State Of Grace

Chapter 42 - Foolish One

It had been days since Rachel disappeared into the night. The cops searched for as long as they could but Rachel was like a magician, vanishing into thin air without a trace. Stella continually reassured her that they'd catch her, but Gracie didn't care anymore, she was just relieved to be home where Rachel couldn't come near her.

Naturally, she was still on edge and still feeling guilty for everything that had happened, but she knew the truth now. Her family loved her regardless of her mistakes. But there were still challenges to come if what Greg announced at Jasper's birthday dinner held any merit.

"Does he know?" Danny asked his moms at breakfast, "Does Greg know what happened?"

"Anita informed him, yes," Lilah said, and glanced at Gracie.

She'd been pushing her scrambled eggs around her plate for the last ten minutes, feeling like she still had one foot in both worlds. Half of her was safe at home with her family, the other half was still in a motel in the middle of nowhere, held hostage by a depraved lover.

"So he knows about me? He knows what she was to me?" She asked, "You heard the way he talked about you guys, what if he gets custody and ships me off to some conversion therapy camp or something."

"That won't happen, sweetheart, we won't let that happen," Stella said.

Gracie had been avoiding the topic of her birth father since she'd returned home, but she knew it wouldn't last forever, that eventually, she'd have to face the facts: she'd have to move in with Greg.

"It's just for a week, Gracie," Lilah said, "Then we'll get this all sorted out and you'll come home again."

"He's going to use this against you guys," Gracie said, "He'll say that I never would have run away if I was under his roof," she'd run out of hope, "He'll get his way, we might as well just face it."

"You need to try and stay calm, love, we're doing everything in our power to make sure you stay under our roof," Lilah put her arm around her daughter but Gracie pulled away and stood up.

"I'm going back to bed," she shrugged off her family and went upstairs to her room.

On the floor, embedded in Maia's pink fluffy rug, were remnants of the stuffed toy. A single glass eye, a shred of ribbon, and pieces of white cloud-like cotton. Rachel was gone, and the bear was destroyed, but there were always going to be little pieces left over, tiny scraps that could creep inside Gracie's head and haunt her nightmares.

Solid nights of sleep were a thing of the past, every night since her return, Gracie woke up shouting, begging Rachel to leave her alone, and she came to with her sisters at her side she was relieved, but it never lasted long. She'd fall asleep again and the nightmares came back stronger.

Exhausted, but terrified to close her eyes, she sat on the floor of her bedroom staring at her reflection in the mirror, wondering when she got so thin and if the bags beneath her eyes would ever diminish. She'd never been the most beautiful-looking person in the world, but she'd never thought of herself as ugly until now, her pallor and malnourished body had turned her into a grotesque figure, beady-eyed and worn.

It was the ringtone of her sister's old phone that had been donated to her, sudden and shrill, that brought her out of her pit of self-loathing.

"Hi," Gracie answered the phone, "I'm sorry."

She'd done an awful lot of apologizing over the last week, but Sarah deserved it the most.

"I know," she said, "I know, and it's okay, it's over now." Gracie didn't say anything. "I'm coming over."