Chapter 68

My grandpa had to get stitches, so Connie drove him in to the twenty-four-hour clinic in Fremont. She could've done it here, I'm sure, but she worried for her own safety once my grandpa started coming out of his haze, and I understood why. Jonah and Connie came to my house in two separate cars, and so we drove to the clinic the same way. Connie in hers and Jonah in his with me and my grandpa in the back seat.

We didn't speak.

My grandpa yelled and screamed expletives as he got the stitches in his hand, and I stayed silent while I got a few above my eye and in my neck, where the glass had pierced my skin and left a fragment there. Luckily, it didn't get anywhere it could've truly affected me.

I thought it was over then. That I'd get my grandpa home and back into bed, and I'd wake up the next morning, and it would be just like any other day. But… the clinic had put two and two together and called the cops without my knowledge or permission. Two marked cars arrived, four cops in total, and it took three of them to handcuff my grandpa, who kicked and screamed, and pleaded for me—Jace, his grandson.

Not Isaac—the cause of his terror.

I watched them finally subdue him, while Jonah and a female cop held me back. I begged them not to take him, that he didn't understand what was happening, let alone what he did to get him in that situation, but it fell on deaf ears.

It was only once my grandpa was in the back seat of a cruiser that the female cop had the heart and patience to listen to me. "There's something wrong with him," I told her.

There's something wrong with me.

"He doesn't know what he's doing when he's like this. And he's scared. I'm all he has." I looked her right in the eyes, hoping that it was enough to convey my desperation. "He's all I have left."

"There's nothing I can do," she told me. "At the least, he's in for drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest and assault on a police officer, but… I can give you a ride to the station, and you can be there while we book him."

It was the only time in my life I was grateful for living in such a small town.

Connie and Jonah left, and I spent the rest of the night sitting on one side of the metal bars, while my grandpa lay passed out on the other, and before I knew it, before I was ready, it was game time. I caught a cab home, went right to my van to make sure I had my uniform in my gym bag, and then went straight to the arena. I changed in my van when I got there, and then I put in the work.

It's been hours since the loss, since the last game I'll ever play in a Vikings jersey, with a team I helped build for the past four years, but it's the absolute last thing on my mind.

I raced out as soon as the final buzzer sounded and drove to the police station to see my grandpa. In the time I was gone, he'd caused a "disturbance," whatever that means, and that meant taking away his privileges… meaning me.

They wouldn't allow me to talk to him, or even see him, and no matter what I said or did, nothing would change that.

I walked away, defeated, a frustration brewing in my chest that made it hard to see straight, let alone breathe.

The moment I opened my front door, I was instantly reminded of the night before. The display case was in pieces, with broken glass covering the floor. There was a pool of blood on the carpet from where my grandpa had lain, and I can only imagine how it must've looked from Jonah and Connie's perspective. I ignore the mess, ignore the sound of glass crunching beneath my feet, and head up to my room. I hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours, so you'd think sleep would be easy to come by.

It isn't.

I spend hours in bed, tossing and turning, my mind searching for answers to questions I don't even know. Beyond exasperated, I get out of bed and make my way downstairs, collecting the broom from the closet before getting to work.

It's four p.m. The same time the cops told me to call in on Monday for an update.

I've already lived through twenty-four hours of hell, and now I have forty-eight hours of living through the unknown.

Can't wait.

I open the front door, leave it that way, hoping the fresh air will somehow find its way into my lungs, and with a heavy sigh, I start to pick up the pieces. The display cabinet has been here since I have, and most of the stuff in there was from before. My grandpa's medals, along with a few of mine from when I was little, but mostly, there are reminders of my mom. I pick up a frame holding two separate pictures and inspect it closely. One photograph is of my grandpa holding my mom out in front of what was once Payne Automotive. She couldn't have been older than four. The other is the same setting, only my mom's older and she's holding me. I was around the same age as she was in the first picture. In both, my grandpa stands tall, proud, clear of the darkness that lives within him now. He's smiling, and I can't remember the last time he smiled.

At least not with me.

I put the frame aside, along with the rest of the items, then stand, grabbing the broom to sweep up the broken glass. But the shards get caught in the carpet, in the broom, and I force myself to breathe through my agitation.

I don't get far into the cleanup before a figure appears in the doorway. I'd seen her at the game, way up high in the stands, but I ignored her presence just like I wish I could do now. I don't want Harlow here, or there, or anywhere, for that matter. And I definitely don't want her seeing me, or my house, in this state.

Clearly, she doesn't plan to leave, because she pushes the door open wider, but she doesn't quite step inside.

"What do you want?" I say with a sigh.

"You were late to the game and showed up like… like this, and you left right away, so…"

I hate her voice. I hate the way she looks and the way she speaks and the way she acts like she cares.

Mostly, I hate that I lie to myself about all the above.

I hate that I miss her.

Hate that I spend my nights falling asleep to thoughts of her.

"That didn't answer my question," I mumble.

"I guess… I just wanted to check in on you, make sure you're okay."

I glance up, just in time to see her eyes sweep across the room.

"What happened?"

I swallow my heartache, bury it deep. "You don't get to know, Harlow."

"Jace…"

"No," I rush out. "You broke up with me! You walked away from me! You don't get to come here and pretend like you fucking care!"

"I do care."

"Bullshit!"

"What did you expect me to do? How do you expect me to feel?" she says, her voice cracking with emotion. "We had sex—sex that actually meant something, at least to me, and you go out the next day and brag about it to your buddies, tell them to pay up! I didn't even know that stupid bet was still on, and now you've got me looking back on our entire relationship wondering what was fake and what was real, and when, if ever, things changed for you."

I'm frozen, my breath caught somewhere between my heart and my throat, and I lower my gaze, try to make sense of her words, try to understand them, but…

I don't understand.

Something is wrong with me.

I sweep the glass again, focus on my task. "That's not the reason you told me when you broke up with me," I murmur.

"It should be obvious, Jace. I shouldn't have to tell you."

"Yes, you do, Harlow!" That rage, that anger, that frustration that had been brewing and brewing and brewing erupts, and it finally happens. I lose it. Explode. Throw the fucking broom across the room, cracking the drywall. "With me, you do! You think that this man… the man who did this?!" I yell, sweeping a hand across the room. "And this?!" I point to my face. "This fucking man who raised me… You think he's capable of teaching me right from fucking wrong?! I don't know what's acceptable and what isn't, because no one fucking taught me!"

"Jace," she cries.

"You were sad! That's why I did it! You were sad, and I wanted to make you happy! That's all! I didn't know it was wrong!"

"Jace…"

I can't breathe through this fucking heartache anymore. "Just leave me alone, okay?"

She's sobbing now, big, fat tears I used to wipe away.

"You don't get to cry, Harlow! You don't get to move here and turn my world upside down, all so you can tear it to shreds. Just leave, please!"

She turns slowly, her gaze downcast, shoulders shaking with the force of her cries.

I watch her start to walk away and mumble under my breath. "I wish you'd never moved here."

She spins to me, her eyes wide. "What did you say?"

I repeat my words, louder this time. "I said, I wish you'd never moved here."