First

Chapter 33

As time wore on, the battle between Jace's parents was steadily getting worse. And it got worse between Jace and his parents. He hadn't seen his dad since the night Jace had shown up at my door. His mom relented and finally let him see the twins but not without supervision which was stupid. For some reason, she blamed Jace for what had happened between his parents and between him and his father; he wasn't the abusive one, her husband was but she chose to turn the other way and ignore it. But of course she still didn't see it after what happened. She decided to turn a blind eye, just like she had done every other time. But she wanted to keep the kids. So in the end, she asked Jace to give a statement about the abuse he had suffered over the years at the hands of his father. Jace agreed but hesitantly, he kept it a secret from so many people for so long that it was hard to all of a sudden make it public knowledge. But from that point on, things really started to flow with the case; it was only eight months later when they were due in court. Jace was a nervous wreck but things were finally starting to look up. But just two weeks before the court date, his mom dropped a bomb that made both of our lives implode.

I was lying on my stomach on my bed, working on some homework while Jace was at his grandmother's visiting the twins. My phone chimed from where I had left it on the nightstand. I rolled over and saw Jace's face light up my screen. Before I could even get a word out in greeting his voice was filling my ear. "She's moving," was all he said and the floor dropped out from underneath me.

"What?" I asked, sitting up and staring straight ahead at nothing. There was no way I could have heard him right; his mom couldn't be moving. She wouldn't do that.

"She's moving. Once she gets custody," he cut through what I knew to be gritted teeth. I heard the telltale slap of the steering wheel. "I'm in the driveway," was his simple command.

Without a moment's hesitation, I hung up and was out of my room and down the stairs. I pulled on my jacket and threw open the door. Jace was sitting in the driveway with his head pressed against the steering wheel. I gently rapped on the passenger window. Jace raised his head and turned to me with bleary eyes. It took him a moment to unlock the door but as soon as I heard the click, I was inside and plastered to his side.

Without a word, Jace backed out of the driveway and took off down the road. I didn't question where we were going or what had happened, even though the questions were dying to be set free. Instead I let him drive and gather his thoughts. Eventually he pulled onto a dirt road and rolled to a stop. Jace had taken us to the outlook; his favourite spot. He sighed and still, without a word, manoeuvred us so he was resting against the door and I was cradled between his legs.

After a few minutes of silence he finally spoke. "She's moving. Once she gets custody she's moving. There's no talking her out of it." His voice was defeated and hoarse; he had been crying before he'd even come and got me.

"Where?" was the only sound my voice could muster. I kept telling myself I could deal with a long relationship as long as he wasn't too far. We could get through this; we had already been through so much. This was minor in comparison.

Jace let his face fall into my head and even though he tried to muffle the words, I still heard them, clear as day. "Toronto," he murmured and my heart dropped.

"Toronto," I repeated, taking it all in.

"It's so far," was his only reply. "Why is she doing this? My life is already screwed up as it is."

"Why? Why does she want to move? It makes no sense, her entire family is here; what's in Toronto?"

"A guy," Jace scoffed. "She's been seeing someone in Toronto." I could hear the cold fury in his voice. She was uprooting her entire family for a guy. She was going to take the twins somewhere where they had no one. How could she do this? She was screwing up everyone's life but making hers better. Not to mention the fact that Jace was almost done with school. How much would moving this late in the year screw up his schooling? All these thoughts and more were swirling through my head but I kept coming back to the fact that he was leaving.