Hello, Goodbye

12: Grace

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That’s what happens, you let people in and they destroy you. She wants to let go of Saxon. He’s going to eventually hurt her. He’s going to. But she finds herself calling him anyway. “A friend from my old town called the other day,” she tells him. “It sort of makes me really sad because it just reminds me of everything I’ve lost.” He seems to think of this for a moment and Grace is scared that he’ll get angry at her for ignoring him and yelling him just a few hours earlier.

“I move around a lot, you know?” he tells her. “This is almost the fifteenth town we’ve moved to. And I’m bound to move again.” She grits her teeth.

“Why do you move so much?” she forces out of her, like a little choke. They destroy you. They betray you. They leave you. He lets out a short sigh and lowers his voice.

“My dad always gets assigned to a different place, every year or so. This is probably the longest town we’ve stayed in – two years. It was always hard, having to say goodbye.” His voice is still quiet, nice and soft. “But after a few towns, around when I turned ten, I sort of got used to the fact that I’d eventually be packing my bags and leaving all of them behind. I realised that getting attached to people would not be beneficial at all.”

“What about now?”

“I hope I’ll be graduating here. Mum said if I graduate here, I could choose where I go to college, and then I can just get a job here and live in a dorm and, yeah…and the local college here isn’t the best but it’s with you.” She giggles a little bit but then abruptly stops. “What?”

“With me? You want to go to college with me?” He chuckles at her amazement. “Saxon, don’t joke around with me. Seriously.” She knows he isn’t but, for some strange, twisted reason, she wanted him to be joking. She wanted to stop feeling like she couldn’t let go of him because she feels as if she can’t. She feels as if he’s the main reason she’s alive.

Not in a literal sense. Just in the sense that without him, she’d have no one. “Of course I want to go to college with you. We’re close. We’re really damn close now, Grace, and it’d be shattering if I had to leave now. Everything we’ve built up would be ruined.”

She hangs up. What else is she supposed to do? He calls again, possibly thinking it was by accident. But soon the rings fade away. He will just hurt you. She stands and grabs a thin knit sweater, tossing it over her grey tank. “I’ll be back soon, mum.”

“Where are you headed?” she asks, tapping away on her keyboard, paying virtually no attention.

“Oh, you know. Nowhere.”

She’s holding his hand, her head half on his bed, half on his side. He’s lightly snoring, his heart rate at a normal rate. She sits up and grips his hand with both of hers. “Anthony,” she whispers. She lets go of his hand, letting it hang limply on the bed sheets. She stands and closes the curtains. The light of the moon is blocked immediately, the dim light of the light bulb being the only thing lighting the room.

“Miss Mataki.” A quiet, shy voice. “It’s past visiting hours. I didn’t want to wake you earlier.” She nods, slowly. She slinks towards the door, where the nurse is. “The doctor is fairly sure he’ll wake up, Miss. He’ll be fine.”

“But what if he’s not?” she asks, her voice heavy with sleep.

“Fine, you mean?” Grace nods. “He’ll need lots of happiness in his life when he wakes up, Miss. Be joyful.” Grace looks to the ground. “I know. It won’t be easy. But you have to try. He’ll be in a very fragile state, and he’ll need to constantly be watched and cared for and –”