See You Around~ Grester (completed)

Chapter Forty

Chester's POV

"Do you like it?" Grace squealed excitably as we drove through the towns of her birth place.

"I love it." I said, making Grace smile but then her face changed to a look of questioning- as if something she had never contemplated had entered her brain.

"You say you love it, but what does that really mean?" She turned in her seat so she was facing me.

"What does love mean?" I laughed, she nodded expectantly.

"Well, I've always thought about it as if love is a homeless guy: searching for treasure in the middle of the rain and he finds a bag of gold coins but slowly finds out they're all filled with chocolate and even though he's heart broken, he can't complain because he was hungry in the first place."

She smiled at that, as if agreeing with what I had said but I proceeded to explain.

"I guess you could say that you were my chocolate. I wasn't looking for you but I found you and I didn't realise how much I needed you until you were with me."

"I think that's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me." She grinned up at me before turning back to the window and admiring the scenery.

I knew just how much she had missed it here and I knew just how thankful she was for me bringing her home. I couldn't help but get excited with her, the prospect of this trip creating butterflies in my stomach.

"Chester?" Grace whispered. I mumbled something and she carried on speaking; her voice full of confusion.

"If you're right, if love is a homeless guy and I am the thing he got but wasn't searching for then what was he looking for, what was he intending to find?" She carried on with the metaphor but I knew she was referring to me.

"He wasn't looking for anything in particular; I think he was just tired of the loneliness. I think the homeless man was aware that there are many in the world that are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love."

She seemed content with that. It was true, I believed every word I had spoken.

For years I had felt like an aeroplane in a train station, out of place but not knowing how to escape. That had changed though, I fitted in as I stuck out and Grace made me feel comfortable with being who I truly was. I guess that was another thing I had to thank her for.

Grace's POV

For years I had watched in awe as couples got married in my home-town, for years I had ran up to the window and waved as the wedding cars would roll down the road, for years I had been jealous. The fact that I no longer needed to dream was so surreal; as if someone was playing a beautiful trick on me but I didn't mind. They can carry on manipulating me, they can carry on giving me everything I have ever wanted for the way my life is now, is perfect.

It is not what I had expected, the way you feel like when you're in love. It's normal to love someone but to be in love with someone is a completely different thing. It's how I felt around Chester, how my heart felt around him. When I say my heart aches or I am certain of something because my hearts tell me so, I am not exaggerating, I am not lying. It is the way I know something is right, how I can decide on whether something or someone is worth hurting for.

Chester was worth it, he was worth it a thousand times and more. He made me feel something I could never describe and I wasn't sure if anyone else had ever felt the same way. I wasn't even sure if Chester felt the same.

My mum had always told me that as many words as there were in the English language there was preciously ninety-nine ways to describe love. Ninety-nine words, ninety-nine poems, ninety-nine smilies, ninety-nine metaphors. I had asked her again and again why there was ninety-nine, why there couldn't be one more. When I was little she answered that I should appreciate what I had, that I cannot always be asking for the last thing. I knew that wasn't the truth, I knew that that was just a way to make me into a better person.

I wanted to know the real answer and so, when she visited me in hospital a few weeks ago I had asked her one more time just like before, but this time she told me the truth.

But why just ninety-nine metaphors and not an even hundred?

Because the last one has been left for you to create.

I believe I have my answer, I believe I have created it. I believe that that last metaphor, that last word is a blank line, one for you to fill a name in. So I mentally inscribe his name, round my number to an even hundred and then I have it. The answer I have been looking for all my life, the one I never thought I would be granted. Chester.

See, you may not be able to have an answer to every question straight away, it may take years for you to find what you are looking for. Keep accepting the decoys for the real thing, keep asking and looking. Keep wandering until you have your answer, keep searching for your missing number, your last metaphor, your last name.

Because that's all I needed, one single name. And no one can tell you what that name is, no one knows until the pen picks itself up and begins writing. That name, of the one person you love most. The one person who can see you falling in the clouds and lift you up the sky. The one person who can fill in that missing space, the one person who can answer all your questions. Chester.