See You Around~ Grester (completed)

Chapter Sixty-Three

Grace's POV

"Hey Chester, look at these." I said, walking up to him with a box of photographs in my hands.

"What are they?" He said, looking up at me as I sat down next to him on the couch.

"Photographs, from years ago." I mumbled quietly, pulling the lid off and taking out the first memory.

I looked at it for a while and as my eyes adjusted to what the picture contained I felt Chester's hand on my knee and I moved closer into him. It was a photo from our days in New York, when this was all but a dream, a shot in the dark and the future was an uncertain hoping of two infatuated hearts.

"We look so in love." Chester whispered, it took me aback for a while and I momentarily didn't know what to respond with.

"I don't think I knew what love was." I confessed, staring at the photo a little harder.

"No?" He asked, taking the photograph out my hand and placing it in his.

"No." I whispered.

"I think you did; you can see it in your eyes." He looked up at me slightly, the corner of his mouth turned up.

"You can?"

"Of course you can, anyone could." He said softly, his eyes gazing into mine.

"What does it look like? To you?" Chester held the photo a little closer to his eyes and then looked up into mine; I felt butterflies ignite within me.

He looked at me a little longer, still in deep thought and after a while I laughed and looked down. He caught my face and held his hand under my chin.

"Like hope." His lips turned up into a small smile and his fingers fell from my face to my hand.

"Like sanity, like a future, like a way forward. To me, it's like I'm looking at the thing I have been waiting for my whole life; like I've been searching and searching and have never found it and then I turn and you're there and suddenly, I found it. I found you."

I stared at our intertwined hands and ran my thumb across his palm. Suddenly I was back in his apartment and everything was new and fresh and we had our lives ahead of us. I missed that sense of freedom and the daring nature our lives could experience but I loved where we were now. The confirmation and the strength I could pull from him. The finality and security, it kept my head up and my heart beating.

"I don't see it in you." I said, suddenly wishing I had kept that comment inside.

Chester's face didn't fall, his eyes didn't darken but his smile remained and his expression wanted me to carry on speaking, like he was ready to listen to every word I had to say.

"What do you see?" He asked, passing me the photo. I stared at it like Chester did and I tried to see all he saw but I couldn't, no matter how much I tried I couldn't.

"Jealously, anger, hatred, fear. Everything bad."

He frowned at me slightly and squeezed my hand.

"And I see how you washed them all away. I see them being pushed aside and replaced with compassion and happiness. I see how you rescued me."

Chester gently placed his arms on my waist and I leaned into him. He rested the top of his head on mine and kissed my hair softly.

"I love you." I whispered into his neck; feeling his warmth flood through me.

"I love you." He said, placing his hands on either side of my bump and looking down.

"It's incredible, isn't it?" Chester stated, looking up to me.

"Yes. I'm so proud." I smiled.

"Of what?"

"You." He laughed a little and looked down, fiddling with his hands in his lap. He shook his head and leaned forward slightly, placing his hands on his knees.

"I'm nothing to be proud of." He said, shaking his head and laughing once to himself. His tone wasn't sadness or envy; it was as if my words were ridiculous and he didn't even try to justify the reasons behind them.

He slapped his hands on his legs and looked up at me.

"See? Useless. I'm just a body Grace, just a body with no feeling or life inside. And what is the point in a lifeless person if all I give to the world is a body. No meaning and no purpose."

"We're all bodies Chester. We're all pieces of the same chess piece, we're all meant to move in certain places and eventually some people will win and some will loose. There's places we're meant to move and places we're not, directions and rules to obey but it's okay to be just that chess piece. It's okay to live that life of ordinary stereotypes and feel like you're just a body, because at the end of day, that's all you are." He looked at me contently.

"But there's more to you and you know it. There's things inside us all who make us people, a person and not just human. And everything in you is a wonderful journey waiting to be explored and I want to be by your side through it all. So never say you're worthless because you'll never be that to me. Okay?"

"Okay."