Everything You Wanted Me To Be.

Chapter 8

We eat breakfast quickly. He watches me throughout, trying to weigh me up. I do the same but hiding my glances. I'm trying to see if any of his tattoos are changed. It's like he reads my mind when he looks at me "it's still there, if that's what you're wondering?" I was.

My mind jumps back to a summers evening in Chicago. We'd not been together long, but we were mad for each other. Jace took me with him to get a tattoo and paid the artist to let me have a go. I refused at first but then something about it seemed tempting. Soon enough I was grazing his skin with the tattoo gun. Badly I'll add. I scrolled my favourite Hemmingway quote, yep hemmingway, but this was not dark it was light and loving "I loved you when I saw you today and I loved you always but I never saw you before"  it's placed on his flank and in my terrible tattoo gun handwriting, but it was my favourite, it was ours. We were mad and in love.

"I'll show you later." He smirks. "I didn't expect you to remove it; maybe cover it." "I've never had a tattoo with such meaning Grace. It'll be there till my skin is cold in the ground." I roll my eyes. That's a typical Jace thing to say. He always said the right things, until he didn't. " I was thinking about taking you to the aquarium and then maybe we could go to this live art exhibition this afternoon?" These sound like dates, and good ones at that. He knows me well. I wanted to see the live art exhibition for too long. "Fine. Id like that." I let him have a weak smile. He's trying I'll give him that. We walk to the car, as expected he has a yellow ticket attached to his windscreen, he takes it and shoves it into the glove box. He's going to forget about it and owe a ton of money. I roll my eyes again. "What? Are you going to roll your eyes at me all day?" He's leaning over to me, his eyes on fire. I can feel his warm breath on my neck. I shudder and lean back and smirks. "We are inevitable grace, just accept it and take the ride." I wince at this, he use to say this to me. I'm desperate to talk about Chicago, explore everything, but the wounds it would open will hurt, can I go through all that again? Again like reading my mind "Baby? Sorry, I just, I want to get back to us. We will talk about everything, tonight, I'll cook...but please just enjoy today. Let me spoil you?" He knows me so well.

After a short car journey we pull into the aquarium. I don't have high expectations. He flew me to Seattle once and took me to an aquarium there, it was incredible. The car park of this aquarium is empty and I question if it's even open. Jace doesn't seem to look nor care, he jumps out the car and runs around and opens my door...odd. He takes my hand in his gently. This was not what I meant when I asked for space but I go along with it for the sake of the day...I think. He squeezes and it makes my chest ache. I look up at him and he's looking right back down at me, those grey eyes, they hold so much light today. Nothing like the last time I'd seen him. They were black and furious. I bite my cheek thinking of the shard of glass lodged in my arm from his drunken antics. I look at my arm, my coat hides the small 2 inch scar. The memories don't hide though.

We open the door to the aquarium and we are met by a young man. "Welcome to sealife if you go that way the aquarium starts there." He points to a small opening. I'm in the second room full of tanks before it crosses my mind I've not seen a single person, nor did we pay? This has Jace all over it. We reach a tunnelled room, sharks swim around our heads. I'm however most taken by a small ray scurrying along the floor. I turn to face Jace. "You did this didn't you, the aquarium is shut for us?" His cheeks flush, I'm not sure if it's with Anger from my challenge or embarrassment. "Yes..I did, but it's only temporary it'll be open again later." I scowl at him but deep down I love the privacy. I've always struggled with crowds and he knows it. Rather than scolding me for my anxiety, like he use to he's gone out of his way. I turn my scowl into a smile. He reciprocates and pulls me in to a hug. It's not romantic, but not friendly either. His hands rest on my waist. " thank you" I smile and walk towards the glass, following my little stingray friend dance around the sand.

The tunnel of water causes the room to be dark, barely light, the water causes shimmers casting shadows through the tube. Jace is a few meters ahead of me looking at a small group of fish. He's beautiful and he was my everything. Could he be my everything again? I'm not sure on that right now. There is too much hurt just to bypass. Hemingway springs to my mind and I whisper in a low voice " the way to make people trust worthy is to trust them." Jace turns. He heard me, I feel my cheeks flush red, I am pretty sure I spoke in barely a whisper. He returns a whisper saying "courage is grace under pressure." This is the dance we do we recite beautiful messed up words. I look at him, his eyes are glowing, I know mine are too.