Falling From Grace (10 page)

“Grace, I told you that you were different.
 
Most girls would be trying to think dirty thoughts around me—most girls do no matter what—but not you.” He knelt beside me on the ground.
 
He put his hand under my chin and lifted my face so that I could look at him.
 
Or that he could look at me.
 
Secretly, I hoped it was the latter.

“It is,” he reassured me, grinning when he saw me grimace
—
a reaction to him hearing what I didn’t say.
 
“I don’t want to scare you, Grace.
 
I cannot explain to you how, but I just knew
—
deep inside of me
—
that you’d be able to learn of my secret, and keep it.
 
The way a
friend
is supposed to.”

Was it really that simple?
 
All he wanted was a friend?
 
If that was it, why did I feel so disappointed?

“I want
you
as my friend,” he said, smiling as he offered me his hand.

“Okay, look.
 
That’s really going to annoy the crap out of me,” I told him, taking it and pulling myself up to a standing position.
 
“My thoughts are my own.
 
I’m sure you wouldn’t like someone always digging around in your private thoughts, would you?”

He shrugged, his expression stoic.
 
“My sister is always in my thoughts, needling her way to find out bits of gossip, or secrets she can blab to one of her girlfriends.
 
It’s no big thing.
 
If there’s something I don’t want her to know, it’s not that difficult to keep hidden.”
 
He looked down at my hand, still enclosed in his, and smiled again.

I forgot what I was going to say because I, too, was staring down at our hands joined together.
 
I didn’t realize that I had never let go…and that he hadn’t either.
 
I also didn’t know that when touching like this, skin to skin, I couldn’t stop the influx of thoughts that passed between the two of us.

It flowed like water into my head
—
filling up crevices that had been empty for longer than I had been alive
—
as my mind seemed to drain of everything it had ever contained to make room.
 
His voice filled my head, roaming around in my mind, echoing, calling, searching…searching for what?
 
I was starting to feel full, stretched too tight.
 
I felt my face pinch, wincing as the pain was beginning.
 
It was throbbing, merciless…the pressure was increasing at an enormous rate and it didn’t seem close to abating any time soon.
 
I could see his face, his wide, fear filled eyes; he was hearing my inner cries of pain, and they were hurting him.
 

You…need…to…let…go…Grace.

And then he was gone.

Everything was gone.
 

***

I was lying on a bench, something hard beneath my throbbing head.
 
I felt something dripping from my face
—
it being wiped up by something cool and wet.
 
I could smell the rusty tang of blood, and the syrupy sweet smell of something unfamiliar.
 
My eyes opened to two big pools of liquid mercury staring worriedly into my face.

“Are you okay?”

I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t move
—
something was holding me down.
 
I looked back at those liquid pools and realized that at the way they were angled, I had to be lying down in his lap.
 
My eyes flicked down to my chest, and saw his hand was pressing down on my abdomen.
 
I turned my head and saw his other hand was holding down my left shoulder.
 
I couldn’t get up because he was holding me down.

I looked up into his face once more and said in a shaky voice, “I’m fine.
 
I just need to sit up.”

He looked reluctant to let me go, but eased his grip on me and slowly helped me into a sitting position.
 
The dizziness that engulfed me was troubling.
 
I felt like I had been drained of all my strength and energy
—
not unlike how one feels after not eating all day.
 
I looked at Robert’s hand, the one that I had been holding when my mind started suffocating
—
that’s what it was, my mind had suffocated
—
underneath the rush of his every thought.
 
In it was a cloth that appeared to be stained with blood…but whose?

“It’s yours.
 
Your nose started bleeding right after you fainted,” Robert answered guiltily.
 
He seemed very pale, his voice just as shaky as mine.
 
Of course he would.
 
He’d been in my head, shared the same fear, saw everything in my head go black…and he’d shared my pain.
 
That would be enough to scare anyone out of their wits.

I reached for the cloth he was holding and looked into his face.
 
I decided to try something.
 
I needed to focus on something.
 
I looked at his lips
—
too distracting
—
his nose, yes, his nose would work.
 
It was a mighty fine looking nose, but when I blocked out everything else, it was just a nose, and I could concentrate.
 
Is it still bleeding?

Not anymore.
 
It stopped just before you woke up.
 
And thank you about my nose.
 

I was so amazed, I actually blushed.
 
Where once I might have been terrified
—
even mortified
—
now I was in utter and complete awe; he could hear my thoughts, and I could hear his.
 
This was a genuine connection.
 
With someone I didn’t know at all.

“What do you want to know?” he asked me, turning so that he could face me more comfortably, gearing up for a long discussion it appeared.

“Um…well…you said that you were born with the ability to read minds.
 
Why?
 
And why can I now hear yours?
 
Can I hear anyone else’s?
 
This would have helped me out a great deal a few months ago if so.
 
And what
was
that
—
when I passed out
—
why did that happen?” I rambled quickly as the questions rushed out one after the other.
 
I felt unable to stop it as I looked at him and waited for him to answer before the inquisition could continue.

“You can hear my thoughts, Grace, because I allow you to.
 
You can
only
hear the thoughts that I allow you to.
 
As for the other…I can’t tell you that now.
 
You already know more than I was willing to reveal,” he whispered, looking past me at some unseen thing with such sadness in his eyes, my fingers itched with an unfamiliar longing to hold his, to comfort him in some way.
 
“I
will
tell you that I am your friend, Grace.
 
You now know a secret about me that no one else outside of my family knows, and I’m trusting you not to share it with anyone.”

He was trusting me… Who trusted me?
 
Not even Graham had done that, and he knew me better than anyone.

“It’s not my secret to share, Robert.”
 

Cautiously, I held out my hand, scared that what had happened earlier would happen again if he did, but more afraid that he wouldn’t accept it at all.
 
Why should he take my hand?
 
He had just met me
—
what did he know about me?
 
And what if what had happened to me frightened him, proved just how much of a freak I was?
 
Could he really trust someone like me?

I know everything I need to know to trust you.
 
His voice filled my head and he took my hand, as if to confirm, to acknowledge our fast formed friendship.
 
You can trust me, too.
 
I will not betray you.
 
I am nothing if not a loyal friend and guardian.

“Um…thank you,” I said to him, my voice tinged with disbelief, and looked around us, needing a distraction from his hypnotizing stare.
 
Hadn’t he said this was the
Bellegarde
family retreat?
 
“Does this place belong to your family?” I asked aloud, knowing he had heard my thoughts before they had reached my lips, but feeling a need to fill the silence, I uttered them anyway.

“Yes.
 
This area has been in my family’s hands for centuries,” he confirmed.
 
“My mother’s family inherited it, as well as the surrounding forest and waterways, so this is pretty much all ours.”
 
His swung his arm out in an arcing motion, referring to all of the greenery that lay before us.

I glanced over at the playground and raised an eyebrow.
 
“What’s with the swing set and see-saw?”

He laughed softly, “Well, we rent this area out a lot for large corporate gatherings, family reunions, weddings, etc…
 
My mother realized that there’d be children who would be playing here too, so she had the playground built for them.
 
She loves children.
 
She’d have had a small army of them if she could.”
 
He motioned to a gazebo that seemed to be nestled between a pair of tall trees, almost invisible from where we were sitting, despite its size.
 
“That is where most of the weddings are performed, and then the receptions are held right over there.” He pointed to a wide open space to the right of the gazebo that seemed to stretch on forever.
 
“It’s nice and flat; perfect for dancing.”

I could picture it, the extravagant weddings that were held here in such a vast and open space.
 
I could see the tents pitched up, twinkling Christmas lights strewn up everywhere, the tables and chairs covered in yards and yards of white silk, and everything scented with flowers of varying shades and blooms.
 
It took me a few minutes to realize that the images were too crisp; it was all too clean to just be my imagination.
 
These were memories.

I looked at him, and he grinned.
 
I thought you might need a little help.

My jaw fell at the insult.
 
I do
NOT
need help with imagining a wedding here

He shrugged his shoulders.
 
Fine.

And the image was gone, as if he had pressed stop on a DVD, and all I was left with was a blank screen.
 
That was rude!

You said you didn’t need help imagining a wedding here.

I suddenly wondered when I it was that I had become comfortable with speaking to him through my mind.
 
We had had almost an entire conversation without speaking a single word, and instead of frightening me like it should have, it annoyed me.

Easier than it sounds, huh?

I glared at him.
 
“I prefer talking.
 
People will think I’m even crazier than they already do if I remain quiet for long periods of time because I’m having a silent argument with you.”

I stood up and stretched my legs
—
oh that felt good!
 
I started to walk away before realizing that he was still holding my hand.
 
With one blindingly quick tug, I was back on the bench sitting next to him.
 
I blinked in shock, not just by his reaction to my attempt to leave, but also by the fact that despite the strength necessary to have done such a thing, his arm had barely moved.
 
I would have been more convinced of him brushing aside a spider’s thread than him somehow forcing me to sit beside him.
 
And yet, despite my shock, none of this seemed to be of much interest to him as he remarked to my observation.
 

“No one is going to think that of you.
 
Not anymore,” he said as he looked at my face, the mischievous twinkle in his eyes betraying the serious line of his mouth.
 
I could have sworn I knew how to breathe
—
I had been doing it all my life, after all
—
but for some reason, I couldn’t remember how at the moment.

“Grace, I am your friend.
 
I won’t let people treat you like that anymore,” he vowed, the seriousness shifting now to his eyes.
 
“You are too good a person to have people take you for granted.”
 

“How are you going to stop people from doing what comes so naturally to them?” I snorted.

He ignored that and continued.
 
“I know the hurt you’ve felt, and I’ve seen how you’ve been treated.
 
It won’t be like that anymore.
 
I promise.”