GRACE ☾ G.BLYTHE

18| Chapter Ten

『 18| Chapter Ten 』
❝ Is there a reason why you asked me to dance? ❞

Mike. It was Mike who was standing in front of me. The one that got fired as my teacher, just because my brother dated the same girl as him and they had a fight in front of all the students. At first I thought it was Mike's fault, my brother could never do something like that, and I was furious at him for going along with the fight. But there are always two sides of a story and you should never pick a side before you heard and understand both sides.

The silence is awkward at first. Maybe I should've said hi back, but it felt weird talking to him. I just nodded and he started a conversation with his brother Nate. They actually don't look like each other at all. Nate has lighter hair, blue eyes and a much more rounder face, while Mike has dark hair, brown eyes and a long face. Of course they still can be brothers, if you look at it biologically. I've read something about that in a book at Gilbert's house.

"So, how is Adam?" Mike asks, putting me back in that awkward position where I really didn't want to go to again. "Fine." Is all I say. I say it careless, because it's inappropriate to answer a question like that. The appropriate way to say it is "he is fine." But Adam isn't fine. He is fighting to find himself again. The shouting on top of our barn was just something to begin with, to feel free. Emily really broke his heart, the same counts for Mike I guess.

After a while Mike decided to leave the room and search for someone name Gregory. Now that he was gone, I had the time to read and practice for my read later today.

➳

Time flies by and it is evening already. Nate and I walk into the big hall and there is a big long table with food on it. It smells delicious and it looked good. I want to try everything, although I don't think that that is a good idea, because I don't want there to be a change that I might throw up. We hear someone tapping their glass and we turn around to see aunt Josephine ready to make a speech. I spot Anne, Olivia and Diana in the crowd and walk towards them. I didn't expect Nate to follow me, but he did.

"Good evening." Aunt Josephine says to everyone. "I'm thrilled to be among your lovely faces... but we feel the absence of one. What a face it was" She tells that last part looking in our direction. "I still recall it, peering over my shoulder, reading over my shoulder, no care for decorum." I laugh just like some other people.

"That's how we met." She says, to keep the crowd going. "A bookshop in Paris. A woman introduces herself as Gertrude and tells me I do not want to purchase the book I'm perusing, as its impossibly bleak and in the end, the protagonist is murdered!" Every laughs again. I think it's the way she tells her story's is the reason why they could listen to her telling story's for hours.

"I spent my next decades hiding what I was reading, as she couldn't help but spoil the ending of every novel or night at the theatre. She also attempted to bleed me dry, spending all my money on the arts. And look what I'm left with. Nothing but a room full of the most wonderful friends. To Gertrude." I raise my glass. "May she be reading over our shoulders for eternity."

"To the most wonderful couple." Someone next to us says. "My romantic ideal. Gertie and Jo." I smile and say, "hear, hear." Anne mumbles the last words of what the woman next to us said and smiles. "And now, to give a recitation in Gertrude's stead, I invite the warm-hearted, never boring, super sweet Grace Barnes."

This is the moment I've been practicing for the last couple hours. With a boy a barely even know staring at me while I say the words over and over again. I tighten the grip I have on the book and hand Olivia my glass. I walk over to aunt Josephine or as others refer to Jo and open the book.

"From the day she left I was no longer the same." I start. My hands shake a little bit and begin to slightly sweat. "with her was gone every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree home to me." I look up to see everyone attention is towards me, and I smile. "I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much of her habits; more harmonious thoughts; what seemed better regulated feelings had become the inmates of my mind."

"I had given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the eyes of others, usually even my own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued character." I close the book as a sign that this was the end of my read. Everyone claps and I turn my head to Josephine, or the place she was standing before I began to read, but she is gone.

➳

I am dancing with Olivia when she says, "that was wonderful. I'm glad you gave that read, I felt like I was in her presence again. Thank you." I laugh and shake my head, "don't thank me. I just wanted to do something for Josephine, help her." Olivia pulls me into a hug, "but you also helped me. So please accept my thank you." I smile and say, "your welcome."

"May I take over?" Nate asks to Olivia when we pull out of our hug. "Oh, uhm, Olivia meet Nathaniel, Mike's brother. Nathaniel meet Olivia." They give each other a head bow and say "pleasure to meet you." Olivia let's go of my hand and says, "I'll meet you later in our room." I nod and take Nate's hand.

After a few minutes of dancing I ask, "is there a reason why you asked me to dance?" He smiles and says, "well, you were very nice to me and I have to say that you look stunning." Oh. I look to the ground to avoid eye contact. "Don't worry. I know you have a boyfriend. And I'm not the kind of person that wants to break a relationship off."

I nod and say, "thank you." He looks over the crowd, like he was searching for someone. "My brother told me a lot about you actually. At dinner he always tells us what happened in class, and your in his stories a lot. I never knew that it was you in the other room until he said your name." Mike was talking about me to his family. That's a weird thing.

I feel like I shouldn't be talking to a Miller, but the Millers did nothing wrong. When the song ends, I thank Nate for the dance and I walk away with a quick pace. I walk over to my room and find a crying Olivia in her bed. All I do is lay down beside her and let her head rest on my shoulder.