State Of Grace

Chapter 28 - We Were Happy

"You don't have to hide that stuff around me," Gracie said. "I've been there," she pulled her hair to one side showing Jasper a small red mark on her the side of her neck. "Ex-foster mom threw her bottle at me. I ducked but the glass shattered on the wall behind me and a shard of glass landed there. I was twelve, almost passed out when I got one of the little kids to pull it out."

Jasper stared at her, then took a breath and showed her the bruise that wrapped from the left side of his collarbone around to his shoulder blade, "Before I moved back home, I was in a group home and one of the older kids thought I'd stolen something of his, he dragged me out to the shed in the yard and shoved me in, he left me there overnight."

She could just make out the outline of a hand in the bruise, and it reminded Gracie of the hand-shaped marks that John and countless others had left on her body. She could tell by the color of the bruise that it was no more than a week old.

"But things are a little better now? Back home with your dad?" She asked, hoping he'd had better luck with the system than her.

"Yeah, I mean, it's been weird, sort of awkward, he's so nice and apologetic about everything, but I guess I'm still on edge," Jasper tugged on the sleeves of his hoodie, and Gracie saw herself in the younger boy.

"But he hasn't... you know, hurt you again, has he?" Gracie was nervous to ask because Jasper had never explicitly said that his dad was violent, but to her it was obvious.

"What, like, hit me? I never said he hit me," Jasper became defensive, looking Gracie in the eye.

"Okay," Gracie threw her hands up in surrender, "Okay, I'm sorry, I just assumed."

Jasper folded his arms, "Well, you shouldn't have."

They sat in silence for a moment, Gracie worried she'd already ruined her chance to make another good friend, she needed all the friends she could get now that Sarah would be gone by the end of the summer.

"I didn't mean to snap,"  he was silent for a second again, and then Jasper laughed.

Gracie was confused, still, she couldn't help but laugh along, "What's so funny?"

"I just realized that maybe I'm more like my dad than I thought, short-tempered, defensive, I never thought I'd see things from his perspective. Maybe that's why we always clashed. Because we're so similar," Jasper's tone changed, "I just hope I never get as mad as him, I'd never want to scare my kid like that."

"If you don't want to then you won't, we make our own decisions, we can either end up like our parents, or we can try to do what they never could," Gracie promised herself that if she was lucky enough to have a future, she would never put her child through the hell that she'd endured.

Jasper walked Gracie home after they sat and talked for a little while longer, and when Gracie came through the front door, Danny was waiting for her.

"Who was that?" He asked as Gracie made her way into the kitchen for dinner.

"Just this kid from group therapy, don't worry I'm not having a straight phase again, we're just friends," she joked and sat down at the table with her family, feeling more at ease after spending time with Jasper. Talking about his life had distracted her for a while, and it felt good to be there for someone for a change.

A week later, the Tucker family was scattered around the house, the kids were studying for their exams while Stella and Lilah cleaned up after dinner. Gracie and Danny were sitting at the kitchen table finishing up their joint presentation for English, it would count for forty percent of their grade and it was due the next morning. After that, they would have a few more exams and it would finally be summer vacation.