Saving Grace

Chapter-1

RED - The Mask Slips Away

DAVID

I was running my hand through her hair. She looked so beautiful as she slept. Not her looks though. It was the calm expression on her lax face, that spoke of the comfort and that secure feeling she said she got when she was in my arms. How could somebody so gentle and fragile, define someone like me so well? Her delicate, petite frame carried a pure and warm soul inside, which carried and guarded my heart as it's treasure. She was an angel. And I. I was just broken fragments of my soul, dangerous like shards of glass that everyone maintained their distance from. But not her. She didn't shy away when I revealed what lay inside my dark demeanor. 

Grace. Her name described her perfectly. She was my saving grace. She's the hand that pulls me out of the grasp of my own demons. She's the light that shines from the sky when I'm lost in the my darkness. She deserves so much more than this. She's so perfect. I'm just a damaged mess that she shouldn't have to deal with. But I'm too selfish. I can't let her go. She's the only thing keeping me steady as I'm hanging on the edge of a cliff by my fingers. She the first, and only woman I could ever love, and I need her. 

Love. It's rather a strange thing. After all, it's just in our head right? A balance of brain chemicals. How can it affect someone so much? Especially someone like me. I always believed that I didn't have any feelings. For any individual or situation. No remorse, no compassion. But here I was, losing my mind for this girl, who hadn't even realized how harmful I could be to her. She would never let go, I know. But I promised to protect her, and right now the greatest danger she could ever face was the one holding her in his arms. 

I've always taken pride in my courage, I could take on anyone or anything, even if I knew I'd lose. But today, when my opponent happened to be a 16 year old girl, not only did I lose, I lost the courage to face her. 

I gently lay her head down on the pillow and stood up trying not to make any noise. I quickly wrote her a note, and left it on her desk, next to a picture of us, smiling genuinely at the camera. 

I hadn't realized, but she'd softened me, evened out my sharp edges and thawed the ice in my heart. As I walked out of her door, I felt myself mould into what I was eight months ago. The cold, heartless ma- no, not a man, because no human could be in the state of mind as i was. There has to be something wrong with me... 

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GRACE

What's wrong with me? Wasn't I good enough for him? No I wasn't. I sensed something deeper in him. A kindness, but for me it was the purest form of humanity. But I was wrong. He never cared. I was never enough for him. 

It had been a year since I felt my heart being crushed to dust as I read those words. The words that haunted me till this day. 

I rested my cigarette between my lips as I strapped my helmet on. You're not what I'm looking for ... Kick started my motorcycle. Sorry we had to end this way...  Took off and raced with the wind. I was trying really hard to ignore the rising pain in my heart. I'm sorry, Gracie... 

I balanced the steering with one hand and toyed my cigarette with the other. It was my only friend now. The only thing I trusted my happiness with.

I didn't even have to tell my body where to take me. It knew. It took me to the same pub in the secluded region of the town. Definitely not safe, but I didn't care anymore. I didn't care what happened to me because all my dreams left with him. Him... No, I can't let myself think about him, I don't have the privilege to think of him. I spend the rest of the journey distracting my mind with something else

I park outside the pub and take my helmet off as I push the door open to enter. I'm about to make my way to Joe, the bartender. Poor chap. Each night as the alcohol kicks in he becomes victim to my drunken, depressed tales of loneliness. Ever since- ever since that happened, I isolated myself from everyone I know. My parents don't care much, they both have jobs so I'm alone most of the day. I hardly go to school, and when I do, I miss most of the classes and usually smoke in the ground behind the school building. My friends, well they're not exactly friends anymore but they tried. They tried to reach me but they didn't know what happened. As far as they knew I wasn't even in any relationship since 9th grade. But they must have given up trying to contact me by now. I don't know. I misplaced my phone long ago. Haven't bothered buying a new one. At least I've got an excuse not to talk to people. 

I look around to spot Joe, but instead I see something that sucked the breath right out of my lungs. He was right there, sprawled on the couch with one foot consolidating the low table in front of him. It brought me back to life, after a year of yearning to feel something, anything. He was drinking right out of the bottle, even though he looked pretty drunk. The sight wasn't really scenic but it was the only thing my aesthetic senses were dying to come across. At the same time, something broke inside me, but it wasn't my heart, that was long gone. It was... Resolve. What I felt wasn't pain, it was longing. This felt like a dream. Or a nightmare. He was right there but he wasn't the man I loved. I kept wishing he wouldn't look at me. I wanted to gaze at him, take in as much as I could, and hold it in, like a puff from my cigarette, before letting it out. But oh boy, he did look.

All the pain that I should've felt on seeing him but hadn't crushed me down like a boulder when our eyes met. At first the look in his eyes was that of broken glass hidden by a thin sheet of paper. He looked so... Defeated. I felt like just holding onto him and never letting go. But in an instant his expression turned to something else. 

He looked at me with an expression filled with enough hatred to knock me off my feet.