Letting go of Grace
Copyright © 2014 by Ellie Meade
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are purely fictitious. Any resemblances to any persons, living or dead, are completely coincidental.
Edited by: Marilyn from Eagle Eye Reads Editing
Cover Design by: Regina Wamba of Mae I Designs
Interior Design: Kassi Cooper at Kassi’s Kandids Formatting
“HEY, I’M STOPPING FOR SOME
lunch, you hungry?” His voice is so distant, that I’m not sure he even spoke. He never does stop for lunch, so we drive straight to his house. I see some familiar land marks, but remain lying down in the seat. I watch the clouds form swirls; this tells me a storm is brewing. The clouds convey my mood, everything is spiraling inside of me making me feel exhausted. Grant flashes in my mind, with her, and I don’t want to think anymore. I want to sleep. I adjust my seat back up when I no longer see clouds, but the ceiling of Aiden’s garage instead. The darkness is very inviting to me. Getting out, my body aches from sitting for the last few hours, but it doesn’t stop me from walking around the car to collect my bag from the trunk. I take mine from him and walk in. It’s unlocked so I make myself at home, not caring if he wants me to or not. After I toss my bag on the counter, I search for my pills, knowing this is the easy way out, but that doesn’t stop me from numbing myself. Opening the fridge I find a bottle of water to take them. He is in the kitchen now, too, and he just stares at me.
“I’m going to sleep.” I take out my ear-buds and iPod, walk across the house and find a bedroom. The first one I walk into, I claim, it seems to be Aiden’s, but I don’t care. Pulling the covers down I climb in, still in my short little dress. I take my phone out and call the kids. I see a dozen missed calls from Grant and ignore them. My mom sounds happy when she answers so I put on my best ‘fake’ happy voice and talk to her and then to the kids for a bit. They give me a few minutes of welcome reprieve where I don’t have to think about anything but them. Aiden quietly walks in and begins to unpack. He looks at me with worry his in eyes, and I think I’m scaring him a bit. When I hang up with the kids I feel the pills working and I lie back onto the feathered pillows. Everything smells like Aiden. I sit there and watch him unpack because I am not ready to handle this situation. Definitely not ready to talk about it. I would like to ignore it for as long as possible. I try for casual conversation instead.
“I didn’t realize this was your room. I can go to another,” I say, but I make no attempt to get up.
“No, it’s fine, I just hope you don’t snore.” He smiles at me and I roll over and go to sleep.
When I wake up confusion sets in. Where am I? It takes a few seconds to process the previous day’s events. Grant flashes in my mind again, and my heart instantly takes a dive. Looking around I see bright red numbers showing me it’s 2:59 a.m. I continue to stare at the clock as it turns to 3:00. I’ve slept the last twelve hours. My body can still sleep some more, but my bladder protests. I get up and make quick work of relieving myself. Where is Aiden? I quietly go in search of Aiden, and find him fast asleep on the couch with the TV still on. Tiptoeing past him, I grab my water bottle that I’d left on the counter earlier. With desperation I take another pill to assure I won’t have to deal with these feelings just yet. Feeling cold I look down, and notice I’m still in my dress, and laugh mirthlessly. When I put this dress on, not even twenty-four hours ago, I never thought any of this would transpire. How naïve of me to think that I was finally getting my happily ever after. Tiptoeing back into Aiden’s warm room, I climb back under the soft comfort of Aiden’s bed. The silence is deafening, so I slip my ear-buds in and turn on my ‘sad mix.’ It has all the songs that pull at my heart strings. Listening to Dave Matthews sing about all of the loneliness that nobody notices, makes me feel like I’m not alone. I have built such a façade, that I don’t think I even know who I am anymore. Chase pops into my head and hushed tears start to fall.
“Why did you have to leave me baby? Why did you have to go to work? Look at what you did to me.” I mouth the words, but no sound comes out. My hands wipe my tears, as I wonder when I became so selfish.
Why do am I blaming him?
Emotionally exhausted, I give into the sleep that wants to take me.
I’m in and out for the next ten hours. When I finally get up at 1:00 p.m. I instantly look at my phone. More missed calls from Grant. Surprise, surprise, did he really think that it was OK to kiss someone then come to me? I ignore them and call the kids. I have to clear my voice as it rings, I’m sure I sound like I’m still asleep. When my mom doesn’t answer, I feel relieved. Am I a bad person for feeling this way? Getting up I lengthen my back to easy my body aches. Between the car and sleeping, my body is protesting much movement. Or maybe it’s because my heart is inside-out and my body is starting to feel the pain of my heart. Phantom pain.
When I finally make it out of bed, I go in pursuit of Aiden again, but he is nowhere around. Grabbing another bottle of water out of the fridge I decide to wander outside. The water calls for me, pulling me in to watch the wave’s crash within themselves. The waves remind me of myself. They get pushed forward, then when they hit the shore they crumble and get sucked back out. I keep crumbling, I keep getting sucked back out, and I keep getting knocked down.
How can I break the cycle?
Angry tears silently fall down my cheeks as I let myself relive seeing Grant kissing Ava.
How could he do that to me? How could I have trusted him in such a short amount of time with my heart?
My own damned fault for trusting him so easily. I gave it to him freely when I should have guarded it better. Chase would have never done this to me, when I gave him my heart he protected it, he worshipped it. Grant took it and carelessly lost it. It goes back to the old wives tale;
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I will never let a man into my heart, like I did Grant. I will not trust anyone until they earn it. My hands wipe more tears as I stand. I look out at the waves and mentally throw Grant into them. I want him to get lost in the cycle of the back and forth in the waves. I want him to get knocked down, I want him to hurt. I want his heart to ache when he sees me. I want him to feel for the first time in his life.
I make the first step of healing on Aiden’s patio, or so I think. Leaving Grant’s sorry ass in the waves I go back inside to get away from my gloomy feelings and lie on the couch to watch TV. Channel surfing usually calms me. The channels are different here, so it takes me a while to finds something I like. Settling on the Food Network, I watch Paula cook something good, while dozing in and out of sleep.
I wake up to Aiden calling my name, opening my eyes I find him sitting on the coffee table in front of me. I roll over to face the inside of the couch and ignore him.
“No, get up. I gave you more than twenty-four hours.” He gently tugs at my arms and I sluggishly sit up.
“Go get dressed.” I just stare at him.
“Now,” he commands. I get up and walk over to my suitcase and drag it into his room. Putting the suitcase on the couch at the foot of his bed and open it to see what I packed.
Casual clothes, running gear and lingerie. He walks into the room and I pull my dress over my head and throw it in the suitcase. I don’t care if he looks at me. I’m so dazed; nothing could pull me out of this now. I take out a pair of yoga pants and a tank. I put it on and look at Aiden who walks out of his walk-in closet.
“Good. You need to eat.” He sounds bossy. I pull my socks on and tie my running sneakers.
“No, I’m not hungry.”
“Well you still need to eat something, Hannah. You haven’t eaten since you’ve been here.” I walk past him.