Grace Pattin

I don't know how I got away, but I'm gone. I'm alone and cold and wet. But, I'm going home. The sun is starting to rise and it burns a bit against my forehead. I slip out of my coat.

There's a lump a way's away from me and the closer I get the more it beings to look like a human. Then like a girl. Then like Grace Pattin.

I stop short. "Grace?"

She's a little, rich wounded puppy, hands could and blue and wrapped around her ankle. She's in tall, tall boots with heels that are supposed to be illegal. But, it's something someone like Grace can afford to wear.

She smiles weakly. "Lockland Orion. Right?"

I nod. "Do you need any help," I ask in my head and we just look at one another. She's sitting on the pavement, cold and wet and frizzy.

"Can you help me up?" She holds a little manicured hand out to me. And for the first time that's not the first thing I see. I see how blue her fingertips are and how she can barely breathe enough to speak. She's been sitting on the pavement for hours.

I help her up, holding her body to mine and help her lump down the street. I pass my house and take the corner but she freezes.

"No," she gasps, "you can't take me home. My parents will freak!"

SSomehowshe ends up in my room, sipping tea out of dad's cup and staring blankly at the wall. Her lips aren't so blue anymore and she can use her hands. Her bare feet are pressed up against the electric heater. She shivers.

"I'm sorry about the bookstore," I whisper into my cup.

She shrugs, pale-faced and looking nothing like herself. She's a little more human-like this. "It can't be helped."

I don't know what else to say. But, Grace smiles all on her own. She tries to hide it behind her mug until she realizes I've been looking at her. She shrugs at me, poking her tongue between her teeth. I smile a bit, too.

"Thank you," she says. "I mean, you know."

I nod because I can tell that it's difficult for her, being like this. We are silent for a bit.

"Why do you hang out with Billie  anyway?" There's no judgment in her voice. She's as confused about me as she is about why she is sitting in my room.

"For the project," I say, but I'd don't believe myself all too much. Grace doesn't either.

"You're looking for a friend?"

I shrug.

"Me, too." I don't expect her to say it, but she does. And I don't know what to make of it. She sips her tea quietly.

"But, you're popular."

"Rich," she corrects. "Not, popular."

"Is that why Billie  hates you so much?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I wish. But, to be honest, I really don't know. Billie  hates everybody."

"That's not true." I'm about to say it, but I don't. Because it is the truth. But, it's difficult to admit. I think about Billie and how she called Grace cold-blooded with all of that childish hatred shining in her eyes. Dark. Dark. Dark.

We sit there, not really thinking too much about things. Our tea's finished, but we're still sipping mindlessly from our cups.

I rise to my feet. "I'll make more tea."

I take her cup. Only, our hands bbrushand it's electric and then the cups falls to the carpet and rolls across the floor. But, I can't think because Grace's lips are on mine and everything is so gentle. I'm barely breathing.

She whimpers a bit, wrapping herself around me, arms and lips and everything. And I can't pull away. She doesn't either. So, we stand there, lips against lips, doing something we won't understand afterward. But, I'm calm inside. I'm not afraid. I don't know why I feel that way.