A/N OK, folks, the word for the day is karma. Grace/Luke stories have been few and far between lately. Well, within the last week or so, and as someone who needs Grace and Luke goodness daily, that is a very long time. So, I'm hoping that by posting this, other G/L stories will get updated soon, and new ones will show up as well.
Thanks go out again to the Shadowy Wallflower (aka wallflower04…check out her In From the Rain.) because she beta'd for me. And then she let me pester her about all the weak spots. And for that she's just cool.
Facing the DragonI was supposed to be studying. Midterms were coming up, and I still didn't understand the last unit we had in Physics. Instead, I was coaxing my mother off the floor.
"Gracie, sing with me!"
"No, mom. I'm not going to sing." I sighed. She thinks she's cute when she starts singing Broadway show tunes at the top of her lungs. She's not. "Come on mom, get up."
My mother took my outreached hand, and I helped her struggle to her feet. She leaned on me as we made our way to the stairs, my mom working on her vodka.
"Why don't you put the bottle down so you can use the railing, Mom," I said, holding out my free hand.
"Ah ah ah, You're too young to have this Gracie." She giggled. "But if you want to try a little, I won't tell."
"No, Mom, I don't want any of your vodka, I just want to get you upstairs. So I can study."
We stumbled our way up the stairs, and halfway up she lost her balance and tripped, falling forward. Sitting on the stairs and giggling like a schoolgirl, she finished off the bottle. I stood over her, and wondered how many hours in my life I'd wasted playing nursemaid to my mother instead of studying or hanging out with my friends, or, even frying my brain in front of the television. Isn't that what most teenagers did? Once her bottle was dry, she let me pick her up and we headed towards her bathroom.
After her shower, I finally got her to get into bed and went back to my room. Flopping on my bed, I picked up my laptop and was greeted with an IM screen.
GravityBoy logged in at 9:13 pm
GravityBoy (9:13 pm): hey
GravityBoy (9:27 pm): hello????
GravityBoy (9:45 pm): You there yet?
GravityBoy (10:04 pm): where the heck are you??
GravityBoy (10:14 pm): should I be worried?
GravityBoy (10:33 pm): I hope everything is ok there.
GravityBoy (11:08 pm): sorry I missed you – see you tomorrow.
GravityBoy logged off at 11:08 pm.
Well, that sucked. He could've helped me with Physics; one of the privileges of making out with the smartest guy in class.
Too tired and despondent to study, I turned off my computer and got ready for bed.
---
He was standing against the wall of the café the next morning, much like he was the first time I told him to meet me there. Stepping off my skateboard and picking it up, I walked from the corner to the other end of the block to where he was.
"What's with the case of amnesia?" I asked.
"We're moving," he said, standing up, "I told you it was getting too cold."
"It's not that cold." I gestured to the crisp, unusually warm weather. "Where do you suggest we meet?"
"School. Biology storage room."
I raised an eyebrow. "Not on school property, remember?"
He held my gaze. "Wasn't a problem the other day."
We slipped into one of our miniature staring contests. He always did this: pushed the limits. It wasn't cute.
OK, so maybe it was, a little.
"Fine, but, you have to help me study for Physics."
"OK." He broke into his wide grin.
Rolling my eyes, I glanced around to make sure the street was deserted before I leaned in and gave him a quick kiss.
He looked at me, startled. "Wow."
"Yeah. Don't get used to it." I dropped my skateboard and pushed myself off.
"You're not going to walk with me?" He called after me.
"It's too cold!" I yelled over my shoulder.
---
I was standing at the other end of the hall of the biology lab studying a flyer when he passed me ten minutes later. I turned and watched as he slipped into the classroom, and then followed him after making sure no one was watching.
We were getting pretty good at this stealthy stuff.
The storage room was littered with jars of putrefied species suspended in embalming fluid. The fish and iguanas stared stonily at us from their eternal prison.
"Dude, it's like a pet cemetery in here."
"Lischak gave me the key," he told me. "Science student of the year does have its privileges."
"This is so the beginning of a Stephen King novel."
"Where were you last night?" he asked. "I IM'd you a thousand times."
"Oh, my mom was in rare form. Doing her Judy Garland act." It was strange, and yet weirdly comforting, to tell him this. "Lots of singing, lots of falling down, me putting her in the shower."
There were other things I'd rather do with him than discuss my mother, though. I took a step forward, but his words stopped me.
"Where was your dad?"
I stepped back and shrugged. "He works late so he doesn't have to deal. It's their little unspoken bargain. As long as she's sober at temple, runs her meetings, and has everybody snowed, she... " His eyes clouded as pain crept over his boyish features, revealing his heartbreak. His heartbreak for me. My stomach tightened, protesting his concern. "Don't look all simpy, I'm used to it. "
He looked at me, startled, and disbelievingly. "Maybe you should talk to somebody."
"Why? I'm almost out of there."
"It's two more years. That's fifteen percent of your life so far," he said.
This wasn't getting us anywhere, and we only had a few minutes before we had to get to class. "The test is on Thursday. Let's cram. Dark matter, black holes. Lay it on me," I told him as we sat on the floor.
"Their gravity is so strong that they pull in anything that gets close to them. You know, you don't have to be embarrassed to talk to me about—"
I don't think I had ever gone so long with being alone with him and not kissing him. Something that needed to be remedied. I leaned forward, pressed my mouth against his, and pulled and sucked on his lips. Swiping his lips with my tongue, I kissed him one more time before I pulled back.
"How's that for gravitational pull?" Surely this was more interesting than discussing my drunk mother.
Instead of the smile I expected, or the dazed look I had grown accustom to seeing after kissing him, he looked away in disappointment. I moved closer to him, and he looked back at me. Searching his eyes, I put my arm around his shoulders, grasped the back of his neck and resumed kissing him. Words weren't necessary, and I didn't want to discuss it. I just wanted to enjoy the few minutes I had with him.
He responded more fully this time, bringing his hand up and settling it on my shoulder blade. After a few minutes I broke our kiss and sat down next to him, with one leg resting on his crossed knee.
"This isn't studying," he told me, his eyes glazed over from the kiss.
I shrugged and smiled. "It's better, dude," I said, and then kissed him again.
---
"I'm so going to flunk the test," moaned Joan beside me as we walked out of Physics.
"I'll study with you, Jane."
"Really?" Joan asked Adam.
"Unchallenged."
I kept my eyes forward as the two of them undoubtedly did the cutesy lovey-dovey-gazing-into-each-others-eyes thing. If I ever got like that, I told myself, I'd get myself committed.
"Grace, you want to study with us?"
I looked over at Adam's question, and saw him looking past Joan to me.
"Ha! And watch you two coo over each other? I don't think I would get anything done; I'd be too busy trying to keep my lunch," I said.
"You're not worried about the exam?" Joan asked.
I shrugged. "I'll figure something out."
"I'll help her study." Joan's brother said from behind Adam. I stiffened, but relaxed almost immediately. It was nothing more than an offer to help me out. I was sure that nobody knew, until,
"Yeah, a lot of studying is going to happen in that scenario," came a whisper from behind me.
I whipped my head around and saw the blond head bowed, contemplating her shoes as we walked. I don't know where she had come from, but no one else seemed to have heard her; Joan and Adam were once again caught up in each other and Friedman and his buddy were discussing some upcoming science seminar. Glaring at the girl behind me, I wondered if I had truly heard correctly, or if I imagined it.
Adam and Joan peeled off to go to Joan's next class, and Friedman and Glynis continued down the hall, leaving their third team member at his locker. I stalled in the middle of the hallway as I tried to decide whether to follow Joan and Adam, or stay and discuss plans to study. Finally, I moved over and leaned against the lockers beside him.
"'I'll help her study?'" I asked.
"Sorry, wasn't thinking," he muttered as he pulled out some books. "I don't think anyone noticed, though."
I considered telling him what I thought I had heard, but decided against it. I wasn't that sure I had heard correctly, and I really didn't feel like bringing up the subject of Glynis.
"Your sister's right, though. This test is going to kill us all. I'm going to study through lunch," I told him.
"In the library?" he asked. "I'll come find you."
"Studying together in the library? Dude, contract!" I hissed.
"What? We've decided that we can be seen together?"
"Yeah, but," It wasn't the idea of being in public that bothered me, it was something else. I quirked a grin at him. "It would be more fun to study in private."
He stared at me, and then returned my grin. "OK, I'll meet you in the biology—Oh, I have to help Mr. Edwards with Audio/vid during free period today, which means I'll be ten minutes late. Here." He pulled out his keys, took one of the keys off the ring, and handed it to me. "Don't lose it. I'm a dead man if I don't give it back at the end of the term."
I took the key from him and put it in my back pocket before smirking at him and heading to my next class.
---
The storage room was a kick. Jars upon jars of dead animals waited to be dissected in some biology class. Leave it to my boyfriend to pick a room like this for making out. Not many girls would have liked it. I grinned. He knew me well.
I placed my bag on a clear area of the counter and got out my Physics notes. Fifteen minutes later, I heard the door open.
"No sucking face yet, bone rack. We have a physics midterm in 2 days, and I know less about Planck's constant than that lobster." I looked over at the jar next to me and squinted my eyes. "Or is that 2 frogs?"
"That's not why I'm here," he said as he came to stand by me and held out a pamphlet.
I looked up at him, and then took the pamphlet and read the front.
"Alateen?" Last year in health class, the teacher had gone on and on about it during the section on drugs and alcohol. She said that if anyone had an alcoholic parent, we should look into it. I had scoffed, and told the teacher that Alateen was just another way for adults to exert control over the lives of kids under the guise of "helping" them. It earned me a week's detention.
"You blabbed about me? To a room full of freaks?" I accused as he pulled up a stool and sat down.
"I picked it up at the public library, and they're not freaks. They're kids like us," he said.
"Dude, have you been inhaling the formaldehyde?" I dropped the pamphlet on my Physics book. "There's no way I'm doing this. "
He gazed at me, his eyes endless pools of concern and compassion. "Go to one meeting," he said.
I had lived with this for nearly as long as I can remember. No amount of talking about it, of "sharing my feelings" was going to make it any better.
"I've been through it all, Girardi. There is nothing new they can tell me," I told him.
"You've been through it by yourself. It doesn't have to be that way anymore."
Didn't he get it? That's how I liked it, how I survived. Yeah, I told him, but that was different than going into a room full of strangers and having them stare at me and know exactly why I was there.
I picked up the pamphlet and silently held it out to him. He looked at me for a minute before taking it. I held his gaze and then looked back at my physics book, still feeling his eyes on me. The formulas on the page twisted and turned, forming themselves into entities I was sure I had never seen before. I sighed and looked back at him.
"What?" I asked. He wore the same expression he had when I looked away. I didn't have the energy to fight with him. I was tired, and we still hadn't studied like he promised.
He shook his head, barely making enough movement for it to be perceptible, and shrugged. "I just wish you didn't have to go through this," he answered, running his hand along my arm.
I closed my eyes, briefly, to ward off the burning, and then looked back at him. His countenance saddened, he swallowed and leaned forward. Softly, his lips touch mine, and he held them there. It wasn't really a kiss; it was a declaration and a plea:
I love you. Please do this.
When he broke away, I kept my eyes averted from his.
"I'll…I'll talk to you later," he whispered, getting up. I watched his back as he opened the door, and quietly shut it behind him. Glancing down at the table, I saw that he had left that stupid pamphlet tucked halfway under my physics book.
I picked it up and opened it. Inside was written the day and location of the meeting, and testimonials about how Alateen had helped kids deal with their Alcoholic parent.
Right, like sitting in a room can make my mom stop drinking away her life and mine.
I wanted to be angry with him for pushing this junk on me, for thinking that he could swoop in and turn my life into a happy, rosy picture. Instead, I recalled the look in his eyes and the feel of his lips. He didn't know what my life was like, not really. But at least he gave a crap, which was more than I could say for just about everybody else.
---
"I still need to study for Physics," I muttered as we walked down the hall.
"We can study tonight. You can come over, or we can meet at the library. About 7?" He said.
"Can't. We'll have to make it later." I told him.
"Why?"
I rolled my eyes. "The Alateen thing is tonight." I kept my eyes straight ahead and refused to look at him.
"OK." I could hear the smile in his voice. It was almost smug. "I'll meet you at the lib—"
I whirled on him. "No way! If I have to suffer through this, you're suffering too."
He looked at me blankly. "You—you want me to come with you?"
I turned and kept walking. There was no way I was going through this by myself.
"It's that old adage, misery loves company," I said.
---
We walked in the small church and saw a couple dozen people milling around a table filled with literature and setting up chairs. A man in his late twenties saw us and came over to introduce himself. I smiled a fake smile and shifted the weight on my feet as I looked around the room. The man turned towards the room and asked people to take their seats.
I listened as everyone stood up and discussed their week. One father stayed out all night, only to return home a beat up a fourteen-year-old kid, another one finally got fired, causing his wife to leave him—for the fifth time. A seventeen-year-old guy's mom had spent three days locked in her bedroom, and the guy finally had to remove the door just to make sure the woman was still alive.
The scenes were different, but they could have all been talking about my life. I leaned over to my companion.
"This is just too weird, Girardi," I whispered.
"Anybody else?" the leader asked when the guy next to me sat down.
I looked around the room and saw all eyes on me, waiting expectantly. They wanted me to stand up, say my name and spill my guts. It wasn't a possibility. I looked over at the one person I knew, my one ally, hoping for an indication that I could get out of this.
Nope, not a chance.
Bracing myself for the worst, I stood up and introduced myself.
"Hi, my name is Grace."
"Hi, Grace," everyone chorused.
My fingers felt like ice as I stood there and tried to collect my thoughts. I still couldn't believe I was there and was supposed to tell them my life story. I spent my whole life making sure no one knew what I was about to say, if it ever got back to my father that I had blabbed this…
"Nothing leaves this room, right?" I asked. "Because I will hunt you people down."
I got a few smiles and nods, but mostly I got blank stares.
Studying the floor and darting my eyes around the room, I tried to think of where to begin.
"Uh..." How could I explain the total disaster that my life had become? I had never said the words before, the words that were my reality, no matter how hard I tried to hide from it.
"My mother is an alcoholic."
They felt strange in my mouth, and it seemed like someone other than me had said them. There was no sense of relief, no burden suddenly lifted from my shoulders; only numbness as my last sentence rang in my ears.
A warm hand brushed my clenched fist and gently pushed my fingers open. He laced his fingers through mine and I automatically wrapped mine around his. Feeling the need to explain his presence, I turned to him.
"And this is m.." I looked at him. What was he? My friend? My confident? My make out partner?
He was already more than all of that.
I smiled down at him. "My boyfriend." He looked at me, surprise barely registering in his eyes. "Luke," I finished, pulling gently on his hand.
He stood as the room greeted him. I looked at him as I rested my hand securely in his and leaned slightly into him. He told me I didn't have to go through this alone anymore.
And I believed him.