A/N: Several people have given input to various portions of the chapter: Cait, Lushbaby, and the shadowy wallflower drummer that entertains me for hours on end. Thanks, dude. You rock. OH, so my question to all you talented writers is who the heck is going to write The Cat from Luke's point of view?? It so needs to be done, and you'll earn 30,000 coolness points.
First Step in TrustI didn't want to move. Ever.
But people would be coming in soon and there was no way I was going to let anyone else see me like this. That he had was almost too much to bear. So I lifted my head as I sniffed away the last of my tears.
He kissed my forehead and whispered, "Let's get out of here."
I nodded and moved slowly from his grasp. "Yeah, I'll see you in Physics. I just need to---"
"No, Grace. Let's take off and go somewhere."
That was something I did all the time, but him? He never skipped classes, and I certainly wasn't going to be the reason he started. The last thing I wanted on my conscience was Genius Girardi's descent towards high school dropout.
I shook my head. "No, I'm just going to clean up." I moved past him, keeping my eyes averted from his gaze.
He put his hands on my arms, stopping me from leaving. "Grace."
"I'll see you in Physics." I glanced up at him before I turned and left the room.
My eyes were dry by the time I reached the bathroom, but I wetted a paper towel anyway. Its coolness soothed me and took the sting out of my eyes, and I took a few deep breaths as I sat in a stall to avoid being seen by anyone.
I hadn't expected a scene like that when I IM'd him. I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly hadn't planned on allowing myself to cry in his arms in the middle of school like that. I promised myself long ago that no one would ever see me cry. It was more than a little disturbing that I had so easily broken my promise with him.
He wasn't in the hall by the classroom when I finally got there, which I was grateful for. But I knew he was inside waiting, and I had to walk past those intense blue eyes that always entranced me to get to my seat. Now they knew far too much. I couldn't do it. I couldn't face him then. If I could have just slipped in, unnoticed, and relished being three feet away from him, without having to answer his looks…but, no. He notices everything, and his gazes were far too evocative.
I spun on my heel, went to my locker and removed my bag to get my skateboard. After a second's consideration, I grabbed a scrap of paper and pen from my notebook, and scrawled a note.
Decided to bail, after all. No worries, I'll see ya later. I'm using your Physic notes, so they'd better be stellar.
I folded the paper and passed his locker on the way out. Just as I was about to stuff it between the slots, I pulled it back and opened it. Taking the cap off the pen that was still in my hand, I put the note up against the locker to add one last thought.
Thanks.
I folded my note and dropped it inside his locker, then picked up my skateboard and left.
I didn't go online that night. I knew he was probably going to give me grief the next time I saw him, but I had enough of bearing my soul for the day. For the year, actually. It wasn't that I wasn't grateful, I was. There was a sense of relief that I couldn't describe, hadn't expected, from telling him, and his hug had stayed with me throughout the day, like protective armor. I hadn't hugged anyone for ages, and I had never been hugged like that. Held. Comforted.
---
The next day found me standing by the window, idly watching the fiasco in the courtyard below. Student body elections, AKA, Arcadia High Popularity Contest 2004, had begun, and Joan got the hair-brained idea that she needed to get involved with it. A tragic decision, second only to her trying out for cheerleading. Why does she insist on being such a….joiner?
"Hey."
I looked over as he walked up the stairs and sank down on them. I hadn't seen him since the previous morning in the empty classroom. It wasn't that I was avoiding him, exactly. I just hadn't gone looking for him.
"Dude, your sister is looking to support the corrupt political system at arcadia high, which is totally symptomatic of the larger political—"
"Are we ever gonna talk about your mom?"
The wind rushed out of me as though I had been hit in the gut and I looked down at him.
"No." Why had he brought that up?
"Grace, you IM'd me that your mom's an alcoholic," he said, gently, looking up at me. My throat constricted. What did he want from me? "I know you want to talk about it," he continued.
I considered that. What was there to say? Did he want to hear about the nights I cleaned her up, put her to bed, and cried myself to sleep? Or the fights my dad and I had over who should be looking out for her? Or the panic I felt every time I went home, fearing that I would find her passed out? I took a breath and tried to collect my thoughts, but the words wouldn't come. There were no words to describe it.
I looked at him. Why had I told him? I had asked myself a million times, and I kept coming up with the same answer.
"I just wanted you to know," I admitted.
He gazed at me with so much concern and… something else that I've suspected for a while but wasn't completely sure of until now.
Love.
It scared me, but at the same time, made me want to fall on his neck, into his arms and have him hold me so tightly that every part of me would feel his warmth. It was too much to deal with, here at school, so I picked up my bag, and left.
Did he get it? I wanted him to know my darkest secret, the one that I had fought desperately to hide from everybody ever since I was eleven. As scary as that was, as terrified as I still was of him knowing so much about me, not telling him was no longer a choice.
---
GravityBoy: I missed you.
I blew off our five minutes that afternoon, putting me in breach the contract, but I couldn't see him then.
BLACKWIDOW-4-U: Ten minutes tomorrow. Deal?
GravityBoy: Before school, or after?
I grinned.
BLACKWIDOW-4-U: Both. Five before, five after.
GravityBoy: Yeah, that works.
---
The next morning, I sat beside him and shivered.
"This isn't going to work much longer," he said. "It's getting too cold to meet outside. We need to come up with a different plan."
"Maybe you just need to work harder at keeping me warm," I murmured.
He smiled. "I'll see what I can do."
---
Friedman. Even I was getting embarrassed for him and his desperate attempts to pursue Judith by memorizing Hamlet.
"Talk to the freak, dude. This is humiliating, even for him." I said, catching up to the two of them in the hall after Joan had shoved yet another Brian Beaumont flyer into her brother's hands.
"Apparently, I no longer have the language for it," he told me. Shame. The guy knew quite a bit about this kind of thing. It would be good if he rubbed off on his friend.
"What exactly do you think Judith is gonna do when you've memorized hamlet? " I asked Friedman.
"More things in heaven and earth, Grace-io, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Friedman said.
Lars' goons, who had the intelligence of Lenny and Squiggy, came up and grabbed the Beaumont flyer.
"Hey, what's that you've got there? 'Brian Beaumont, A mission statement.' Carrying this might not be too good for your health," Lenny said.
The one person who would never hurt a living being, and these morons decided to pick on him. I felt my blood start to boil.
"You can't possibly be this much of a nimrod, right?" I asked, getting right up in their faces.
"Leave it alone, Grace." He put his hand on my arm.
"Leave it alone, Grace," Squiggy mocked.
I pulled my arm away from him. "They're not gonna do anything. These losers have some archaic code where they'd never hit a girl."
"Yeah, as if you're a girl," Squiggy said.
The next thing I knew, I slammed into the wall and hit my head as I fell to the ground. I was vaguely aware that on the other side of the hall, Mr. Congeniality had shoved my attacker against the wall, and Lenny had a hold on him. I put my arms up, instinctively, when he came flying towards me, hit the wall, and slid down beside me.
Who knew that this placid, intelligent, scrawny guy had it in him?
He was near enough that my knee and hand settled easily on his leg. "That was beautiful, dude," I told him.
We both began laughing as we sat there, and I couldn't take my eyes off him. I'd been in fights before, and they were always rushes, but this? This was exhilarating and wonderful and I loved that we had gone through it together. Loved that he did that for me. We scrambled to our feet, and it was all I could do to withhold myself from lunging at him in front of everyone.
"Behind the gym, five minutes," I said, trying to catch my breath. I had to get away or else I couldn't be held responsible for my actions.
Tearing myself away from him, I rushed to the door, turning to open it with my back to get another look at him. He stared at me with a bewildered look, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do. I jerked my head impatiently, and he slowly began to smile.
Five minutes was supposed to be a round number, a code for soon, but discretely. I was forced to wait as he dutifully waited the full time before appearing beside me.
"Are you chewing me out again?" he asked. I wasn't sure if he was mocking me, or really thought I was angry.
"Oh. No," I breathed, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him to me.
---
"You know, statistically, this last campaign thrust has less than a 13 chance of success," he said as we replaced vandalized "Vote for Brian" posters in an attempt to help Joan elect the guy.
I was long used to him spouting random, useless facts at me. It was sort of entertaining.
"You realize I don't understand half of what you say," I teased him.
"Right," he said.
But I did listen to him. And maybe he could be someone I could talk to.
I began speaking. "When I was 11, my friend Becky Coogan slept over…."
The sun streamed through the window as the two girls woke up from their slumber. Grace Polk turned over and looked at the girl beside her. It wasn't often that she was able to invite a friend to sleep over, and Grace could hardly believe that spunky, cool Becky Coogan had agreed to come. She was one of the few other girls that would play wall ball, and the only one besides Grace that could beat most of the boys. They hung out around the wall ball courts, but this was the first time they had done anything together outside of school
Becky sat up and looked at Grace. "We were up until one o'clock! You're mom is soooo cool for letting us stay up that late. My mom makes us go to bed at eleven when people spend the night at my house."
Grace smiled. "I stay up as late as I want to most nights," she boasted, not bothering to tell her companion that most nights she went to bed without even seeing her mom or dad.
"You're so lucky. I wish I had a mom like you."
"Yeah, she's cool. She said she'd make us pancakes this morning….with blue berries!!"
Becky's eyes widened in salivating anticipation. "Yum!"
Grace scooted out of her sleeping bag and stood up. "Let's go see if she's awake!"
Giggling, the two girls padded in their bare feet down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, Becky cried, "Race ya!" and broke into a run. Startled, Grace laughed and ran after her friend, nearly crashing into the other girl as she came to a sudden halt in the kitchen doorway.
"Grace, why is your mom lying on the floor like that?" Becky asked.
Grace looked in the direction where Becky was facing. "Mom?" Grace moved over and knelt by her mother. "Mom? Mommy?"
Grace's mother moaned and turned over. "Go away!"
"What's wrong with her?" Becky asked?
Grace looked up, stricken to find the other girl's face twisted in disgust. "I—I don't know. She just gets sick sometimes." Grace got up and ran up to her parents room and knocked.
"Dad? Daddy?" Her father was usually gone by this time, but maybe he overslept.
No. He was gone. Grace went back down to find her mother and Becky right where she left them; her mom was passed out, and Becky looked on, horrified. Stepping past Becky, Grace reached down and nudged her mom.
"Come on mom, I'll help you to bed."
"I thought I told you to leave me alone, brat!"
Grace's eyes watered. "Please, mom."
The woman moaned and lifted herself to a sitting position. Her blond, shoulder-length hair knotted in a tangled mess and her rumpled blue button-down shirt gaped, halfway unbuttoned, revealing her bra. Glaring first at Grace, then at Becky, she stood, jerking her arm away from Grace's helpful hands, and stumbled towards the stairs.
"Are—are you going to make us pancakes?" Grace asked the retreating figure.
"Make your own stupid pancakes," Grace's mother sneered without looking back.
Grace stood, stunned and speechless, after her mom left the room. Then, determined to salvage the morning, she cleared her throat. "I can make pancakes, I've done it before."
Becky had not moved since she first discovered the woman. "I think I should go home," she said.
"Oh, but, we have blueberries," Grace said.
Becky shook her head and turned to run upstairs to get her things. Too numb to move, Grace waited until Becky crept back downstairs and towards the front door.
"I had fun," Grace offered, joining the other girl in the entryway with her best efforts at a small smile.
Becky looked at her, startled. "Uh, yeah. I…I'll see you around."
"Becky never talked to me after that. Becky was cool. You would've liked her," I told him.
He didn't say anything, thankfully. I didn't need words of sympathy or his trying to tell me how everything would be OK--something he couldn't guarantee. He listened. Was there.
That was enough.