Definitely Not Average - Chapter 26

This chapter is dedicated to Randommiss. =)
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Contrary to popular belief, people that are in love don’t feel the need to be around the subject of their affections twenty-four-seven. No, they just pine away at the fact that they can’t be with whom they are in love with twenty-four-seven.

Well, that’s what I was doing, anyway.

I think I probably would have been more depressed about the ache in my stomach if I wasn’t so intrigued by the fact that I had finally fallen for someone, admitted, though, that that someone wasn’t exactly the ideal person when our statuses were involved. But everything about T.J drew me in. His smile, his laugh, his hair….I would happily think about T.J all day.

God, I was starting to sound like some mushy, starry-eyed, love-struck teenager. But then, wasn’t that exactly what I was? I shuddered.

I was becoming one of the people I used to mock.

‘Gracie?’ My mother’s voice called from downstairs. ‘Can you come down for a second, please?’

‘Sure, mom.’

I padded downstairs, and into the kitchen, where my mother was chopping potatoes in half and placing them on an oven tray. Yes, my mother was actually cooking again.

My mother was….better. If that was even the right word for it. She was completely back to normal, as if there had never been something wrong with her in the first place. Her honeyed complexion had returned, along with the rosy blush that graced her cheeks. Her dark blonde hair was smooth and shiny again, and she was always smiling.

And yet all this bugged me. But I was supposed to be happy for her. But I wasn’t, and yet this did not make me feel guilty, as much as I tried to make myself.

She shot me a smile, and proceeded to put the tray of potatoes in the oven. ‘Will you be Okay tomorrow night on your own?’

Of course not, mom. I’ve only ever been alone the last four years of my life, but of course I won’t be Okay on my own. ‘I’ll be fine. Why?’

Her naturally pink-stained cheeks darkened to scarlet, and despite my bitterness towards her, I found myself amused. ‘Uh, w-well,’ she stammered. ‘I…I have a….date, actually.’

What? ‘What?!’ I was stunned. My mother, previous sufferer of depression, the woman who I had thought could grow no more lifeless unless she died, the woman who had been practically absent from my life even though she’d only been in her bedroom, had a date?

‘Yes,’ her cheeks reddened even more, an obvious retaliation to my reaction.

‘With who?’ My tone of voice may have sounded rude, but I was too caught up in my mystification to care.

‘U-um….Paul.’

The name rang a bell, but I couldn’t quite remember in which context it had been used. ‘Who’s Paul?’

Was it evil that I got some twisted satisfaction from seeing her squirm? ‘My….my boss.’

Oh, you have got to be kidding me. ‘What?’

She bit her lip, but despite this nervous gesture I could see that she was beaming inside. Huh. ‘Well, yes,’ and then she started to ramble. ‘I mean, I already told you that he was so nice to me on my first day, and one time I couldn’t get the phone cable to wire up properly, and, well, you know me –‘ no, I don’t ‘ –sometimes I just get so flustered and Paul was just so nice to me and didn’t get angry at all when he found out I couldn’t do the cable properly, he showed me just how to do it, and then I started to see him more often, he kept popping up in places and, well, one thing led to another…’

My eyes narrowed. Grace Tulden was on mother-mode….even though she was the daughter. ‘Really?’ I demanded, my hand dropping to rest on my hip as I fixed my mother with narrowed eyes. ‘And just how old is this Paul person?’

She darted a nervous glance to the door. ‘Um, forty-two.’

My mother was thirty-nine, so three years difference was actually pretty ideal, but I still kept the questions coming. ‘Does he have kids?’

‘No.’

‘Has he ever been married before?’

‘He’d divorced –‘

‘Has he got a criminal record?’

‘What?! No! Of course he hasn’t –‘

‘What did he do? Did he have an affair?’

‘Excuse me?! Of course he –‘

‘What about his job? Did he work to get to his position or did he just –‘

‘Grace!’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’

‘You’re making me so nervous!’ She flailed her arms around, looking flustered. I had to hold back a smile. ‘I feel like I’m the teenager.’

I considered this. ‘Well, it is your first time since going back out there, and I just….’ I trailed off and bit my lip.

Her expression softened, and she reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘I know, Gracie, I know. You’re looking out for me. But I’m a big girl, Okay?’

I reluctantly nodded. I felt protective over my mother. ‘O – Okay’

She smiled again, and teased, ‘Hey, what about me? Don’t I get to question you mercilessly over that handsome young boy?’

I groaned. ‘Mo-om.’

She giggled – I know, giggled! ‘I’m just joking, honey. But really, if you and him are, you know, then I think it’s best if you use protection.’

Oh. My. God. Oh my God. ‘Mom!’ I squawked. Could this conversation actually be happening?! ‘I can’t even believe you would….just….Mom!’

She laughed out loud and smacked me playfully on the shoulder. ‘I’m just kidding, honey.’

And then, when I was on my way upstairs back to my room, I heard her call out, ‘But seriously, use protection!’

I was sitting in the library, supposed to be doing my geography homework, but instead staring dreamily out the window. I really could not be bothered to draw my own, personal map of Monte Valley, nor could I be bothered to actually colour-code it’s more wealthy parts. With a huff, I shoved the scraps of paper to the other side of the table.

It was roughly three o’clock, and I had stayed behind at school because…well, I didn’t really know why. I guess I just needed to think.

As a result of my insistent exclamations that he needed to go and pick up his little sister or else he would be late, T.J reluctantly left school without me. But that was Okay. I really needed to think. Although when I sat down to actually do that seemingly simple task, it all appeared beyond me. I could not think of the cons of my not-so-straight-forward relationship with T.J Becker, I could not think of the fact that my previously depressed mother was making more progress than her daughter who had her whole life ahead of her, and I could not think of the fact T.J Becker’s ex-girlfriend kept giving me dirty looks in the hallways.

Don’t you think it’s funny when you think of the devil and the devil appears? Because whether you do or don’t, that’s exactly what happened.

Yes, okay, I was surprised. I could safely say that I had never seen Rachael Sampson set foot in the library – ever. So when the apparently stunning girl in question strutted in, all I could do was stare, just like everyone else. Though not for the reasons I would have had it been a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks to Megan, I now had trouble imagining Rachael with the same angelic, flawless grace that I used to regard her with. Now the spots on her forehead that seemed suffocated by the ridiculous amount of foundation and concealer she had no doubt slapped on that morning. And her hair really did have lots of split-ends, which I could see very well, courtesy of the bright lights that hung high in the ceilings of the library. Oh, and God, those eyelashes. What, did she just dip her head into a fountain of mascara?

And then, Good God, she started walking over to me - me! I would have been stunned had this been any other time, but all I could say that I felt at that moment her long legs strode slowly and purposefully towards my table was…embarrassment.

‘Grace,’ she said coolly, flashing an even icier smile at me. She curled her fingers around the back of a chair that was tucked neatly into the table I was sitting on, dragged it out, and then sunk down onto the hard plastic.

All I could do was stare at her. What was she doing, sitting on my table, in the library of places? I could only wonder.

‘I came to talk to you,’ she said sweetly, eyeing a piece of her unnaturally dyed blonde hair that she had trapped between her thumb and index finger.

I raised an eyebrow. She had come to talk to me? About what? I voiced my thoughts aloud, and she said slowly while keeping her eyes on me as if looking for a reaction, ‘About T.J.’

I can’t say that I was shocked. But I didn’t know why. ‘What about T.J?’ I said cautiously.

She leaned her elbows on the table and leaned forward, and I had to stop myself from pulling back. ‘He doesn’t like you,’ she whispered.

Something tugged at my stomach – desperation, fear? I would not let her know what I was feeling. ‘What do you mean?’

She looked as if she was enjoying herself and the smirk that I wanted to smack so bad off of her face pulled up the side of her thin lips. ‘Do you know what he said about you?’

My stomach lurched and the natural, even rhythm of the thud…thud…thud of my heart turned into a thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. ‘What…what are you talking about?’

She leaned even closer towards me over the table, and my mind was too bury working on over-drive on what she could be talking about to really be afraid at her close proximity.

‘"Grace,"’ she mocked the deep tone of T.J’s voice, the voice that I loved. ‘"Is a depressed loner with no friends."’

My heart stopped. ‘You’re lying.’

She grinned; she liked my reaction. ‘I’m not. Don’t you remember when you two were first assigned as partners? He told me that you were pathetic.’

Something warm was creeping up my cheeks, spreading out until I felt like I was suffocating. ‘That’s not true.’

Her smile turned sly. ‘Of course it is.’

And all so suddenly I needed to get out of there. I needed to get away from her. I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder, then, with heavy breaths, made my way to head out of the library.

Just as I was reaching for the door, she called out, ‘It’s true, Grace,’ she was still sitting at the table. ‘And you know it.’

T.J was talking to me about something my brain had yet to register, and we sat together on a lunch table near Izzy’s Ice Cream parlour.

My brain was whirling with the information Rachael had so maliciously shared with me. But one thing kept repeating itself: was it true?

‘Grace!’ I looked at T.J, who had raised his eyebrow. ‘What’s wrong?’

I hadn’t realised that I had been spacing out. ‘Nothing.’

He pursed his lips. ‘Come on, Grace. Tell me what’s wrong.’

I sighed and looked away. ‘Just…nothing.’

He was quiet for a moment. ‘Grace,’ he finally said.

And then something bubbled to my lips, something that shocked me as soon as it was said. ‘I don’t think we should be friends anymore.’

Silence. I turned my head back around to face him. His eyes were wide, and he was so still he could have been mistaken for a statue.

‘What?’ That one word held do much shock, surprise in it that I almost staggered back.

There was no going back. ‘I…I don’t think we should be friends anymore.’

He blew out a breath that sounded so…final. And all so suddenly, I wanted to feel his arms around me.

‘Grace…what are you saying?’

I looked him dead in the eye, and action that required all of my will-power. ‘I think…I think it would be better if we stopped being friends.’ Liar, Liar.

He ran shaky hand through his hair. ‘What…why?’

‘I…I just –‘

‘Grace, please,’ he pleaded. He took my chin in his hand and forced me to look up at him. ‘Please. What are you –‘

‘"A depressed loner with no life?"’ I quoted coldly, looking up at him.

At first, his face showed blank shock, but it was quickly replaced with dawning recognition, and then desperation. ‘Grace, you don’t understand. That was –‘

‘No,’ I cut him off. ‘I don’t think we should be friends anymore.’ And I stood up and turned my back on him, fully prepared to walk away then and there. But, of course that didn’t go as planned. He grabbed my wrist and spun me around to face him.

‘Grace,’ he whispered. ‘I…you have to listen to me. That was when –‘

‘No.’ I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. My next words would change everything. ‘I don’t wantto be friends anymore.’

It wasn’t true, and I knew it. But I had begun to get this strange notion that I was holding T.J back from something. He never hung around with any of his old friends anymore, and I was the cause for that. It wasn’t fair of me.

Meanwhile, T.J was standing stock-still, his hands laying stiff at his sides, his throat working furiously. He said nothing.

There was so many secrets in the world, and it infuriated me. I couldn’t tell my mother what I really felt about the progress she was making, I couldn’t tell her that sometimes I still dreamed of my daddy at night, and I couldn’t tell T.J that of course I still wanted to be friends with him and I couldn’t tell him that I was in love with him, either.

So many lies.

I turned and walked away.