Saving Grace

7

“Your art is really inspiring and beautiful Grace. I feel like I can relate to your pieces,” one of the ladies who’d attended my exhibit said and I smiled before making small talk with her for a while. We were interrupted by Berth, my mother in law.

“This is beautiful Grace. I loved the décor and your art is truly to die for. I had no idea you were that talented. Oh and by the way you look beautiful, green totally agrees with you,” she gushed making me blush and hug her.

“Thanks mom, for coming and supporting me. I really appreciate all this,” I told her sincerely while smoothening my sparkly green dress that reached my toes with a huge cut that came up to my knees. I loved the cleavage it showed and the way my back was completely exposed but it still looked presentable.

“Where’s my idiotic son?” she questioned looking around and the grip on my wine glass and sipped it to hide that.

“He’s not here,” I muttered quietly staring at the marble floor.

“I’m sorry Grace,” she said hugging me with a sympathetic smile. I smiled back before excusing myself. I went to the pool area where I watched the stars while sitting on the pool chairs feeling the cool breeze in my face.

I looked back at the exhibit watching people admire my work and some chatted away while others were drinking wine probably with an agenda to get drunk. Everyone seemed happy from my point of view but I wasn’t. I was miserable without Luca. The way the light from the chandeliers in the ceiling eliminated everyone in the room was captivating, the way it hit the perfect spots made it look like the perfect picture which I snapped with my phone deciding to paint it sometime.

My phone buzzed and I opened the message to see a picture of my mother and father tied up to chairs looking bloody like they’d been beaten up. Under the picture was written if you want your parents to live meet me at the woods tomorrow at seven, where it all started. Remember bring no one, come alone…

I growled in frustration as I read the message. Well this was something adventurous.    

***
My whole life, I’ve felt vulnerable. I’ve never had anyone. I’ve been lost most of the time and I’ve been broken. My past always plays in my mind like a broken record reminding me of all my mistakes. Regret soaks my soul as I think back to how I could’ve done things different, made different choices.

You know, before you do something there’s that part of you that pulls you back. It warns you of the consequences. My whole life I never allowed myself to be pulled back, to be controlled. I wanted to be ‘free’ but little did I know that that’s not freedom. That was the way to my prison, my whole life.

I’ve always been rebellious; wanting to do things that people around me don’t agree with. I guess that made me feel liberated from my past, from everything that surrounded me. I think your past makes up a big part of who you are, it’s that part of you that you grow into and remain like that.

Loneliness makes people desperate.
That’s a fact I’ve known all my life. Loneliness manages to make you lose all your self esteem; you become a doormat, a subject to someone’s abuse. It rips you of every ounce of dignity you have making you nothing. With loneliness you become blind, you miss all the red blaring warning signs and just close your eyes in the face of danger.

I’ve never had anything easy at all. It’s always been hard on me. It’s been so hard every part of me has been broken into a million pieces, beyond repair. I tried to become better but turns out I failed because I’m falling and I can’t stop falling but this time I’ll fight. I will not go down without a fight.

“Are we good to go?” I asked the body guards I’d asked to accompany me to retrieve my parents. They nodded and I smiled nervously before motioning for all of us to go to our cars. As soon as we were speeding on the highway heading to the woods I started thinking of all the possibilities of things going wrong. I was told to come alone, why the hell had I brought back up?