See You Around~ Grester (completed)

Chapter Thirty

Chester’s POV

I had to find her, I had to apologise for everything. How could I go, how could I be such a coward and turn my head away from Grace when all we needed was each other? I pulled out her letter and read it once more, confirming everything. She thought I wouldn't come looking, she thought I didn't care and that killed me. She needed to know how much she meant to me, how every second spent with her was a lifetime of memories. Each little thing she did meant the world to me and she had to know that. I didn’t know what I was going to say or if she would ever forgive me but as I walked passed a jewellers window and the glint of a ring flashed into my eyes, I knew then exactly what I wanted to do. 

She declined all my calls, ignored all my texts. I had no way of contacting her but if there was once place Grace was going to be it would be one where we shared our first date, where everything fell in to place. The place where I knew that this was more than just another relationship, that this girl meant something to me that I could never explain. 

She had often told me that this was the place she wanted to go back to, that sometimes she wished she could just transport herself there. She said that no matter what was going on in her life it made her feel happy, complete. I felt the same way too. 

It didn’t take long to find that special place, the roads too familiar. I thought back to the first time we were on this sky-line, when everything was so simple. We had come so far, through everything there wasn’t a second where I had stopped loving her and I was shocked at myself for breaking us so quickly. I hated who I was, who I had become but I knew that whenever I was with Grace I was the man I wanted to be, a better man. 

I was right. She sat alone on the bench. In the city lights I could see her tears reflecting off of her cheeks. It broke my heart in two to see her like that and it shattered it to think that I was the reason behind them tears. I walked up to her slowly, standing in front of her as her eyes grew wide. She stood up cautiously at my presence and I started to spill out everything I had been keeping up inside of me. Everything I needed to get out, everything that was eating me up inside and everything I should've said days ago; putting my heart before my head. 

 Grace's POV

"Grace. Grace look, I'm so sorry. I know my words won't speak for my actions and that my apologises are empty. I don't know what was going through my mind, I panicked, I freaked out and I went running. Everyday since I walked out that door I have been thinking of all the things I should've done, everything I should've said. At the time when you needed me most I went, when I should've been in your arms holding you as you cried; I disappeared. I stayed up all night drinking, drowning myself in pity. I was a coward, I am a coward. I guess I can only say that the thought of becoming a dad so soon frightened me. I want to be the man you said about in your letter, I want to defy the stereotypes. I know I can be that man, I understand it all now. That I shouldn't see any of this as a chore, something that has to happen but as an act of love. And this is why I am here, because I love you Grace.  I've had all this time to think about it, all these days to picture our lives. And it's all clear Grace. I don't know why but I can see everything as if it has already happened and my only reasoning is that it was meant to be. That I was meant to be a father and you were meant to be the mother, that we were meant to be. So if we're doing this, I'm doing it right."  

He bent down on one knee, pulling a black box from his trouser pocket. 

"So, Grace Anne Helbig, will you please make all my dreams come true and marry me?"  

My heart pounded. This was what I had been dreaming of, all the times I had pictured this exact moment. No matter how many times I had recited what my reaction would be, the words I would say, I was not ready. My brain refusing to cooperate as my heart spoke. Maybe what I was about to say was wrong, maybe later on I would regret it. But I trusted my heart and I trusted him. 

"Yes you idiot! Yes yes yes!" 

A feeling I had never experienced before ran through me, a mixture of happiness and fear. I didn't know what I was letting myself in for but I loved it all. As Chester slid the ring onto my finger, as I was lifted into the air and spun around I was sure that this right here, the place where I fell in love with him, would be the place where I stayed in love with him; forever.