Fall From Grace(56)

I folded the note back up so no one could see it.  I didn’t know if anyone who read it would understand what Jake had implied, but I couldn’t chance it.  Lea was the only other person who knew my secret. They were the only two people I had ever told about my past.  The reason was simple; this was the hardest life I had fallen into.

Usually, I fell into someone older who lingered on for a short amount of time. When they passed on, I would end up a lost soul in another shell.  I’d lost so many people, and I’d suffered so many sicknesses and diseases, it was beyond count.   I once woke up in a woman who had been attacked by a rapist. She was lucky enough to die in the beginning of his torture.  Me?  My soul showed up for the whole show. I begged him to kill me when he was done with her body and he did; slowly.

Each time that I could take no more of a person’s life, I would take too many pills, or forget to take certain medicine, or like in this life, slice my wrists open when I was sixteen.  I don’t condone suicide, but really is it?  These beautiful souls have gone and I’m just shoved into their rotting bodies.  My own personal hell, a lost soul on earth for eternity.

Jacob once asked me if I was a ghost.  I told him that I didn’t know.  I’m more of just a lost spirit, wandering around looking for the other half of me.

This was the only life that I had lived through ending it. Gabriel once said that maybe it was because he was here with me somewhere.  Gabriel.  I think I’m his personal play thing, I think this is his sick experiment on how much an angel’s heart can take before it turns its wings on the love of a human.

Two hours later, Shane’s soft touch on my shoulder woke me.  I had fallen asleep clutching Jacob’s words.  My face was still damp from tears and it hurt to blink them.

“Grace?  What’s wrong, are you sick?”

I sat up, the papers crinkling noisily around me.  “I’m fine.  How are you?” I asked curtly.

His muscular arm reached up, running his hand through his hair, a lost confused expression on his face.  “What the hell did I do last night?”

Laughter busted out of my mouth.  “That’s great, Shane.  No, really.  That’s perfect.  Why don’t you go home now, okay?  Goodbye,” I snapped.  Jerk.  I still felt the heat of his touch on me!

He stood there deep in thought, seemingly trying to remember any information from the night before.  “Grace, I know we didn’t, did we?”

I grabbed up all the loose papers around me, got up, shoved them into a drawer, and stormed out of my room.  I slammed the door in his face, but he just swung it right back open.

I bolted into the kitchen and he was right behind me.  I honestly thought about getting a sharp knife out of one of the drawers to scare him.  He grabbed me by one arm and swung me around.  My heart pounded hard and I could feel my pulse in my wrists.

“What did I do?  Why have you been crying?”  He asked with a soft sad expression.  His face leaned in so close to me that I felt his breath on my skin.

“You didn’t do anything, Shane.  You called me last night.  You thought I was with Ethan.  I hung up on you and you climbed up the fire escape in the snow, with no coat on and banged on my window until I let you in.  Now please, just leave.”

“No.”  He shook his head vehemently.  “No.  I’m not leaving until I know I’m not the reason you’re crying.”  He stopped talking and looked me intensely in the eyes.  “You were wearing a sheet?  You…you got me dry clothes,” he said, remembering.