Grace

17. Morning

Jordan didn't remember falling asleep, but he must have nodded off at some point, because when he opened his eyes again, sunlight was flooding his vision, he was curled up on the floor, and his room was an absolute mess.

Blearily he sat up.

Bad idea.

During the night his bruises had set and stiffened. Now every movement sent fresh pain flowing through his body. The very blood flowing beneath his skin was pure agony. It was a long while before he worked up the courage to reach up and rub his eyes. They felt raw and gritty, as if someone had rubbed sand into them.

His soccer trophies were scattered all over the floor. If they had fallen on wood instead of carpet, they probably would have broken into a million pieces. Gritting his teeth through the pain, he got on to his knees and began mechanically lining them back up on his dresser. "Must've been a storm last night," he muttered. He was terribly thirsty.

He froze suddenly. There was his pocketknife, folded into its enamel case, sitting on the corner of his dresser. He had missed it in the dark...

And then Jordan sunk to the floor again and put his head in his hands, because he remembered, he remembered Caleb, remembered what he had been about to do...

And why hadn't he done it? Why hadn't he killed himself? He had touched Grace's necklace and somehow realized that death was not the answer... It was the coward's way out. Caleb would have been ashamed of him, so ashamed... Caleb had died a horrible and senseless death, but he had died because he had been willing to lay down his life for a cause he believed in. Jordan had been willing to end his own life because he thought death would be easier.

Frantically Jordan searched the floor, throwing back blankets and odd bits of laundry aside until he found the necklace. It gleamed small and silver in the sunlight. The man was still hanging from the cross, his head bowed.

Grace had saved his life.

Suddenly Jordan needed to see her, to talk to her. He had questions, and that naïve girl with the grey-blue eyes had the answers. Hurriedly he threw on a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans, realized that his t-shirt was on backwards, switched it around, slid the necklace carefully into his pocket, and hurried downstairs. A quick glance at the oven clock told him that it was eight in the morning. Luckily it was Saturday.

He quickly chugged down a glass of water and was halfway out the room when a voice stopped him.

"Jordan?"

He stopped. His mother was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee in her hands. Her hair seemed to have more grey than blonde in it and there were dark circles under her eyes. Jordan thought something else was different about her but couldn't quite lay his finger on it. Then he realized that the table-top was empty. No laptop. It occurred to him that he hadn't seen his mother type a single word since Caleb's death.

"Where are you going?" she asked. Jordan could feel her eyes moving all over him, taking in his disheveled appearance. He had purposely worn long sleeves to cover the worst of his bruises, but he probably still looked awful.

"Just for a walk," he said, keeping his voice neutral. He started to slither out of the kitchen.

"Wait," said Sage. Jordan stopped again.

Sage rolled her coffee mug between her hands. She stammered something intelligible, then coughed. For someone who wrote for a living, she seemed to be having an awfully hard time stringing two words together.