Saving Grace

Chapter 4: White lies

"It's..."

"...What?..."

"Uh..."

"Uh, what, Grace?"

"...Beautiful!"

"I knew you'd love it!", my mom hugs me, excited. I pat her back awkwardly - I'm not the hugging type - and step back, observing the monstrosity displayed on my bedroom wall in the name of a painting.

It's really not a painting, considering it only consists of a yellow horizontal line halfway across a complete blue background. Whoever made this probably got bored as soon as they started it. Or perhaps their dog made it.

Yeah, that might explain it.

I force a smile and look at my mom, who's currently beaming at me and the painting periodically. It's like she won the Nobel Peace prize or something.

Pretty sure in her mind she's forming a thank you speech right about now.

I came back from Hit planning on tackling an assignment due a week later when my mom practically pounced on me as soon as I entered the house. She had taken me to my room, all the while grinning like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland.

That really gave her away. The cat grin.

My mom is really spontaneous. This trait of hers works wonders in her office and she's wanted by many companies because of this.

But at this instant? Not quite.

Her spontaneity has led to many disasters in the past as well. One time, she brought a huge fish tank home which practically took up half the living room area. That wouldn't have been that bad except that a week later, she bought a cat.

To no one's surprise, the cat jumped into the fish tank - the greedy little shit - and then realized it's full of water. So in its panic, it clawed and banged at the tank wall till it shattered and the tank exploded, leaving the living room seem like an aftereffect of a tsunami gone wrong.

And I used to think cats are smart creatures. Eyeroll.

Anyway, this painting doesn't seem much of a disaster, thankfully. Just that it's so senseless my eye twitches every time I look at it, my OCD kicking in. And since she bought it for me, it'll be the first thing I'll see in the morning, hanging right across the bed, every single day. I sigh internally.

"I got it from a garage sale!", my mom chatters on, "And the boy said it's a replica of a priceless painting which hangs in the National Museum! And he gave it to me for 40$! Such a sweet kid."

I'm on to internally facepalming myself. The kid ripped her off. Typical.

"Wow, mom, what a find!", I utter with fake enthusiasm. She might be utterly clueless as to her being ripped off by the kid, but she seems so happy that I don't have the heart to disagree with her.

"Why, thank you, sweety!", she gushes. "Oh, and dinner will be ready in an hour, okay?", she says as she backs out of the room.

"Okay, I'll be down then", I reply. I throw my bag in the corner and faceplant onto the bed. I yawn.

Maybe I could do the assignment later and sleep now. A little procrastination never hurt anyone.

Just as I'm about to doze off, still in the clothes and shoes I wore to college, my phone rings from my back pocket, signalling a message. I take it out, thinking it must be Halsey and surprised that she'd be texting me not even half an hour after we met.

I'm not big on texting. Most people don't even have my number. I practically only use my phone for reading novels on it and listening to songs.