Definitely Not Average - Chapter 24

‘Grace!’ I turned my head around and found Megan making her way down her little slope towards me and T.J. She was grinning from ear to ear, and I couldn’t help but smile.

‘Hey Sweetie,’ I knelt down and held out my arms as she same wheeling closer to me.

We had just arrived at T.J’s house, and had only just walked through the front door.

‘Gracie!’ She leaned forward in her wheelchair and hugged me, and I closed my eyes and breathed in that little girl smell that brought on a sense of déjà vu; talcon powder, lavender, paint and pure innocence.

I also couldn’t help feeling a pang of disbelief and disgust. How could a mother throw her child down the stairs?

‘How are you, Megan?’ I asked her as we both pulled back, and T.J watched our embrace with warmness flooding his eyes.

‘Good, thank you, little Gracie.’

I pretended to be offended and pressed a hand to my chest. ‘Little Gracie? I’ll have you know, Missy, I happen to be five-foot-six…and a half!’

Megan snorted. ‘Ooh, don’t forget the half!’

T.J laughed, and I turned to face him with a mock scowl. ‘That’s what I said,’ T.J informed Megan, wearing that smile he wore specially for his little sister. ‘But us Beckers, Megan, we’re just too Awesome to be short like Grace.’

Megan giggled behind her hand, and I stared up at T.J with my mouth hanging open. I smacked him on the forearm and he grinned down at me. ‘I happen to be over the Junio Valley average height!’

T.J snorted. ‘Don’t worry about Grace, Megan. She’s in denial.’

‘Does that mean she’ll have to date elves when she’s older?’ Megan asked curiously, tilting her head to the side with that childlike innocence.

I gawped. ‘Hey! Watch it, you little minx.’

She giggled again, and both me and T.J smiled – with Megan around, you couldn’t help it. ‘T.J calls me a little minx.’

‘Well, T.J’s right about that, Missy.’

T.J smirked from beside me. ‘I’m always right.’

‘Nuh-uh!’ Megan shouted before I got a chance to say anything. ‘You said that The Big Dipper didn’t exist but it DOES!’

I gave T.J a funny look. ‘You told her that The Big Dipper doesn’t exist?’

‘Well how was I supposed to know?’ T.J muttered, scowling at nothing in-particular. ‘Who names a couple of stars something like ‘The Big Dipper’ anyway?’

I smiled fondly, and my heart gave a small lurch. That’s only something T.J would say…

‘Are you going to stay for dinner, Gracie?’ Megan’s voice brought me out of my blush-worthy thoughts.

‘Oh, um,’ I glanced at T.J. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Please?’ Megan pleaded, pouting from her wheelchair. ‘Pretty please with a cherry on top and lots and lots of sauce?’

T.J smirked. ‘Well, looks as if the little minx has already made up her mind.’

We all laughed, and I said, ‘Well, could I please borrow your phone to call my mom?’

T.J nodded and handed me the landline that was sitting on a small table a few inches away from him. ‘Here,’ he said. And then to Megan, ‘Come on, Meggie. Let’s go wait in the dining room while Grace’s calls her mom.’

My breath caught at his selflessness. He was trying to give me privacy.

I spent no more time letting my thoughts wander over T.J’s perfection, instead concentrating on dialling my home number in, then immediately erased it and started pressing in the hotel number instead. How weird, I thought. To be calling my mother when she’s at work. I pressed the green button, held the phone to my ear and waited.

A man with a bored drawl voice picked up after three rings. ‘Utén Rouse Hotel, you’re currently speaking to Dominic. How can I help you?’

‘Oh, um, this is Grace Tulden. I just called to see if I could speak with my mother, Julia Tulden…please.’

‘Sure, just hang on one moment, please.’

I blinked when I realised that I had said Julia Tulden, and blinked even more when I figured out that I was correct. She was still Julia Tulden. Not Julia Kathen. It only hit me at that moment that my mother had still not divorced my father.

‘Gracie?’ A voice right in my ear broke me out of my stunned thoughts. ‘Is that you?’

‘Huh? Oh, uh, hey mum.’ I said awkwardly. I was still not yet to the new and improved Julia, otherwise known as mother.

‘Hi, Sweetie. How are you? Is everything Okay?’ She sounded happy, which was good, at least, since it told me she was enjoying her new job.

‘Everything’s fine, mum. I just called to ask if it would be Okay if I stayed at…’ a what? The boy I love’s house? The centre of my existence’s house? ‘At my friend’s house for dinner.’

There was along pause over the phone, and I started to become doubtful of whether she would let me. And then she spoke, and she sounded positively crafty. ‘Is it that handsome young man again?’

I blushed scarlet, as if T.J was right there in the room with me and could hear everything she was saying. ‘Mom.’ I hissed over the phone.

She laughed, and I forgot my momentary embarrassment and marvelled at the beautiful, carefree, genuinely happy sound. ‘Oh, Grace. Of course you can stay, sweetie. Just don’t come home too late.’

‘I won’t, mom. I promise.’

‘Good. Bye, sweetie. Love you.’

‘Love you, too.’ And that was the end of our phone call.

I drew in a deep breath when I realised that I had actually had a normal conversation with my mother.

How odd.
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‘Hey, Daddy!’ Megan turned around in her wheelchair and trundled over to the door in her bedroom, where he father was standing casually with a briefcase in one hand and his keys in the other.

T.J’s father – Nathan – grinned and leaned down to Megan and kissed her on both cheeks and then her forehead. Megan giggled and did the same thing to him. T.J watched the father-daughter exchange stiffly.

Nathan managed a tight smile in T.J’s direction. T.J did not smile back. Nathan looked at me and blinked. ‘Oh, hello, Grace.’

I smiled shyly. ‘Hello.’

‘Didn’t you…’ He trailed off and sneaked a glance at T.J. ‘I thought you finished your project.’

Did I imagine the faint pick that tinged T.J’s cheeks? ‘We’re…’ T.J looked purposefully at me. ‘Me and Grace are friends now.’

Nathan smiled a huge smile that quickly vanished and was replaced with a not-so-straight expression. ‘Oh,’ he said, looking only politely interested. ‘Speaking of which, what happen to your girlfriend? Raven, was it? Ray –‘

T.J’s cheeks turned a deeper shade of red. ‘I…I broke up with her a couple of days ago.’

Nathan grinned wider, a grin that he couldn’t quite stifle. ‘Really?’

Megan was looking at her dad and brother’s curious exchange with a knowing look in her eye. ‘Hey Daddy,’ she said in an oddly innocent voice. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit strange that T.J suddenly breaks up with that horrible old spotty woman when he became friends with Grace?’

It was my turn to blush.

Nathan couldn’t quite suppress the snort of laughter that burst out of him. ‘Why, yes, Megan. It is a bit strange, isn’t it?’

Oh. My. God. I just wanted to disappear and never return. And from the look on his face, T.J did, too.

It seemed like forever, but after a long silence of passed grins between Megan and her father, T.J finally spoke up, ‘I think it’s time for dinner.'
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Dinner was takeout pizza, barbecue and meatball pizza, to be exact, and a slice of pineapple and ham pizza for Megan.

A couple of times when I looked up, I’d catch T.J looking at me. As we were sitting opposite eachother, with Nathan sitting at the head of the table and Megan sitting next to him, talking amiably, T.J could look at me as much as he wanted and he wouldn’t get caught. That same, familiar blush that I had recently become accustomed to threatened to burn my cheeks for all the world to see.

He smiled at me, and I smiled back, content to just be in the same room.

My feelings for him seemed to grow stronger from every glance, every stolen touch. Love wasn’t like it was described in those horrible, sappy romance novels, the ones where the woman is beautiful and the man extremely handsome and they end up living happily ever after. It doesn’t feel the way it’s described. It’s like a raw, aching feeling that starts inside the depths of your chest, making its way out of you and never really stops. It’s surreal and…painful. Not what I had expected, but not surprising, either.

‘Daddy,’ Megan was saying. ‘What is heaven like?’

We all stopped eating, froze, and looked at the beautiful, intelligent little girl that sat beside her daddy. What was going through her head, I didn’t know. I never would.

Nathan gulped, his eyes showing every ounce of the pain that I had seen so many times in T.J’s eyes. ‘It…’ he started, as T.J looked away from his father’s eyes. ‘It’s a beautiful place,’ he said finally, and he seemed to have come to a resolve. ‘With beautiful angels and puffy, white clouds that you could dance on all day, where nothing could never, ever hurt you.’

Megan stared at her plate for a long time, and for all that was in me I just wanted to scoop her up into my arms and protect her from all of life’s hatred and distortions. ‘Does that mean…’ she trailed off and looked her father in the eye. ‘I won’t ever feel pain again like now?’

Tears filled my eyes, and I wasn’t the only one. T.J quickly looked away, his lower lip trembling. I wanted to reach out to him and stroke his hair and tell him that everything would turn out Okay, that everything would be fine.

‘Yes,’ Nathan’s voice was choked up, and I stared at my plate. ‘Heaven is a good place; you’ll only ever feel good things when you’re there.’

I just pray to God that heaven won’t take her too soon.
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T.J was quiet that week. He smiled at people who greeted him, he laughed with people who talked with him. But I could tell that he wasn’t truly there.

‘T.J,’ I said to him at break time. ‘You know if…if there’s anything wrong. I’ll be here. Always.’

His arms snaked around me, his welcoming masculine scent overpowering my senses. I closed my eyes and breathed into his neck as he pushed his body against mine. ‘Promise?’ He whispered into my ear.

It was a promise that was filled with everything and nothing, doubt and insecurity. And yet he was cursed with a life full of negativity, of a life he never even asked for. And what had he done wrong? Nothing hat I was aware of.

And so, because it was one of the very few things I could do, I stroked his hair and nuzzled deeper into the crook of his neck. ‘Promise.’
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Marc was something different altogether. When I was in his company, everything felt superficial, like the awkward conversations we shared were just a guise to cover up harsh reality. But Marc was oblivious.

‘Have you thought about what I said?’ He asked me one time when I had just gotten my lunch from the cafeteria.

I had tried to avoid him, backing away from the route I was taking whenever I saw him with a group of friends, veering my gaze away form hi direction if I ever had to get to class quickly.

Not so surprisingly, it didn’t work.

I knew what he was talking about, but I still prolonged the answer in desperation. ‘What did you say?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘You know. About me liking you.’ Well, he certainly wasn’t a shy one.

‘Marc,’ I was uncomfortable as I turned to face him. ‘I have been thinking about it, but I really, really don’t think it would work out between us. We’re nothing alike.’

He looked stunned. ‘What are you taking about? We have so many things alike.’

I raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Oh, yeah? Like what?’

It was his turn to shift in discomfort. ‘Well, you know…’

I shook my head wryly. He knew nothing about me. Whereas T.J, on the other hand…

‘But Grace,’ he finally said, looking me in the eye. I had to give him points for that. ‘I might not know you now. But if you go out with me, then I can find out about you.’

Oh, if only you knew…’Marc,’ I shook my head I hated turning people down. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t go out with you. I’ve got too many things to…’ Be very, very careful, Grace. ‘I’ve got too many things to think about it. I just can’t.’

For a moment he looked…different. Angry, but it was the type of anger I had never witnessed before. But then it cleared so fast I thought I had probably imagined it. His brown eyes were smooth and calm. ‘Okay. Whatever you say. But if you ever change your mine…’ He let his sentence trail off in suggestion.

I pasted a smile on my face. ‘If I ever change my mind, I’ll let you know.’

Never, ever.
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One night I dreamed of angels. Beautiful, fair-haired angels with huge, white wings and a smile to put a Botticelli statue to shame. They were singing, strumming their fingers skilfully along golden harps. They sat on big, puffy white clouds, looking as relaxed as I had ever seen anyone.

After they had stopped playing, they began to spin around, their movements so lithe and graceful it looked as if they were dancing.

And then, suddenly, something floated upwards out of the clouds. The blob turned itself into something remotely human-looking, which then transformed itself into a small girl, with a sleeping face, eyes close and a slight smile on her lips. Megan.

The angels looked as if they had been waiting for her. ‘Megan,’ they sang softly. ‘Megan, Megan, Megan, Megan, Megan.’

I knew what they were going to do before they even moved to do so. ‘No!’ I screamed.

They either couldn’t hear me, which I doubted very much, or they were ignoring me, which I knew was the probably reason.

They took Megan by the arms and started pulling her away, flying further up into the sly.

I tried to move, to stop them. But it seemed as if the faster I ran towards them, the further away they got.

I screamed and screamed for them to stop, flailing my arms wildly. But it was too late.

She was already gone.