was his first love. I honestly think she may have been his only love and now he keeps making it his mission to stop me from being stupid and if he can't do that he stops me from getting hurt."

"Have I ever met this Dominic? I don't think I like this, Grace, it sounds like he has an unhealthy obsession with our family."

"He was here, last week with Prime Minister Petrovic."

"Grace, the only guards the Prime Minister had with her was an older woman and a very young guy."