Chapter Twenty Five: Planning Freedom
I feel fingertips dancing up and down my side. Danny's chest is pressed up against my back, his face nuzzled into my hair.
We decided to stay at school, and we did, but afterwards, I followed him to his house so he could drop his truck off, and then we rode here.
We ditched his truck as an excuse for me to have to drive him home tonight.
I think my Dad is home because I keep hearing movement in the house. I don't really care if he's here though.
I roll over to face Danny. He smiles a little bit and reaches up to brush my hair out of my face.
"Talk to me." He whispers suddenly.
I peer into his eyes.
"About what?" I murmur.
"Anything. Us. I want to know what you want."
I smile a little bit. "In terms to what?"
He sighs.
"The future. Our lives. How fast do you want to take this from here?"
I reach out and brush my fingers down his cheek.
"I don't want to rush anything." I whisper softly. "We don't need to rush anything. We have our entire lives."
"Well how long do you want to wait?" He wonders.
Neither one of us are saying the word but we both know what we're talking about.
I sigh softly. "When it happens, it happens. We don't need to do things with society's timeline. We do things...when we're ready to do things...but we don't need to wait a long time either."
"So..." he trails off.
"No timeline." I murmur, sliding my fingers up and down his toned arms. "When it happens, it happens."
"And what about college? What if we have to go different places?"
"Not going to happen." I say. "We both have excellent grades. That's one thing I made sure of."
"Right, because before we knew you were moving, we were going to apply to the same colleges so we could be together."
I hum in agreement.
"So...if we get into separate colleges but only one college together, that's the one we accept...if that's what you want."
"That's what I want." He murmurs.
I know he really wants to know if I want this to be long term.
"And we need to have kids before thirty...or at least start. I think we get married in the mid twenties and have kids in the late twenties."
He grins.
"Okay."
I laugh a little bit.
"I don't know how many kids I want." I murmur. "But I want a bigger family, because mine is super small."
"Three or four?" He wonders.
"Yeah." I nod in agreement."And I want to live somewhere with snow so we can have pretty Christmas'. I mean, it's almost Christmas here and it doesn't feel like it."
"And...what about college and moving in together?"
I think about it for a moment.
"We could get an apartment or a little house while we're in college...unless we have to live on campus." I pause. "But I really don't want to go back to Maryland unless we're visiting. I'm sorry if you do, but after everything with my Mom..." I trail off. "That's not really something I'm interested in."
"I want to visit...but we won't move back." He pauses. "Where do you want to go to college?"
I sigh.
"I don't know. I haven't even started applying."
"Me either. We really need to start applying. I don't even know if I get federal aid."
"I think I will. I mean, my Mom's income isn't included anymore, right?"
He gives me a sad smile and brushes his thumb across my cheek.
"Right."
We're both quiet for a while, and then he speaks.
"How are you doing? How are you sleeping?"
"I'm good. I've been sleeping pretty bad since everything with you..." I trail off. "But the tea helps. I don't know what it is, but it helps."
He smiles.
"I'm glad."
We're quiet again, and again, he's the first to break it.
"I want you to say it again."
He keeps asking me to say it, but I don't mind.
"I'm in love with you." I whisper. I fall onto my stomach and prop my head up with my hand. "I love you. I love you. I love you."
I kiss his forehead.
"I love you too." He grins. "I think you and I should-"
I hear insistent knocking on my bedroom door, and then,
"Gracelyn Beth Levinsky, come out here now!"
Only it's not my Dad. It's Beatrice. My eyes widen at Danny.
"What did you tell her?" I whisper.
"I didn't tell her anything!" He whispers back.
I get out of bed.
"Stay there!" I whisper. He sits up and nods.
I open the bedroom door and shut it behind me.
Beatrice and Caleb are in the living room with Dad, and all three of them look mad.
"What?" I ask.
"Listen, I know you and Danny are going through a rough patch, but it needs to end. His truck is home and he isn't, and he's not answering his phone. I want you to use your phone to call him."
"I can't call him. He blocked me."
"Well where is he?" She presses. "I swear I'm going to lock the both of you in a closet until you work out your differences."
"Beatrice-"
"I mean, this has to stop." She says. "This needs to stop."
"Danny is in my room." I sigh, throwing my hands up and then letting them slap against my thighs.
"What?" The three of them say in sync.
I push open my bedroom door and Danny practically has his ear pressed against it.
When he comes out of my room, all three of them are silent.
Dad stands up from the couch.
"You two have been in there alone? All day? With the door shut?" He says finally.
"Yes...we always have..." I trail off.
"Come sit down. Both of you." Beatrice points to the couch.
We sit down on the loveseat and our parents exchange looks.
"Who has it?" Caleb asks.
"I think Eileen wrote it." Dad says. "But I don't know where it is. She might have it."
The mention of my mother makes me start picking at my nail polish.
Everyone is quiet, exchanging glances and then looking at me.
"I thought she was in rehab?" I grumble.
"She's out." Dad mutters. "She got out like...two weeks ago. As far as I know, she's living with Nana."
"So you've spoken to her?" I ask.
"I've spoken to Nana." He says.
"Grace, do you care if we call her?" Beatrice asks gently.
"Whatever." I mutter. Yes. Of course I care, but I'm sick of having the conversation.
I hate it. I hate that I want to know how she's doing. I hate that even though she's far from me, even after what she did to me, I still care.
I hate it.
Dad pulls out his phone and puts it on speaker as he dials a number.
It rings twice and then stops.
"Hello?"
The familiar voice of my Nana comes over the phone and I smile a little. I haven't seen her in a long time. When my Mom lost her job, she shut out everyone, even Beatrice and Caleb, who she was as close with as Dad is.
The fact that she's at Nana's makes me kind of happy. She let them back in, and that's good, right?
"Hey Harriet, it's Scott. How are you?"
"I'm good honey, how are you?"
"I'm good." He says.
"And Gracelyn? How is she doing?"
"She's good. Actually, that's what I'm calling about. Do you think I can talk to Eileen?"
Nana's quiet for a moment.
"Hey Sport, it's Thomas."
It's my Grandad.
"Hey Thomas." Dad says.
"Listen, Eileen is still in recovery and I'm not sure if talking about Gracelyn is really good for her right now...she's really..." he sighs. "She's struggling with everything, with what she did..." he trails off.
"I think we all are, but-"
"Who's on the phone?" I hear my Mom ask in the background.
In the past few years, her voice was sharp. It was always sharp, and it made me flinch at her tone, but right now it's gentle and calm like how it was when I was a child.
"Um...it's Jake from State Farm." Grandad stammers, and I smile, not lifting my eyes from picking at my nail polish.
"No it's not. Dad, who is it?" Mom asks. There's a pause. "Mom?"
"It's Scott, sweetheart. He wants to talk to you about Gracie, but-"
"Give me the phone." She says.
"But the doctor said-"
"I don't care what the doctor said." She says. "If he wants to talk to me about our daughter, I'm going to talk to him. Please give me the phone."
Everyone on our side of the phone is silent, and everyone on their side of the phone are silent. My heart is pounding in my chest.
"I'll put it on speaker." Nana says finally. "Does that work for you guys?"
"Yes." Dad says at the same time that Mom says, "I guess so."
I hear Nana hit a button on her phone.
"Okay Scott, she can hear you."
"What's going on with Gracelyn?" Mom asks.
"I just...remember back when Grace and Danny were babies and you and Beatrice made that list...?" He trails off. "And you guys said you'd read it to them when the time came?"
Mom is quiet for a second.
"Yeah, I remember."
"Well...the time has come."
Silence.
"Are you serious?" She asks.
"Yes."
"Okay..." she sighs. "I don't remember where it is. I think I gave it to Beatrice."
Dad looks at Beatrice and she shakes her head.
"Beatrice doesn't have it. Did you put it in the fire box? Or maybe you packed it in the divorce..." he trails off.
"It might be in the fire box." She says.
Dad walks over to the ottoman and opens it up. He grabs the fire box and his keychain and unlocks it.
Is this seriously necessary? I want to leave the room. I think this is a little bit too much for me to handle.
She's doing well. Good for her, but I can't sit here and listen to her voice. It makes every hair on my body stand on edge, even if there's a different tone to it.
It makes me sad, so without a word or a glance in anybody's direction, I stand up and walk into my bedroom.
I'm not even alone for three seconds before Danny walks in after me and shuts the door all the way.
"Are you okay?" He asks.
I can hear them through the wall. Dad found the list and he's reading it. It's my fault. I said he could call her.
And he wanted to call her. Why? Because he still loves her.
And she's being included in my life. She's included in everything. I bet she knows where I live.
"I'm leaving." I tell Danny. "I need to leave. They're telling her stuff. They're telling her stuff!"
Without any hesitation, he grabs both of our backpacks, my car keys, and sets them on the bed. He grabs a backpack and throws a handful of my clothes in it and gets my toothbrush from the bathroom, and then he pulls me out the back door.
He helps me over the fence without the chair and hands me the backpacks when I land on the ground, and then he jumps it himself.
I reach for the keys to Ocean, but he shakes his head.
"You shouldn't drive while you're upset. I'll drive."
We both rush to Ocean and toss the bags in the back seat. He turns her on and backs out, and puts his seatbelt on when he gets onto the road. I put mine on too, and he reaches for my hand.
The radio is on and playing country, but I shut it off.
"I mean, she still has control over me. I know I said he could call but he was getting a list! Not sharing it to include her! She's not even near me and I feel like she's in the next room over! What if I come home from school and she's there? I feel trapped. He keeps bringing her up, torturing me with just the thought of her!"
"I know." He says, raising my hand to his lips. He kisses the back of it. "I know."
"I don't know what to do."
"Here's what we do." He says. "We go to my house and we sit down...and we apply to colleges and do online tours. We make plans to go visit colleges during spring break...and winter break. We only have to get through this until May tenth, baby girl. May tenth. It's already December. We graduate and go on our trip, and we just...we stay away until July and we spend the summer shopping and planning, and then in August, we move to wherever we're going to college, and we stay there for four years, and we can live together and you will always be safe with me. I'm not bringing anybody into our space without knowing you're okay with it."
I watch him as he drives. The sun is going down and the glow of it is making his brown eyes light up.
"So we go to your house and stay there?" I whisper. "And I don't have to go home tonight?"
"Right." He murmurs. "Do you want to apply to colleges?"
"Yeah." I nod.
"Great." He smiles and kisses my hand again. "You just have to get through to May."
"Danny, what if my Dad doesn't let me move away to college? I won't be eighteen until next September."
"He's going to let you." He says. "Everything is going to be fine, and if, God Forbid, she does show up and you're alone, you have this baby." He pats Ocean's dash. "And you get in the car and come right to me, and I'll keep you safe. I promise."
I don't know how I wasn't in love with him.
*****
I feel like this chapter sucked *inserts eyeroll emoji*
~Sam