Saving Grace

Chapter 9

Several weeks later

"Tonight was very successful," I said to Luca while pouring us both glasses of red exotic wine with a smile that didn't quite reach my eyes. I had it all but I felt like there was something missing.

"Yeah, it was," Luca replied taking a sip from the glass I'd handed him while staring at me intensely with his eyes trying to convey a message to me but I didn't quite understand it.

"I'm so glad the charity auction is over and I killed it. Finally I'll have a lot less on my plate," I continued while sitting beside him on the couch with a smile and a sigh at the feeling of accomplishment and contentment that was coursing through me but somehow it didn't have any effect on my heart. My heart was numb and steady almost as if it wasn't there.

"I'm proud of you," Luca told me with the same intensity as before and I smiled raising my glass as a toast to me which he chuckled at but raised his glass otherwise and we made a silent toast to my accomplishments.

"I'm sorry Grace," he apologized and I looked at him surprised. "I shouldn't have shouted at you like I did before. I guess I was scared and I don't know. I'm sorry for how I've acted. After everything you've gone through I must have been supportive and helped you with your auction and Jack. Please forgive me?"

"You've already apologized and you helped with the auction so we're good. Don't beat yourself up," I replied casually even though I was happy he'd apologized for the unexpected sincere apology but a part of me was scared he would pursue the subject further and see through me.

He nodded and mumbled thanks before smiling and heading out of the room which made me sigh relieved and trapped me in my thoughts that always left me either confused or having a completely different opinion about my life.

The statement life is full of surprises never quite meant a thing to me until later on in my life, when I was older, and I knew surprises were not always good things. As I grew older I learnt you could never quite understand how life works or conquer the world. It was impossible.

In everyone's life they reach that point where they think they've made it and they're invincible and I had once reached that point. I thought I knew it all but what I didn't know was that there wasn't much I knew. I was a stupid naïve girl trying to make a mark in the world but didn't know how.

Looking back at my life I made a lot of mistakes but at the point I am in my life I don't regret them. I embrace them as they are a part of me. The mistakes I've made my whole life have molded me slowly and carefully into the woman I am today. I've become a woman of substance and authority, a respectable woman because of how I managed to pick up the broken pieces of my life and I stuck them together into a masterpiece.

Getting married to Luca to some people was a bad decision to some people but to me it was a stepping stone to a better life. Being married to Jack made me pray every single day for a way out to a better life and to make a name for myself, to follow my dreams and be who I always dreamt of being and finally it came and I grabbed it. Now, I got a way out and I made a name for myself, I'm rich and I can buy anything I want but something is still missing.

I smile and I laugh but there's still that empty part of me that aches to be filled not with anything material. Money and achievement of my dreams can't seal that hole in my heart and that knowledge kills me every day. Maybe it's the fact that I forgot to include that I wanted to have everything, love and a good life in my prayers that causes the feeling of emptiness to take over my life and remind me whenever I was happy that all wasn't well.

I gulped the rest of my wine and placed the glass in the sink before climbing the stairs to my room. With each step I thanked God for everything he had given me and on the last step I asked that he grant me one last thing, the ability to love and be lovable.

***

"It's really pretty out here tonight isn't it Jack?" I said as I hugged myself while staring at the dark sky lit by a thousand stars and a full moon that seemed to be watching over the world, knowing everything and everyone's thoughts.

"It is," he replied sitting on his porch and pulling me down with him. "What's bothering you, you called me at three in the evening and I'm guessing it's not to talk about the night."

I nodded with a small laugh before sighing. "Am I lovable?"

He seemed taken aback by my question and he didn't answer which made me sigh again before beginning to talk. "I've only ever fallen in love once, with you and I guess I never really knew what to do. You turned out to be a jerk so I guess I should say I can't love, I'm one of those women. I feel like me being unlovable is letting down Luca in some way and me feeling this way is letting me down. I've been all about choosing me before everyone else and here I am wanting to put someone else before me.

"I'm really confused about everything right now. I'm also scared of getting hurt, being hurt reminds me of when I was with you and I guess falling in love will mean I've put myself out there again and I could be hurt anytime. Life and living are the hardest things that are yet to be conquered and understood but then again no one will ever have that power that comes with understanding life, only God can. At times I want a do-over of my life; I wouldn't have ever had a boyfriend in high school and got married. Maybe I could've been really happy you know?

"I wish I was normal you know and I could love and be normal like everyone else!"

"But you are not normal," Jack said finally getting a word in and I glanced at him curiously. "You're not average Grace, you're more than that. You're worth more than gold and I saw that and still do. Everything I did to you was to make myself feel bigger than I was because I felt threatened by that potential and fire in you. It scared me and I guess I abused you to make you feel worthless and small just so that I feel like I'm gold. I regret my selfish actions and every night I lay in my bed awake asking the same question: did I ever feel greater by making you seem smaller? The answer is also the same; it's a big fat no.

"I guess it's what I did that makes you think you're unlovable and incapable of loving but it's actually not. I studied you and your weaknesses and I noticed you doubted yourself which I used to my advantage. You have this self doubt that you carry around, I don't know where it comes from but you don't quite believe in yourself. This doubt makes you close up and think you can't trust everyone because if they see through you they'll bolt and you'll be hurt. Stop doubting you are enough whichever way you are. Open up your heart and eyes and you'll see that not everyone is out to hurt you."

I looked at him with a watery smile letting his words sink in. "I know where the self doubt comes from. It was Stella, I always compared myself to her and I guess I always like she was better than me. I never really thought I was it because I wasn't her, Stella. I don't know she just made me like that and thinking about now just makes me feel really stupid."

"You're pretty smart Grace and I know you'll figure all this out. You're the 'it' thing right now, you're going to make it. I believe in you," Jack said hugging me close to me and I felt the feeling of nostalgia that made me think of high school before it was all complicated.

In my mind I was thinking of Stella and how I had unfinished business with her and not just her but a lot of other people like my father who I never really had a relationship with. I also decided to put Luca's father on my list, it wasn't really unfinished business but I had a score to settle with that man, for Luca and his family and for me as well. It was time I fixed things and I became the girl with the Jack saw potential in.