State Of Grace

Chapter 38 - Fifteen

Gracie said goodbye to her family and left to start the walk to group therapy. With barely one foot out of the door, she saw Sarah sitting in her car at the end of the driveway, no doubt waiting to accost her again. She looked her in the eyes and conveyed as much indignation as possible, then turned away and started walking down the street.

"Gracie," Sarah called from her car and drove up alongside her, "Can you just get in so we can figure this out?" She asked through her rolled-down window, but Gracie kept her eyes on the street in front of her. "Come on, G, we should talk."

"I don't want to talk to you," Gracie hissed, still looking straight ahead.

"We're supposed to be best friends," Sarah urged.

Gracie glanced over at Sarah, and she could see the hurt in her eyes. Before Rachel, before the Tuckers, before anything, when she'd see Sarah so unhappy she would have jumped to comfort her. Things between them had turned sour so quickly. Gracie had never intended for Sarah to feel that way, but it wasn't her job to comfort her any more, no matter how much she wanted to.

Gracie stopped and turned to face Sarah, who stopped her car. She took a deep breath and thought about how betrayed she'd felt by Sarah's actions and everything Rachel said about her. She wasn't a true friend. Fury flooded her bloodstream turning her face bright red, and suddenly she didn't care that Sarah was hurting, because it paled in comparison to what she'd done to Gracie.

"Best friends don't stab each other in the back," she seethed. She turned on her heel and started walking away. After a minute, Sarah's engine started and she sped past her.

She'd hoped the guilt would subside now that people were starting to discover her double life, but after treating Sarah like that it only got worse.

She knew it had been necessary to keep Rachel a secret from everyone, cutting Sarah out of her life was just as essential if she had any hope of keeping Rachel. She still didn't know if it would matter in the long run if she followed through with her plan, but it was ingrained in her to do what was needed not to hurt her relationship, no matter the personal cost.

It was a fairly long walk to the hospital from the Tucker house, so when she arrived, Gracie was more drained than she had been all week. Everyone else was already sitting in the circle and the discussion had begun, so when she burst through the door, sweaty and short of breath, all heads turned in her direction. She awkwardly shuffled to the only available seat which was beside Sarah, and she huffed.

"Sorry I'm late," she said to Dr. Ellis. She looked around the room, but Jasper was nowhere to be seen. She worried for a moment, but it was his birthday, so perhaps he just decided to stay home instead.

"That's alright, Gracie," she smiled and turned her head to Sarah, "Please continue."

Sarah looked at Gracie briefly then back at the rest of the group, "So, I've had kind of a hard week. I tried to help a friend of mine, but she assumed the worst of me, she thought I was stabbing her in the back but all I did was hold her accountable for the mistakes she was making and try to protect her from the inevitable consequences."

Gracie scoffed, and Dr. Ellis looked at her, "Did you have something to say, Gracie?"

"I think your friend knows what she's doing," she squinted at Sarah, "And I think she trusted you with something and you broke that trust when you blabbed to her sister, and now she's losing everything all over again."

Neither girl was very subtle in their remarks, the rest of the group knew Sarah and Gracie were best friends, and they knew they were talking about each other.

"Riley is my sister too! We both care about you and you've been putting yourself in danger, what did you expect me to do?" Sarah raised her voice.

"Danger?" Gracie laughed, "You have no idea what you're talking about."