Chapter 8 - ("Am I on my own?")

"...And then he told me that I was cute and in my head I was just like OMG! Grace maybe this is the guy! Maybe this is-" Heather turned and looked at Grace, noticing that she hadn't really been paying any attention. She was fumbling with her pink Bible as she looked down at the bed. It was Wednesday now, and close to 10:00 in the morning but they didn't have training sessions until the early afternoon and so they just ordered their breakfast inside.

"Grace? You ok?"

Grace's head shot up and she looked at Heather and faked a smile, "Yeah. I'm sorry you were talking about Jason right?"

"Yeah. I think he really likes me," Heather sighed, "But...he doesn't know about the baby."

"Heather I'm sure he will like you regardless. Jason's the type of guy that doesn't care about what other people think or what they've gone through as long as they're a good person. I think you guys will really work out." Grace thought that she had been smiling at Heather, but one suspicious look of the eye told her otherwise.

"Grace really what's going on?"

Grace sighed as she ran a hand through her blonde hair, "Ugh! Today we're supposed to be focusing on CPR steps and now that you and Jason are all buddy buddy I'm going to have to work with...Grant."

Heather got the point right away, "Oh gosh! I'm really sorry Grace."

Grace groaned as she fell back on her bed and pulled her pillow out of her face, "Me too! Gosh I wish I would have never came here. I wish I would have stayed at home with Jack."

"Grace...Can I ask you something?"

Grace peeked out of her pillow as she eyed Heather, "Sure what is it?"

"How can you be so sure about this Jack guy?"

For a minute Grace froze. She had asked herself the same question over and over again, "I...I don't know. I mean don't get me wrong, Jack has his fair share of problems, but I really do believe he loves me."

"Yeah but the question is do you love him?"

"I've been with him all this time-"

"But do you love him?"

"To be honest Heather, I'm not sure I really know what love is."

"Doesn't your little Bible say something about that?"

At this Grace paused. Heather was right. The Bible and God should have been her go to before she got involved with anyone but it wasn't. That first summer that she had met Jack she didn't talk to God about it at all. She was attracted to him and he went to church and so she thought that it was just right. They were the IT couple. They were supposed to be together in her mind, but did God ever tell her that? She wasn't sure. She sat up as she opened her Bible with determination. It amazed her how she could realize that she never really knew what love was, as many times as she had said she loved someone.

...

Jack was grateful that he didn't have any classes this Wednesday. He had a doctor's appointment in which they would tell him if he would be ready to get his cast off. As he sat down next to his mother in the hospital he waited anxiously for his name to be called. His mind instantly drifted off to the fight club. Once he got these stupid casts off he would finally be able to fight. Watching them just wasn't enough anymore. It was almost like a drug for him. He couldn't stop going to the place and checking it out every night. He knew he should have been keeping up more with his school work, especially without his football to fall back on, but he somehow managed to make it work.

Sometimes his mother would ask him why he was up so late studying or finishing up last minute homework and he would have to come up with some type of excuse.

"Jack Papas?"

He stood up almost immediately and managed to smile at the doctor as he lead him inside. After checking his blood pressure, height, and weight, he was led into another room.

"The doctor should be here in about five minutes with the results."

Jack nodded and muttered a thank you and the doctor left.

Didi was sitting in a chair far away as she smiled at Jack, "Are you excited?"

"More like nervous," he chuckled, "I really hope that they say I can get my casts taken off."

"Well this is a pretty early appointment for all that. If they do say yes it would have to be some type of miracle."

Jack smiled, "God can do anything right?"

"Of course honey," she responded.

Just then Jack's phone started ringing and he looked down at the caller ID. When he saw who it was he looked over at his mother, "Mom, did you tell Madison to call me?" He had to stop himself from rolling his eyes at his mother. She always had a way of butting into his personal life.

"What! Why would you think that!"

"Because just a day ago you were telling me that I needed to speak with her."

"I'll answer your question later can you just answer the phone before it stops-" It was too late. The phone stopped ringing and Jack glared at his mother.

"Madison is not my girlfriend mom! Why can't you just learn to love Grace!"

"Because Grace is not the girl for you! She doesn't care about you!"

Jack looked at his mother like he had just gotten slapped in the face. He could feel the anger boiling inside of him. He wanted to scream at her. To tell her to stay out of his life and let him be happy with Grace, but he couldn't bring himself to do that.

"Mom...Grace loves me ok. And I love her."

"How do you know that?"

"I just know."

Before they could say anything more a 6'0 doctor with thick black hair made his way inside. He smiled politely at Jack and Didi as he took a seat.

"How are you today Jack?"

Jack wanted to pour at everything that had just happened on the guy but he knew that this doctor was not some type of therapist, "I've been good."

"That's good. Any tenderness or pain in any part of your body lately?"

Jack shook his head.

"All good signs. Ok then I guess we're ready for the results. Mom, you excited?" He looked over towards Didi who was still staring disbelievingly at his son for being so defiant in her eyes, "Of course I am! I'm really excited to see the results." As she said this she turned her attention to the doctor and she hadn't noticed Jack rolling his eyes.

"Alright. Well we've checked the bone results with an elite team of doctors and we're really surprised to see that your cast should be taken off by the end of this week."

When the doctor said this Jack couldn't even speak for a minute. He was so excited! His jaw practically fell open and Didi laughed at this, "I-I can't believe this! Are you serious right now!" Jack was ecstatic at this point.

The doctor laughed, "Yeah. It's a miracle actually. We hadn't expected the bones to completely heal until about another month. So we'll set up a date and decide when you guys want to remove the casts, and from there we will give you further instructions. Any questions?"

Jack and Didi stayed silent as Jack smiled. Everything was finally coming together. God has blessed him. For what reason he was unsure of, but he was thankful nevertheless.

"No, we don't have any more questions. Thank you so much!" Didi said.

...

Awkward.

Awkward was the only way that Grace could describe this entire trip. For one as good as a doctor as he was, learning things from Jeff was just strange. He was her mother's ex-husband, and her step-father, though she never truly considered him one.

Grace stood next to Heather as Jeff continued explaining the steps of CPR to them.

"Alright and lastly in cardiopulmonary resuscitation there are two major methods. One is the standard method which I'm sure if all of you are here now, you already know a lot about that. I'm sure you guys have attended numerous medical classes and if you haven't you've had to have done some type of research to get you here today. Now the other type is compression only. We all know that it involves chest compression without artificial respiration. Now, if you see someone say drowning, and you get them out of the water, the first thing you want to do is try and use compression only. The reason being is because sometimes only using compression will work. There's no need to add air into the hole if all they needed is to relieve the pressure using chest compression. Now you guys all know how to check their heart beats I'm assuming?" He looked at the group and they nodded.

"Good, so if only using chest compression doesn't work, that's when you need to go mouth to mouth. I'm sure many of you have practiced this already, but we're gong over the basics today so bear with me. I want you guys to pair up with someone and practice both the compression and the mouth to mouth and after you're done we'll go into how to give CPR to pregnant women. You'll be surprised what can endanger them. Alright, pair up!"

Heather muttered a sorry to Grace as she walked over towards Jason and Grace rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest. She couldn't believe this! She looked over at Grant nervously and he just smiled, "What's wrong Grace? Haven't you practiced CPR before?"

Grace groaned. This was going the be a long day.

...

Jack was on some type of high when he got home. He called Grace a few times but she hadn't answered so he assumed that she was busy with her medical stuff. As he made his way inside he noticed that the door was unlocked. A chill ran up his spine as he opened the door. He didn't know who it could be, and with everything that happened to him, he was scared. Didi walked in behind him, not even noticing that it hadn't been Jack who unlocked the door. He turned on the light even though it was still daylight, "Who's in here!"

There was no answer.

"I have a gun!"

Didi was concerned now as she caught on. She looked over to her right and noticed that it was a familiar face and she giggled as she nudged Jack, "Jack calm down! It's just Samuel."

Jack didn't calm down, "What the hell are you doing here! You have a key now?"

"Your mother gave me one." Samuel shrugged and Jack's fiery eyes turned towards his mother, "Does dad know about this?"

"Jack I just wanted to make sure he could come by anytime to talk about the case."

Jack scoffed, "Right, more like so you can get laid!"

"Ok that's enough! Jack I would never cheat on your father! I love your father!"

Jack didn't say anything, turning his attention back to Samuel, "You know how freaking frightening it is to not know that someone's in the house! It could have been that pimp! Or someone else wanting to harm me!" I'm scared! That's what he wanted to say. He wanted to say that he was scared every day, that Mike would come back and hurt him. He was weak right now, and he couldn't take any surprises.

Samuel sighed, "Ok, of course Jack I'm terribly sorry. I should have realized that that must be terrifying for you. But just please hear me out. I'd like for you to meet someone."

Jack didn't say anything as he waited for Samuel to talk again. For some reason he just didn't like this guy.

"Ally! Can you come out here please?"

There were light footsteps made towards the living room and Jack couldn't breathe. This was Ally! This was the girl that had gotten raped by Mike at the same school. Didi looked over at Jack nervously.

"Samuel this is a lot for one day don't you think?"

"It wasn't planned. I tracked her down. That Chloe girl wouldn't utter a word until I convinced her that it was the right thing to do. I found the location which was really hard to do and I found Ally, but there was no sign of this Mike guy anywhere. He's like a ghost. He's really good at hiding when he doesn't want to be found." Samuel looked over at Jack who was almost ready to burst in tears, "Jack...do you see this girl? This innocent girl? This is what the school has turned her into. This is why you need to testify."

Ally was standing there, unable to say anything. She looked down at the ground but that didn't stop Jack from noticing her black eye. She was almost too skinny, with dark makeup and trashy clothing that he just knew she didn't want to wear. She had pale skin and blonde hair. Her blue eyes were broken and weak. She had the same defeated look that Jack had whenever he thought of Mike, and this angered him.

"Alright. I'll do it. I'll testify," Jack blurted out.

"Wait Jack. You know I want you to do this but are you sure you're not making a rash-"

"Just let me make my own decisions mom!" Jack snapped.

"If you two would like to talk," Samuel looked at Ally and Jack, "Your mother and I can go upstairs."

Jack nodded his head in agreement.

...

"Good job Grant! The compression was done perfectly, but it doesn't need to be done so many times." Jeff said as he looked over at Grace and Grant. Grace was trying to calm her nerves. She couldn't quite comprehend why she was nervous. Maybe it was because she knew how Grant felt for her and she just couldn't return those feelings, or maybe she was just afraid that...No, she shook those thoughts out of her head. Grant was not the one. Even after reading her Bible she had realized that.

"Alright you guys! Now I want you to go ahead and try the mouth to mouth."

Her heart beat sped up but Grant didn't seem to notice. The closer he got towards her mouth the more she realized why he wasn't the one. In the Bible, she thought, love was talked about as something like a sacrifice. She asked herself if she would be willing to sacrifice everything for Grant. Love was said to be always patient and kind, and never jealous or boastful. She couldn't even remember if she felt that way with him. And then she thought of Daniel. How she cheated on Grant with Daniel. Sure, Daniel seemed like he would be a great guy but that wasn't the only reason that she cheated. She wanted out, she remembered. Grant was great but he was almost suffocating. He always had to know what she was doing. He didn't give her any space to to breathe.

It seemed like minutes were ticking by and he still hadn't come in contact with her mouth yet, but in reality not even a second had gone by. All of these thoughts just seemed to be swirling through her head.

And then she thought of Jack.

The guy that she had made so many mistakes with. The guy that she had rushed into a relationship with. Did she really want to be with him? She believed that she did. Because even though they kept going back and fourth and at the time they weren't right for each other, love wasn't supposed to be easy. After all, what was easy about God having to give up his one and only Son to die for everyone? Nothing was every easy in love, but was Grace willing to work on her relationship with Jack? Was she willing to love Jack? In her head she muttered a faint yes, she was. She didn't know what she wanted the first time they started going out, but she was almost confident that she knew now.

His lip barely brushed hers when Jeff muttered something, "Oh wait stop! Sorry you guys but I have a meeting to attend. I booked it a month prior and totally forgot. But from what I saw, it seemed like you guys know very well how to do mouth to mouth. Alright, you guys are dismissed for now. Tomorrow we'll continue our discussion."

At this Grace felt relief. She got up almost too quickly and he had this frustrated look on his face, like he was so close. Grace didn't even bother to say anything to him as she smiled and walked over to find her bag. She had to call Jack and talk to him.

...

"It really sucks doesn't it?"

Ally just sighed. She didn't feel like sharing her personal life with some random guy. She knew what Jack had gone through, but in her head she had gone through much worse.

"Look I know you don't want to talk Ally, but please, I need someone to talk to about this. Nobody else really knows what I'm going through, the fear I felt, how weak, how...how vulnerable I am right now because of all this. I used to be the strong football player. I thought nothing could break me...but he did. He broke me, just like he broke you."

Ally felt her eyes start to tear up. Her body began shaking and for the first time in years she cried. She was never able to cry in front of Mickey or any of the guys that used her for sex, but now she could freely cry. Jack hesitantly rubbed her back in small circles. He didn't say anything, knowing that she needed to get everything off of her chest.

His phone started to ring and he looked at the caller ID. It was Grace.

He looked at his phone for a few seconds, but finally decided to turn it off as he looked back over at Ally. He would call Grace later.

"Who was that?" Ally looked up, she was still sobbing.

"That was my girlfriend."

When Ally regained her composure she smoothed her face out with both of her hands and drew in a deep breath, "I never had a boyfriend. I was just starting out my college year. I never had my first kiss...Until him. Until M-Mickey. He'd always say that he was my boyfriend. I felt so...so disgusting and-"

"Ssh," Jack calmed her down because she was on the verge of crying again, "You can talk about all of it later. Do you need something? Maybe something to eat? You look like you're hungry."

She gave him a sad smile, "Sure. I'd love that."

A/N: And there we have it, chapter 8! I hope you guys enjoyed it. I would have updated it sooner but you know school and stuff. Thanks for everyone who has reviewed so far! By the way, the character Ally is being played as Ashley Benson (She plays Hannah on Pretty Little Liars).