Falling From Grace

GRACE EXPECTATIONS prt 2.

I came to an understanding that these chapters are really long.... maybe too long
so I'll have to divide them in half if that's ok with you guys
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I didn't know what my face read at that point, if it showed anything at all because in that moment I embodied what the proverbial "they" meant when they said they felt numb. It's how you're supposed to feel after your heart takes an emotional beating and then decides to escape, abandoning you, leaving you to fend for yourself without the aid of love and hope to keep you going.

Whatever it was that Graham saw in my face then, it gave him enough reason to pound that final nail into my coffin, sealing it shut from everything that was good, everything that had been us up until that point.

"I didn't know how to tell you this when school was over—didn't want to, really—but I got accepted to NC Prep. They've got an amazing football team, and the only way I'm going to get scouted is if I'm playing for a ranked school. It's my one shot out of here, so that means I won't be going to Heath this year."

He paused to reach into his jacket pocket with a clumsy hand and pulled something out, shoving it towards me with such blatant disgust I could almost taste it. "Here, take it," he said to me as he pushed it against my hand, never once reacting to the way I flinched at the contact.

Call it being childish, call it just plain stubbornness, but I refused to accept whatever it was he was trying to force into my unwilling grip, clenching my fingers so tight I knew my knuckles were turning white from the effort.

My head turned from side to side in utter refusal; I didn't want parting gifts, as though I was the second runner-up on some game show. This was my life he was destroying, my heart he was breaking—couldn't he see how humiliated I was? How horribly and hideously inadequate he had made me feel now that not only had he reminded me that I wasn't popular or pretty—or even liked—but that he'd also reinforced that fact by informing me that he couldn't even stand to be in the same school as I was?

"Take it, Grace," he demanded as he pried open my fist and pressed the small object against my palm, closing my stiffened fingers around it. I took it numbly, my arm dropping dead at my side in defeat. I didn't even bother to look at it; I was too busy staring at the stranger standing before my eyes.

"Grace," he continued, his voice softer now, his gaze drifting downwards toward some unseen object that had no real purpose other than to keep him from having to look at me, from having to see the hurt he had caused me.

"I guess I should have told you this a while ago, but I suppose now's as good a time as any, and I don't want you to find out from anyone else because I know that that would be worse than finding out like this. See, I've been dating Erica Hamilton for the past six months. I didn't want tell you about it because...well, I guess I kinda already knew how you felt, and didn't want you to get hurt."

Didn't want me to get hurt? The rough exhalation that came out of me told him clearly that it was too late for that.

He sighed, as though a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and ran his fingers through his hair again, calming it down some, only to cause it to stand up at weird angles when he struggled with what he had to say next.

"Erica and I...well, she and I have gotten pretty serious—really serious actually—and she thinks that it wouldn't be right for me to stay friends with you. And now that I know for sure how you feel, I know that she's right. It's not right, and it's not fair to you, or to me."

"She also said that it would be wrong of me to keep some of the stuff you've given me—like that-" he motioned towards the object that he had forced into my hands "-she said that I needed a clean break from you, to rid my life of everything that you'd ever given me. And so I thought that maybe you'd like that back, instead of me just throwing it away."