3 comments/ 13424 views/ 3 favorites 4. My Father's Son Ch. 10-12 By: inspirixis1 CHAPTER TEN Grace was being such a little drama queen and it was really annoying the shit out of Nicholas. When he had woken to find her note and engagement ring on the bedside table his first reaction was to panic, but then he thought about it. Grace was an adult. She was an adult who had everything. She was just being melodramatic. Despite the fact that she was so annoying, he couldn't help but worry about her safety and he became increasingly pissed off and on edge when she refused to answer her cell phone over the next hour. Finally he got a call from Adrian. "Grace is at my place," he said. "She's going to stay here tonight." Nicholas sighed. He was so tired. "Fine." "Dude, what happened? She's like a fucking zombie." "She's just being a drama queen Adrian, I didn't do anything to her." There was silence over the line for a moment. "She doesn't look very dramatic to me. She looks like she's had a lobotomy. She's just sitting on my bed staring at the wall." Nicholas couldn't deal with Grace's shit anymore, if she wanted to act like a two year old, so be it. "Whatever. Did she say when she's coming home?" "Wait a minute." There was a scuffling noise and then he heard Adrian talking to Grace. "Gracie," he said gently. "Nicholas wants to know when you're going home." There was no reply. "Gracie?" Adrian prompted. "I'll talk to him tomorrow at 2, in our apartment, alone." Grace's voice sounded hoarse and for a moment it pulled on Nicholas' heartstrings, but he pulled himself together. There was more scuffling, then Adrian was back on the phone. "Did you get that?" "Yeah, two o'clock, got it." "Alright. Well... I guess I'll talk to you later." Nicholas hardly slept that night. He couldn't believe that Grace was being such a shit. He'd always thought that she was a good, caring person, but she didn't seem to care for Jaidee or Mai, she only cared about herself and her own perfect little life. Feeding Mai brought him some small relief. Getting up in the middle of the night to feed and change her was tiring but it was the best part of his day. The whole world was still while he sat in the armchair cradling her in his arms and feeding her from a bottle. The whole time Mai stared deep into his eyes, as if she were memorizing his soul. He never knew such an attachment to another person could exist, but it was there and it was real. He couldn't help making promises to Mai. "I love you so much baby girl," he cooed to her. "I'm going to make sure nothing bad ever happens to you." Jaidee looked after Mai during the day but it made Nicholas nervous to leave her for too long so he had gone to the dean of students and gotten special permission to drop all but one of his classes. It wasn't a big deal, he had taken plenty of extra credit over the first three years of his degree, and he only needed to take two classes next semester to graduate on time. Hopefully next semester would be a bit easier. Hopefully by then Grace would have accepted Mai and be helping to look after her more. They say that the first three months with a baby are the hardest. Next semester should be easier. He asked Jaidee to take Mai out to the park for a few hours so he could speak with Grace alone. He didn't see why it was such a big deal but she had specified that she wanted to talk alone and so he played by her stupid rules. She looked so small when she walked in the door. She had a blank expression on her face and it made him wince. It was the way she used to look when she came out of her rape counseling sessions. He was sitting on one of the couches and she chose to sit on the other one. "How's Adrian?" He asked. He hadn't seen Adrian in weeks. He hadn't done anything in weeks apart from look after Mai and go to his one finance class. He didn't go to Aikido with Grace anymore or practice Taekwondo at the dojang. "He's fine. Same as always." She wasn't looking into his eyes as she spoke, she was looking at his mouth. "Are you going to adopt Mai?" He sighed. Of course she would bring that up right away. "I'd like to." "Were you going to talk to me about it?" "Well yeah, obviously. I was just trying to get everything in order first. I wanted to make sure it was possible." "How long have you known that you wanted to adopt her?" There was no point in lying. "Since the day she was born." Grace blinked slowly and kept her eyes shut for a few seconds. When she opened them again she asked, "Why didn't you tell me?" "I wanted to give you some time to get to know her, to bond with her. I thought if I gave you a little time you'd fall for her like I did." "Fall for her? What does that mean?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I love her." "You love her?" She asked incredulously. Her eyes made contact with his for the first time and he saw the alarm there. "Oh come on Grace, don't be ridiculous, she's a baby, it's not the same as the love I have for you." "What about Jaidee? Do you love her too?" "I don't know. I feel responsible for her. I'm all she has." Grace blinked rapidly a few times, as if she had something in her eye. "What about me?" "What about you Grace? You have everything. They have nothing. I know it's not easy for you but think about someone else for a change." She bit down on her lip and furrowed her brow as if she were holding back what she wanted to say. "Have you even been trying to get a new place for Jaidee to stay?" He threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. "Yes, I'm keeping my eye out for something appropriate for her. If I find something next week, great, if it's not for a couple of months, what's the difference?" Her eyebrows rose in surprise. "You would be fine with Jaidee staying here for months on end?" "Yes. She lost her sister Grace. She's in mourning. Mai and I are all she has." She looked away from him and across the room to Mai's cot which she stared at for a long time. Nicholas didn't know what else to say to her. She was acting like a child. Finally she spoke, her voice flat and lifeless. "I'm going to move out. I'll stay with Adrian for a few days until I figure something else out." He sighed. "Grace, don't be so dramatic. This isn't as bad as you're making it out to be." She continued in the same monotone. "Obviously we'll have to cancel the wedding. I'll call my parents at seven o'clock tonight, please call yours at the same time so that nobody feels like they were the last to know." "What? No! Grace, you are blowing this out of proportion." She got up off the couch and Nicholas followed her into the bedroom where she started throwing clothes into a gym bag. "Why are you being such a bitch Grace?" She didn't answer; she just closed her eyes for a few seconds before she continued packing her bag. "What is your problem?" He continued to try and get her to talk. "I can't live like this Nicholas. I feel like I don't even know you anymore." Her voice cracked with emotion. "What? You're the one who's changed. You never would have done this before Hamid." She shook her head. "I never would have needed to." She was acting irrationally. He had to get her to calm down, to give herself some time to think about it and realize how stupid she was being before turning this into a huge fiasco by telling their parents the wedding was off. "Grace," he said gently as he caught her by the arms. "Please, just slow down. If you want to stay with Adrian, fine. Just give it a few days to settle and then we'll talk again before we say anything to our parents." She looked into his eyes for long seconds, and then she nodded, finally showing some reason. "I love you Grace." "I love you too, but love isn't enough, I need more than that." He bit his tongue. He'd gotten her to wait a few days before making a decision about their future and he didn't want to do anything to change that. She agreed to take the weekend to think about it and talk to him again on Monday. Despite the fact that she had been pissing him off for weeks, he still missed her. Grace had been funny that way since they got back from Illinois. She could be cold and distant all day and then in a moment of clarity she would sit in his lap and ask him what he was reading, kiss him on the cheek and tell him that she loved him. At night she would snuggle into him and whisper about their wedding and how good it was going to be once they opened the restaurant with Zach and Beth. It made no sense that she suddenly didn't want those things anymore. On Saturday Mai just kept on crying and crying and crying. By the evening she was burning up with a fever. Nicholas called the pediatrician that he'd taken her to before but his clinic was closed, so he took her to the emergency room. It took hours and Mai cried almost the entire time. He was about ready to rip his hair out from worry and annoyance that none of the staff seemed to think that his crying infant was an emergency. When he finally got in to see the doctor after midnight she said that it wasn't serious and gave him baby Tylenol to give her. Even after the medicine Mai hardly slept that night, which meant that Nicholas got next to no rest. On Sunday his dad called in the afternoon, as usual. He caught on pretty quickly that Nicholas wasn't in the mood to talk and he asked to speak to Grace. "She's not here, you'll have to call her cell phone if you want to talk to her," Nicholas said. "Oh. How come? We always talk on Sunday afternoons." Nicholas was too tired to make up an excuse. "She's not staying here right now." "What?" Nicholas sighed, he didn't feel like doing this right now. "Nicholas, what's going on? Why isn't Grace staying at home?" "She flipped out and left. She's staying with Adrian for now." "What did she flip out about?" "She found out that I'm going to adopt Mai and she freaked out and left. She's just acting like a drama queen..." There was silence over the line for an uncomfortably long time. "Dad?" "You're kidding right?" "Huh? No. She's just being selfish, she doesn't think about how hard this has been for Jaidee and Mai." "Jaidee is still around?" "Yeah, Grace is all pissed because I haven't found anywhere else for her to live, but if you saw her you'd agree that she's not ready to go out in the world on her own yet." Again there was silence and then his dad said, "Nicholas, please tell me you're joking." Nicholas was confused, why was his dad acting all weird? "No dad, Grace left. She got all pissed at me and she left. She's just being a selfish little bitch." "Wait, let me get this straight," his dad said. "You have another woman living in the house with you?" "Yeah." "Are you fucking crazy Nicholas?" "What?" "Try reversing the situation, how would you feel if Grace invited another man to live with you?" "It's not the same dad, Jaidee doesn't have anywhere else to go, Mai and I are all she has." "Oh my god." "What?" Why was he being so dramatic? "I don't care if she's on death's door son, if you care about Grace you'll get that fucking woman out of your house now!" Nicholas was stunned. His dad didn't usually shout at him like that. Why was everyone going crazy all of a sudden? "And don't even get me started on how much of a bad idea it is to adopt a child without Grace being onboard," he continued. "Why? Mai's my sister dad, the same as Maddy. Wouldn't you want me to take care of Maddy if something happened to you and mom?" "No." "What?" "No. Your mother and I already discussed that. Sam and Emma are Maddy's designated guardians. It would be unfair for us to expect you and Grace to raise her." "But she's my flesh and blood." "Yeah but she's not Grace's. You can't build a life around your sister Nicholas, you can only build a life around your mate, around Grace." "But dad, you accepted mom even though she had me, this is no different." "It is different. I knew about you when we first started dating. You were always part of the deal. When I asked her to marry me I already knew I'd be your father." Nicholas didn't know what to say. He had a point, but he just couldn't conceive of giving Mai up to some faceless strangers. His dad continued. "Say you do adopt Mai. Grace will leave you; there is no doubt of that. In twenty years time what do you think will happen? Mai will be grown up and she'll go and get her own life and you will be left all alone, a grumpy, lonely old man. "Say you give Mai up for adoption, she goes to a couple that will love her and care for her and give her a good life. Grace might come back to you. In twenty years time you might be kissing your own daughter goodbye as she leaves for college but you wouldn't be lonely. You'd have Grace. Think about the difference." Nicholas was silent. His dad sighed heavily. "Listen, Nicholas, think carefully about the adoption thing but do yourself a favor and don't think about Jaidee. Get her out of your house now. I don't care if you have to pay to put her in a hotel, do it now. Tonight. Don't even think about it, just do it." "Okay, fine." Nicholas said. His head was starting to pound. All he wanted to do was get off the phone. CHAPTER ELEVEN Adrian finally convinced her to tell him what had happened on Sunday afternoon as they were taking a walk beside the river. The leaves were all turning. It was such a beautiful time of year. The sky was powder blue and the bright fiery yellows, oranges and reds of the trees were dramatic and powerful, but she felt removed from it all in her little cocoon of sorrow. She didn't want to talk about what had happened with Nicholas. She felt like maybe if she just kept it all inside her head she might wake up and realize that it was just a nightmare. But Adrian was insistent and so she told him. "He lied to me Adrian. For two months he pretended that he was looking for an adoptive home for Mai and organizing a different place for Jaidee to live and it was all lies. He has no intention of letting either of them go." Adrian put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her to his side. "Gracie, you know Nicholas is human, right?" "Huh?" She looked up at him, her vision blurred from the tears. "Of course I know that." "I only mention it because sometimes I forget. I'm so used to him being spookily calm, as if he is some sort of super-being who can filter his emotions." "Well you wouldn't say that now. The other day he was yelling at me, telling me that I'm a selfish bitch." "Hm... it's not like him is it?" She shook her head. "No." It wasn't like Nicholas at all. "He's changed. He never would have done something like this before. He used to value me. Once he told me that I was his number one priority, now I'd be surprised if I even made the top ten." "Mm." Adrian wasn't disagreeing with her and she found it depressing. Maybe it really was over. "Thing is Grace, Nicholas was a prisoner for six weeks. He was forced to murder someone, he was told you were dead and that his mom and brother had guns pointed at them. Then he found out that his biological father, the guy who he shares half of his genes with, was a psychotic asshole and he witnessed him murder the woman who was carrying his child. Any normal person would be forgiven for dissolving into a puddle of shit and tears. I think it is remarkable that he's functioning at all, I don't think I would be." Grace looked at her feet. He was right. Nicholas had been through a terrible ordeal, but did that give him the right to lie to her? Did that give him the right to bring another woman and a child into their lives without being honest about his intentions for them? "Remember what Ben told us about Ralph?" Adrian asked. "Urgh... yeah I remember, he's the guy who had a family on the outside who he thought were dead and then he started a new family in the house." "Right. It was part of Hamid's method. He got the guys to bond with a woman in the house. I know Nicholas never slept with Jaidee, but that doesn't mean he didn't bond with her. They shared their lives. She lived in his room. It doesn't surprise me that he feels responsible for her now." Grace felt the stab of jealousy twisting in her heart. She would never know the part of Nicholas that Jaidee knew, she would never be able to understand him in that way. "So what can I do Adrian? I don't want to leave him, but I can't go on living with Jaidee there and him lying to me all the time." Adrian's arm was still around her shoulder and he rubbed up and down her arm, as if he was trying to warm her up. "I know Gracie, it's a hard situation but you can't give up on him. You have to try and find a way forward that you can both deal with, take baby steps. Ask him to wait on the adoption thing. Maybe see if you can find a place for Jaidee to move out to that is not too far away so he can still feel like he's keeping an eye on her but so she's not actually living with you. See if you can get him to see a psychologist and talk about what happened to him." She sniffed and nodded her head. "You have to be the bigger person here Grace," he said seriously. "What Nicholas did was wrong, but there are some pretty weird psychological circumstances he's dealing with. You might be the only one who can help him find his way back to who he is." "When did you get so wise Adrian?" She asked. He laughed. "When? I've always been wise Gracie. Just because I'm not smart like you doesn't mean I'm not wise." Grace thought carefully about how to approach the conversation with Nicholas the next day. She didn't want to fight with him, that would get them nowhere. She made the goal of getting him to agree to one baby step, as Adrian put it. The most important one seemed to be Mai's adoption. She needed to prevent him from making anything final. He seemed tired and irritable when she saw him. He had a crease in his forehead and big dark circles under his eyes. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, which looked as if it had gone cold. "Do you want more tea?" She asked. "I'm going to make myself a cup." "Fine." She boiled the water and steeped the tealeaves and then turned the pot the way Nicholas did it. He was watching her. He wasn't saying anything but she could feel his eyes on her. She poured two cups and brought them to the table where she sat opposite him. "I'd like to talk about Mai," she said. "What about her?" "Well you said that you wanted to adopt her, I want to talk about that. I think it's important that we both know how the other feels." He shrugged his shoulders. "I love her. I've loved her since the moment I saw her, same as I love Madeline. She is my baby sister. What more is there to say?" She nodded. "Okay. I can accept that, but I'm not sure adoption is the best way to show that you love her." "What do you mean?" "Well, my birth mother loved me, I know she did and I know she still does, but I was better off with mom and dad than I would have been with her." A flicker of anger passed across his eyes. "You don't think I'd be a good father?" She reached for his hand across the table to reassure him. "No, it's not that. I think you'll be an amazing father; I wouldn't be marrying you if I didn't believe that. "It's just that I don't think I'm ready to be a mother yet. If you force me into it I might end up feeling resentful towards you and resentful towards Mai. Imagine growing up with a mother who resented you. It would be awful." He nodded slowly and eyed her carefully. "You still want to get married?" She nodded. "I hope so. I think maybe it would be best if we postponed though, to give us some time to work through some of these... issues." 4. My Father's Son Ch. 10-12 "How long?" "I don't know, maybe a couple of months? What do you think?" He sighed and looked down into his tea. "Yeah, that would be good. There's so much other stuff going on, the last thing I feel like thinking about is the design for the invitations." "Okay, so instead of May we do September, I'm pretty sure the venue wont be booked up all through September." Nicholas looked up at her and smiled at her joke. They were getting married in her parents' back yard; they didn't have any other bookings at all. It was so good to see him smile. It seemed like an eternity since he had smiled at her. "And Mai's adoption, can we postpone that too? Spend some time thinking about it and talking about it before we make a decision?" "Okay," he conceded. "I guess there isn't a rush." She nodded. "Can we make the decision together? I mean, if we're still going to get married it makes sense to make the decision together, don't you think?" He hesitated for just a split second before he nodded. She counted that as a victory. Maybe in a few days she would bring up something else, maybe try and encourage him to see a councilor. "Are you going to stay?" He asked. "Yes." "Jaidee isn't staying here anymore." She was surprised and delighted. "You found a place for her?" "No. She's staying at a hotel," he said aggressively, as if he was pissed off about it. "Oh. Okay." He glared at her. She didn't understand why. Although she had certainly wanted to, she had never demanded that Jaidee move out. Clearly that was the end of pleasant time. He got up and started getting ready to go out, emptying the laundry hampers into the sack that he took to the Laundromat. When he'd gotten everything together he got out Mai's stroller. "Kolya you don't have to take her with you. I can stay here with her for a few hours, I'm just doing homework and it would be a shame to wake her." He hesitated for a moment before he turned and walked out the door without another word. When Mai woke up later Grace had her first alone time with her. She didn't feel angry towards Mai anymore, she just felt sorry for her. When she started crying Grace left her homework and picked her up. She stopped crying immediately. It wasn't time for her feeding yet, Grace knew the schedule that Nicholas had her on and it was still an hour and a half until she was supposed to be fed. She stuck her finger under the band of her diaper but it didn't feel wet or poopy. She guessed that she just didn't feel like sleeping anymore. Grace sat back at the kitchen table with her and went back to reading the chapter of the textbook that had been assigned, but Mai was demanding her attention. Her head wasn't quite stable on its own yet so Grace had to use both hands to hold her upright and Mai kept on pulling her hair and grabbing at the pendant she was wearing around her neck. She wanted to stick everything in her mouth. Once she'd gotten a hold of something she would pull it towards her and at the same time stretch her head out to try and get it. "Oh you think so do you?" She said when she was pulling on her necklace. Mai looked up at her face when she spoke, her big brown eyes searching for where the sound was coming from. Grace smiled. "You think you're going to get my jewelry now? First my man and then my jewelry? You are a little gold digger aren't you?" Mai's eyes traveled up her face until they settled on her eyes and then she smiled back a crooked gummy smile. Grace was stunned. She didn't realize that a baby that young could smile. Mai was only eight weeks old. She thought it took months for babies to develop the muscle control needed for a smile, but there it was, a toothless grin intended just for her. Mai seemed to like it when Grace talked and so she started doing it more frequently. Whenever she was looking after her she would narrate whatever she was doing. She told Mai about what she was cooking for dinner, or about the latest scandal at the boathouse, or about the standard procedure for the first four weeks of rehabilitation after hip replacement surgery. "You need to get to work on the range of motion as soon as possible," she told her. "Otherwise the hip can seize and cause all sorts of problems further down the line." Mai looked at her google-eyed and drooled on herself. Grace took over her 3am feeding. She figured that maybe one of the reasons Nicholas was acting like such an asshole was that he was really tired and she got up at 4:30 for rowing practice anyway, getting up at 3 wasn't going to kill her routine. Nicholas didn't walk her to the boathouse in the mornings anymore. It was like so many other small things in their life together that had changed for the worse. Grace tried not to let it bother her too much. When she became frustrated she would close her eyes and think of what Adrian had said to her: "You have to be the bigger person here Grace." She was trying. She was trying her hardest to be the bigger person for Nicholas' sake. He still became pissed off and aloof at the mention of Jaidee. Grace tried to brainstorm of ways that might make it easier for them. Jaidee was living alone in a hotel and it clearly was not an ideal situation. Grace mentioned trying to get her a job, or helping her to meet other Thai women in the community, but Nicholas would just make a snide remark and glare at her as if she were the devil herself. She had no idea where you would find a community of Thai women in Boston, but surely they must be out there. In the end she did the only thing she could think of. She took Jaidee around to all of the local Thai restaurants. She was at a loss to know what else to do. At first it was awkward. She didn't know what to say and Jaidee didn't really seem to understand the goal of making friends in the neighborhood. The people working in the restaurants would speak with her in Thai for a few minutes and then turn back to Grace with a look of utter confusion. Finally they happened upon a restaurant with an owner who was a real mother goose type. It was between the lunch and dinner crowds and she made a pot of jasmine tea and sat Grace and Jaidee down. Grace had no idea what they were talking about, just that there was a lot of hand waving and then a major episode of tears on Jaidee's part and hugging and back rubbing on the part of Suchin, the mother goose. "Oh, Jaidee had a bad time," Suchin said soothingly. "We take care of her now." Grace was happy but also weary. Jaidee was in a vulnerable position, and she didn't want her to be taken advantage of. Even though Suchin offered for her to move in with her family, Grace insisted that Jaidee stay in the hotel for a little longer, to scope out the situation. Nicholas was suspicious when Grace told him about how Jaidee had a new Thai friend. He wanted to meet her and the family and see their house. He didn't want Jaidee staying somewhere that might not be safe. Grace beat her jealousy down. Nicholas was having exactly the same reservations that she'd had, it didn't mean that he loved Jaidee, he was just being mindful of her safety. They went to visit Suchin and her family on a Saturday morning, right after Grace got back from practice. They lived in a small apartment close to Jamaica Pond. It was a reasonable neighborhood and a nice apartment, albeit on the small side. Suchin welcomed them warmly. "Amir," Jaidee said, motioning towards Nicholas. God it annoyed her how Jaidee still called him Amir. It annoyed her more that Nicholas never corrected her. Suchin fussed over Nicholas and then gushed over baby Mai. She was so animated. It was impossible not to like her. She introduced them to her husband and her young son and daughter. There was nothing sleazy or suspect about this family, they really truly were good, honest people. Nicholas was still not thrilled at the idea of Jaidee moving into the small apartment with them. It only had two bedrooms and there were already two children in the second room. "What about if we get her a studio apartment close by in this neighborhood? She could work for Suchin and help with the children, have a sort of family network with them?" Grace asked hopefully. He seemed more comfortable with this idea. It would be more expensive but Grace didn't really care. All she cared about was making sure Jaidee was starting a new, safe life with someone other than Nicholas. It made her feel optimistic. There was still a whole lot wrong in their life. Nicholas was still withdrawn and angry and aloof for the vast majority of the time. They still hadn't sorted out the situation with Mai's adoption and she had made absolutely no leeway in convincing him to see a psychologist, but at least they seemed to be on the right track with Jaidee. That was something. Baby steps, as Adrian would say, baby steps. CHAPTER TWELVE Nicholas wasn't talking to his dad anymore. Fuck him. Every time he spoke to him it was the same. All he wanted to talk about was how he needed to make it up to Grace for how long he'd let Jaidee stay in their apartment, and when he was going to give Mai up for adoption. It was fucking annoying. He didn't need the extra stress. He sure as hell wasn't going home for Christmas this year. Grace had looked so sad when he'd told her. "But we haven't seen anyone since July," she complained lamely. "Who gives a shit Grace?" "I do," she replied so quietly that it was easy for him to ignore her. Grace wasn't fighting with him the way that she had when they'd first gotten back from Illinois, but he was still fighting with her. He didn't know what compelled him to do it; she just annoyed the shit out of him. There were times that he felt tender towards her. Sometimes when she was playing with Mai and he saw her break into a smile that was so dazzling there was no mistaking its authenticity he felt a little tug towards her. Sometimes at night she would rub his shoulder and neck muscles and speak to him quietly about her day and he would feel something unraveling inside him. When he felt this happening he would turn to her and envelope her in a hug, burying his face in her chest. He guessed he still loved Grace. They didn't have sex anymore and to be honest he didn't really miss it. He didn't remember the last time they'd had sex, so it couldn't have been that great. For the most part Grace ignored the elephant in the room. Some nights she would kiss him tenderly and make moves towards him as if she wanted to have sex, but when he turned from her she would back off. It was the weekend after Christmas when it happened. She had made her usual moves, the kissing and stroking and whispering about how she loved him. When he turned away from her she got upset. "Kolya baby, can we talk about our love life?" She asked. That pissed him off. Why couldn't she just come out and say it? Why couldn't she just say, 'why wont you fuck me?' "What?" He asked. "You want to fuck?" She hesitated for a second, her hand on his shoulder. "I love you Nicholas... I miss making love with you." He rolled over and faced her. "No. You want to fuck." Her brow creased and the corners of her mouth turned down in a frown. "I... I don't understand..." He climbed on top of her and pinned her arms down to the mattress by the wrists. "Say it," he said meanly. "You want to fuck." She squirmed beneath him. "Nicholas, stop it," she begged. "You're scaring me." There were tears in her eyes and an edge to her voice. She really was scared but he didn't give a shit. He pressed his erection into the flesh of her leg. "Say it," he ordered. "You want to fuck!" Grace was in an all out panic now. Her eyes were glazed over with a far away look and she was thrashing, trying to get free of his grasp. "Kolya, help" she whimpered. She was having a flashback, she always called for him like that when she had them. He held her wrists harder and then she did something that pierced him to the heart, she called for her mother. "Mommy... mommy help me," she cried. He let go and rolled off her, shocked. She had never cried for her mother before, she always used to cry for him when she was having a flashback. Grace turned away from him and quickly balled up in the fetal position. She was still crying and whimpering for her mom, each breath and moan of pain like a dagger to his heart. He got up and walked out of the room, grabbed a coat and shoes from the entryway closet and left the apartment. He didn't know where he was going and he didn't care, he just needed to be away from her. He walked the cold dark streets wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, a winter coat and a pair of jogging shoes. If a cop drove passed they'd probably pick him up and take him to the psych ward. Maybe that would be a good thing. It's probably where he belonged. He couldn't believe he'd done that to Grace. He'd given her a flashback... on purpose. He had done everything in his power to hurt her short of actually raping her. What the fuck was wrong with him? How could he purposefully hurt Grace? Was he turning into Hamid? He walked for hours and found himself standing still. He looked down. He was standing in a circle of dark stones. It was the Boston Massacre Memorial, the place where he kissed Grace for the first time. He sank to his knees and wept. How did it all go so terribly wrong?