See You Around~ Grester (completed)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chester's POV

We walked up the same driveway, we walked through the same door but something was different. Something didn't feel quite right. As if this house had changed, or just wasn't the same anymore.

It felt incomplete; I felt out of place.
Out of place in my own home. It held too many memories- too many bad ones and I didn't like it.

"Is it just me or does it feel different?"

"Like this isn't our home?" Grace asked- walking around the front room looking lost.

"Yeah. Exactly like that."

"Maybe it's time for a change?" She said, peering out the window.

"Are you saying a new house?" I smirked; joining her at the window.

"Yep. Why not? I think we both need a new scene." I agreed, we did. We had had too many arguments in this home and it felt like a keepsake for them.

"Okay then, we'll look at houses tomorrow!" I wanted to look today, I wanted to move away and be someplace else.

Far away from all these memories, far away from the smell of all the bad things I had done or said in this home. I needed to move and I needed to move now.

I felt like I was drowning in my own guilt, when I walked into our bedroom I saw that night I messed everything up. Where Grace left for New York and I didn't follow her. For the days I sat and cried in my bed at my father's death; refusing anyone's company. The days I had wasted away and the memories that were created which shall now never leave. I wanted to start again and I wanted to do it all right this time.

I stayed up all night looking at houses, when I thought Grace was asleep. I was controlled by this thought that if I was far away from all the bad things then they wouldn't follow me.

It was the hospital which scared me the most. It was the way it was so near for us to go back to. I wanted to live in the middle of nowhere; in a place only few could get to. A place where a trip to the hospital was a rarity and not in the norm. Because I felt like I had lived in that hospital for years.

Grace's POV

It was in the early hours of the morning and the light from his laptop reflected onto his face. I squirmed under the light and buried myself in his arm.

"Hey." He whispered at my sudden movement.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" I mumbled.

"I want to move as soon as possible. I'm looking at houses for us."

"I know that but why? What's the rush?"

"I need to get out of here Grace, we need to start our lives in somewhere positive and we need to do that quickly."

"Somewhere positive?" It was too late for his sentences to process properly but his use of words and the way he made it seem like it was only him that needed to leave stung.

"This place, this house, it's holding us back." He sat up and my words suddenly rushed out my mouth before I could think over them.

"It's not the house that's holding you back."

He shut his laptop screen and turned to me.

"What is it then?"

"Me."

"What do you mean it's you?" He was so innocent and it hurt to have to tell him how I felt.

"I'm the thing holding you back; I'm the negativity. The thing you need to get away from and I'm letting you go."

"I don't understand." His face was concerned, confused, but I could tell he knew my next words.

"I'm saying that you don't need to look after me if you don't want. I'm not holding you back any longer."

"But I do want to look after you; you're going to be my wife- it's my duty."

"I've, this cancer, has stopped you from so much. There's so many opportunities you've missed because of me and I can't hold you back anymore." My words weren't coming out how I wanted them to.

"I promise I'm not going anywhere." His voice was cracking.

"You don't need to make anymore promises; they always break."

"I thought you wanted me here." His words travelled right through me, crushing me.

"I do. More than anything else, I do. But you don't need to me, you can go on to do wonderful incredible things without me. What am I to you? A sick girl who craves a life they can't have."

"You're everything."

Silence. As if someone had just turned the switch to life off.

"I'm doing this for you."

"No! No this isn't for me! If this was for me then you wouldn't be showing me the door because that's the last thing I want to be walking through unless it's with you. And leaving is the last thing I'm ever going to do because I love you. And nothing you can say or do is ever going to change that."

The tears that were building up in his eyes caused mine to roll down my cheeks and I couldn't stop them. Chester wiped them away with his thumb and just like that I was lured into him again.

I never left; I just needed him to know that I understand if he couldn't stay, if he wanted to live his life without the dead weight of me.

"I'm sorry." I whispered into his neck as his arms wrapped around me.

"It's okay Grace. I know what you were trying to do. But don't ever do that again okay? Don't ever tell me to walk out door because I'm never doing that. Never." I could hear the hurt in his voice and I regretted every word I ever said.