are you ready!?
ARE YOU SURE??
yes, you are.
welcome to the final chapter of Parker Stevens, I Can Hold a Grudge. I hope you enjoyed the ride, and I hope you don't leave little old me alone once this story is finished. I have other stories, one that I actually have the plot written out already. The story is called 72 Dares, and please read it if you haven't already. I really don't want all of you to disappear on me.. :(
BIG AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE END. PLEASE READ IT!!
here you go.
PS, the song is kind of important, so if you can't see it on your ipod or whatever... you'll understand in a mintue :)
*****
Tossing myself onto the left side of my body, I pushed my eyes open to see the clock read 3:30AM. Five minutes had passed since I last checked the time.
I groaned loudly and shoved my face into my pillow angrily. I would be woken up in two hours for my flight. Grumpy was going to be present tomorrow.
I hadn’t seen Parker since the confrontation on Tuesday and sleep hadn’t been coming to me since last Friday. I half expected him to do something horrible, half expected him to fight for me but I guess that wasn’t going to happen. Old Grace read too many romance novels, that’s for sure.
My idea of men was very flawed- they weren’t like Noah in The Notebook. No man would ever rebuild a house for a girl. Or kiss her in the rain. Or settle for one girl. It just didn’t work. Sure, my parents settled, but they were an exception.
Men these days used girls like they were napkins, never bothering to pick them up off the ground where they fell. Disposed of. I felt like I was just another one.
I was officially a napkin.
The thought had me groaning into my pillow again. In fact, the pillow was starting to choke me so I flipped myself back onto my back.
Letting myself like Parker was probably inevitable. Maybe it was fate. But if so, fate was telling me we didn’t belong together. We were probably supposed to always hate each other, and Teagan just happened to help fate out.
Ever since January first though, I think I secretly belonged to the boy who stole my first kiss. I knew some stuff about him, but not enough to have fallen in love with him.
Right?
What is love anyways? It’s impossible for me to know what non-platonic love was because I had never experienced it. There was no doubt in my mind that Parker hadn’t experienced it either. Who knew who he was before he was homeless after his dad passed away? Teagan did, I guess, but it wasn’t like I was going to ever talk to him again. Not that I would even want to.
Could I be in love with a selfish, pompous, jerk? I couldn’t sleep, barely ate anything, only thought about him for this past week. For two and a half months, my life had revolved around Parker Stevens. Plans, pranks- everything to try and bring him down. To get him to leave. Why?
Because little Gracie-poo was scared.
She was scared shitless of what Parker was doing to her. So she went and hid. And now, the new Grace was here, but even she was turning into a scared little bitch.
I must be crazy.
I’d wanted to get him out of the school and out of my life because I didn’t want to like him. It was so obvious to me now. I didn’t want my first romance to be a arrogant bastard. But he wasn’t like that at all. He was sweet, and he actually cared about me. Or at least I thought he did. He was so adorable, with those heart-melting brown eyes of his, and when he danced with me? I’ve never felt so alive. So happy. When I’m with him, I finally feel fulfilled. Like maybe, he’s what I’ve been missing.
I sat up straight in bed and gasped.
Everyone was right!
I am...in love with Parker Stevens.
My head began to spin.
The air suddenly felt too thick to my lungs and I jumped up and out of my bed. It was choking me. I needed out.
Fresh air. Maybe that’ll help.
The heat was on since it was March but I didn’t care because the whole room felt like it was closing in on me.
I love him.
I opened my window all the way and closed my eyes, breathing in the sharp March air for a few moments.
I’m in love with him.
Cursing my thoughts, I curtly spun back towards my bed and hopped into it.
Laying there, I realized that wasn’t going to help considerably. I needed something to distract my mind.
Maybe counting sheep would help.
So I began to picture small white fluffy sheep in my head, lined up one behind the other in front of a white picket fence. The first little guy started running suddenly then-
1 sheep.
I heard a car trail down the road in the back of my mind. It stopped in front of our house but I paid no attention, figuring it was our party seeking neighbours coming home from a club.
The second sheep geared up and bolted right up and over the fence.
2 sheep.
I pictured five more sheep hop over the fence, slowly concentrating on their graceful dives over the white fence before they ran off to freedom.
The eighth sheep was just was just about to start his gallop over to the fence when something interrupted me.
“...We’ll do it all,” A voice suddenly pierced into my thoughts of sheep. It sounded too loud to just be someone talking, and too melodic. “Everything. On our own,” The male voice continued. It was a song. The voice was accompanied by two simple cords being strummed on a guitar. And come to think of it, the song sounded an awful lot like-
“We don’t need, anything. Or anyone,” The voice sang.
Chasing Cars. Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol.
Maybe my iPod was playing and I hadn’t even realized it. All I knew was that my eyes closed at the familiar melody and strumming on the guitar of my favourite song. Only one other person knew that and that was Bri.
The song picked up into the chorus and my mind practically melted, like it did every time I heard the lyrics spilling out of this song.
“If I lay here. If I just lay here. Would you lie with me, and just forget the world,” The song was louder now, as if the volume was being turned up. Where was it coming from? It didn’t matter to me at the moment because; my heart was a puddle on the floor. I must have been dreaming. Maybe I had finally fallen asleep and this was some crazy dream. Now that I thought about it, the music was coming from outside my window.
Maybe someone was just playing their music too loud. Yeah, that’s it. Just some crazy neighbour of mine was blasting my all time favourite song.
“I don’t quite know, how to say, how I feel,” The song continued. It sounded like someone was blasting it from a stereo. But who would have stereo outside?
Slowly, I sat up and opened my eyes. There was light shining in from the driveway into my room. I furrowed my eyebrows and moved my feet off the side of my bed. “Those three words, are said too much. They’re not enough.”
My feet moved slowly across the wooden floor towards the window. I heard the stirring of my parents in the room over but my mind was focused on the scene outside of my window. What the hell is going on?
My feet reached the window as the chorus started up again.
“If I lay here. If I just lay here. Would you lie with me, and just forget the world,” The song played out.
My heart rose all the way up to my throat and I released a half sob/laugh at the scene directly below me.
Parker Stevens was standing on the roof of his car parked in our driveway, holding a stereo directly over his head, staring at my window expectantly. The stereo was plugged into his car, the song playing out of the speakers on that as well.
His lips tugged into a small smile when he saw me standing in the window. He brought the stereo down and motioned for me to come outside with one hand.
“Forget what we’re told. Before we get too old. Show me a garden, that’s bursting into life,” The song went on as I stared blankly at Parker.
“Grace? Who is that?” I heard from behind me but I ignored it, suddenly bursting away from the window. I ran past my mom who was standing in my doorway, down the hall and straight to the front door- not even bothering to put on shoes or a coat. I unlocked the front door and stepped out into the frigid March air, but I could barely feel it- Parker’s eyes were already melting me.
He jumped down from the roof of the car, leaving the stereo on, but turning to volume down a little bit. I wrapped my arms around myself and stared at him as he walked up my front steps.
“I need your grace, to remind me, to find my own,” The song played from behind us.
“Grace,” Parker breathed once he reached me. I took a step back for good measure, just in case he reached out and touched me- because I hadn’t quite forgiven him yet. Despite the most romantic gesture in the entire world. Well, for me.
“Parker,” I whispered. My cheeks felt wet and I embarrassedly wiped away the tears that were streaming down my cheeks.
“I came here tonight because I couldn’t let you leave to Florida today without knowing the truth,” He said quietly, shoving his hands into his jean’s pockets.
“What is the truth?” I replied with as much anger as I could muster at the moment. I was in a little bit of a daze. A romantic daze.
“The truth? I texted Teagan that so he would leave us alone, expecting that I was just going to dump you on your ass. I never thought he would pull them back out and shove them in our faces. Because I was never going to do that to you Grace. And this whole week, I couldn’t even get out of bed because I kept thinking she’ll never even let me explain, so that’s why I did this,” He turned and motioned to the scene behind him. I scoffed quietly.
“And how am I supposed to know that you’re not just doing this so you can get into my pants or something?” I tried, even though while I was saying it I knew it wasn’t true. I was just trying to push everything out of him. Trying not to give in too easily. He raised an eyebrow.
“How many guys do you know would do this for a girl?” He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder, motioning to the car again. My mouth shut immediately, because we both knew that answer: None.
“How did you...” I muttered, trying not to melt in his arms already and kiss him like crazy. Resisting that urge was so near impossible, but somehow I was doing it.
“Briana helped me out a bit,” He replied, rubbing the back of his neck.
“She came up with this?” I grumbled, immediately dissatisfied. He couldn’t even think of it himself?
“No, no way. I just asked her what your favourite song was. It came in handy that it happened to fit this situation too well,” He rushed out.
“How does it fit this situation?” I asked him slowly. The song had finished now and people across the street were standing outside of their houses, still watching us even though it was quiet now.
He took a deep breath and looked up at me through his dark eyelashes.
“Because I think... I’m kind of... Sort of,” He whispered before taking a pause. His feet moved towards me and I glanced down to see our distance was getting too close. But I couldn’t force myself to move with the penetrating gaze he had on me. Finally, he reached me. He looked down at me, hands still in his pockets, and smiled. “In love with you.”
The world froze.
Love.
The word I had been hearing for the past few days. But right now, hearing it, I felt it.
It ran through my core, up my veins, into my heart, up my backbone.
I couldn’t believe the words that had come out of his mouth.
“What?” I practically gasped. He smiled down at me, the smile slowly turning into a smirk.
I had never felt so much hatred towards one person. I hadn’t even known it was possible to be able to feel such an awful emotion so greatly. But yet, here I was, what I thought to be anger and hatred coursing through my veins as he smirked at me. I wanted to punch that damn smirk off of his face.
“God, I hate you,” I whispered, a shaky smile making its way onto my face. He shook his head.
“No, you don’t,” He whispered just as quiet as I had.
He was right.
“You’re right,” I raised my voice slightly. My hands lifted from where they were secured below my chest and moved up. I wound my fingers in his hair, shaking my head.
Who ever thought that I, Grace Tailor, would fall in love?
Fate knew, I guess. Maybe Fate pushed us together. Who knew?
All I knew was that, right now, I couldn’t have been happier.
And I couldn’t have been more in love with Parker Stevens.
“I love you,” I whispered.
Then he kissed me.
His lips pressed softly against mine and faintly, I heard the cheering and clapping of my neighbours, but right now?
Right now, I wasn’t going to think about the future, or the past. What was going to happen next, or if I’ll even be together with him after this.
Right now, I was going to kiss Parker Stevens, the boy I loved.
And I was going to enjoy it.
THE END
*****
*cries*
Here we are, at the end. I want to to thank a few people before you go
xoStardust: if you didn't find this story, I never would have finished it. You brought so many new readers to this story, and without that support, I don't think I would have even bothered with this. ♥
someclevername: YOU! Without you, your comments, you messaging me on facebook... man, I don't know if I would have updated as fast as I did sometimes. ♥
PurpleConverse: you kind of joined in reading near the end, but you are one of my first fans. You really helped push me forward when sometimes I just didn't want to write. You voted when on all the chapters, even though you never even read the story. You've done a lot, and thank you for it <3 (:
EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU.
silent readers, plain old voters, voters & commenters, fans. All of you. Although this story only has 14,000 reads or something like that, you don't even know how much I appreciate each and every one of you.
I hope you can continue your support on any of my other stories, but even if you don't, thank you for evne giving my little story a chance.
Grace and Parker had a chance because of you.
I love you all,
thank you & goodnight!
- Natalie ♥