Disgrace

  I sighed. I didn’t, but I wasn’t certain I was ready to talk to anyone, really. I hadn’t even been able to look in the mirror without tearing up. Plus, I’d already been receiving text messages from the townsfolk who saw me at my lowest of lows with Jackson yesterday. They kept asking if I was okay, and it was all so much. The idea of facing the whole church seemed so unbelievably overwhelming.

  Judy must’ve noticed my hesitation because she squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry about it. Mama can be a bit peeved for a minute, but that’s nothing new. The most important thing right now is taking care of you and that heart of yours, okay? I’ll cover for you and tell everyone you weren’t feeling well.”

  I laughed. “You’d lie in the church for me?”

  “I’d do anything for you, Grace. Anything.”

  “Even help me hide a dead body?” I joked.

  “Only if it’s Finley James’,” she replied.

  That made me smile, but then I felt guilty for thinking about Finn being dead.

  It was sometimes hard to be God’s follower when the Devil’s whisperings sounded more satisfying.

  We went back to staring at the horizon, and every now and then, I took a few small breaths.

  8

  Grace

  Only a handful of people in town didn’t make it to church service on Sunday mornings, and Josie Parker was one of those individuals. Her mama, Betty, opened the doors of The Silent Bookshop a few years back after her husband, Frank, lost his hearing in a freak car accident. For a long time, Frank struggled with depression, but the only thing that kept his head above water were the words in the novels.

  Each night for months, Betty sat beside her husband, holding a book in her hand, and they’d silently read the words together, flipping the pages as their fingers brushed against one another.

  Whenever you saw them in town, they were either holding hands or holding a book. Their haven lived between their love and their novels, and when the idea of opening a bookstore where the one and only rule was complete and utter silence, Betty dived right in.

  I spent many of my teenage years inside that store, sitting in the back corner and falling in love with men and women from faraway places. It was because of that shop that I knew I wanted to become an English teacher. I wanted to teach children the importance of words.

  Words had the power to transport a small-town girl to worlds she’d never imagined. When I turned sixteen, it was that same bookshop where I received my first job, too. Sometimes, that place felt more like home than my actual home.

  As I walked into the shop, I could smell them all—the adventures hidden behind the covers. The heartbreaking stories. The heart healing ones. The stories of love lost and found. The stories of self-discovery. The stories that made you feel less alone in a lonely world.

  There was no better feeling than falling in love with people you’d never truly meet, yet still, they felt like family.

  The bookshop was set up in such a unique way. When you entered, you walked into the front lobby where you could speak. A coffee area was set up with countertops and bar stools. On the countertops were crossword puzzles that changed each day, and as you drank your beverage, you’d fill in the puzzles and chat with the barista about the latest gossip in Chester.

  To the left, you’d find a set of doors carved out of wood—made by Frank—that had handwritten famous first lines from classic novels. Over the doors, a sign read, Behind these doors, the story begins. Once you stepped foot inside that space, dozens and dozens of novels surrounded you. The bookcases touched the high ceilings, and ladders scattered throughout the area allowed you to climb high to find that one certain read you hadn’t even known you’d been searching for.

  Tables were set up throughout the space where people could sit and read. The only rule was complete silence, like a still bear sleeping through the depths of winter. The only sound ever heard was people tiptoeing through the space as they searched for their next book.

  I loved the solitude that The Silent Bookshop offered. It was a safe place where the only drama allowed was found within the stories.

  “Well grand day, if it isn’t Gracelyn Mae returning home,” Josie remarked, using sign language to speak as I walked into the shop. She always signed her words as she spoke. It seemed like a first language to her, and every sign I knew was because she taught it to me. Her blond hair sat in a bun on top of her head, and she still had that deep dimple in her right cheek that always appeared whenever she smiled—and Josie Parker was always smiling.

  We’d graduated high school together, and she was hands down the class clown. Yet outside of that, she was also a good person. Her comedy never came at the cost of others. She’d make fun of herself before another person, and I always adored her positive outlook on the world. Plus, in town, she was one of the only souls I trusted to keep my secrets. She was the girl who allowed me to step out of my perfect persona to be free for a bit of time. When we were kids, Josie would bring me Diet Coke with a few splashes of whiskey, and we’d sit in the park people watching while tipsy.

  Mama would’ve killed me if she knew I was drinking whiskey in high school, but I never had to worry about that with Josie by my side.

  With her, my secrets were always safe.

  Maybe that was why I wandered her way. Maybe I was hoping she’d be able to shine some light on some of my dark days.

  “It’s been too long,” she said before pulling me into a hug.

  “I know. I’ve missed this place. Everything about it, I’ve missed.”

  “Well, it misses you too, but we understand you getting out of this small town. Following Finn for his dream was a noble thing, but I’m glad to hear he’s working at the hospital now, which means you’re here, too, yeah?”

  “Yeah, but only for the summer, though. I still have my teaching job back in Atlanta.”

  “Oh? So you are doing the long-distance thing?”

  “Well…”

  My bottom lip quivered, and she noted it. “You know what? No need to answer my questions. I’ll shut up real quick.” Something about Josie just warmed up hearts. She was such a positive energy and such a genuine heart. “Now come on. Sit down. You still drinking coffee over tea?” she asked me.

  “Yes, sure am.”

  She shook her head in disappointment. “One day, I’m gonna make you a cup of tea, and you’ll be forever changed. But for now, I’ll make you a nice cup of joe.”

  I snickered. “You studied abroad for a few months in England and came back a changed woman.”

  “I also married a British boy from those studies and dragged him back to Chester. So, the least I can do is drink tea.” She grabbed the largest mug in the shop and poured the coffee to the brim, then she sat it in front of me. “So how does it feel to be back in Chester?”

  My eyes watered over, and my stomach knotted, but I did my best not to cry.

  She frowned. “Are you okay?”

  “Truth or lie?”

  “Always truth.” She walked back around the counter and sat on the barstool beside me with her hands wrapped around her mug of tea. “So what’s the story?”

  I huffed out a laugh. “Honestly, I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Well, I never liked a book that started in the middle,” she joked. “So let’s start from the beginning.”

  And so, I did.

  I told her everything that unfolded with Finn, and when the tears fell from my eyes, she was quick to wipe them away. She didn’t offer any advice, and she didn’t push me with options of what I should and shouldn’t do. No, she simply listened.

  Sometimes, all a person needed was another to listen to their uneven heartbeats.

  When I finished talking, she gave my knee a squeeze. “So you’re not okay.”

  “I’ll get there.”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “You will. But until then, if you need a safe place to escape, you can always come here. Also, we always have a spot for you on the staff.”

/>   “You don’t have to do that for me.”

  “Yeah, but I want to, and you know my mom wouldn’t have it any other way. Even though I love this town, I know how overwhelming it can get sometimes. Plus, I get the feeling that your heart needs a break. So, if you want that break, you can take it here.”

  “I might take you up on that offer.”

  “It’s yours for the taking.” She paused and scrunched up her nose. “I always hated Autumn,” she told me.

  “I wish I could say the same.”

  Right as I was about to change the subject, the front door of the shop opened and in walked Jackson. He didn’t look the least bit intrigued that Josie and I were in the shop. In fact, he moved as if he couldn’t even see us. The way he traveled made it seem as if he was bored with everything in the whole wide world. He was simply moving to get from point A to point B with no real drive to even explore the idea of a point C.

  A chill ran over my body as he walked straight through the set of wooden doors without looking toward either of us.

  “Well, he sure is an intriguing personality,” I muttered.

  Josie laughed. “That’s just the normal Jackson Emery for ya. He doesn’t really interact with people much when he comes in here—and he’s here every day.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yup. One of our best customers, too. He sits in the back room for two to three hours reading, and he always leaves with new book purchases. I swear, most of the shop’s income probably comes from that man.”

  “What kind of books does he read?” I questioned, curiosity striking me. You could tell a lot about a man based on the type of books on his nightstand.

  “Only one genre—young adult.”

  “Young adult? Really?”

  “Truly. Weird, huh? He doesn’t very much seem like the young adult type, now does he?”

  “Not at all.” Interesting… “Everyone calls him the devil in town, and when I crossed paths with him, at first, I had to agree. He was awful. A really mean person. But then…then there were moments when he was just so gentle. Like a whisper.”

  Josie nodded. “Yes. He’s rough around the edges, but he’s not the devil—not by a long shot. But best believe he ain’t no saint, either. I don’t know much of his story, but it can’t be that easy of a read. His father is a handful, and Jackson is the only person around who takes care of him. His uncle helps out a bit, but he has his own tattoo business outside of Chester, so he keeps busy, leaving Jackson to care for his dad. I swear Mike Emery finds himself locked up more often than not from his drunkenness, and Jackson is the only one there to ever bail him out. That can’t be easy—having to be a parent to your parent.”

  Josie was so unique to the town of Chester. She saw things and people in ways that no one else quite could. The same could be said about her parents. They saw the beauty in the ugliest shadows, and I adored that quality about their family. It took a special soul to see past others’ scars.

  “How do you do that, Josie? See the good in everyone and find understanding for why people are the way they are?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “My parents taught me to zoom in, ya know? It’s easy to judge others from afar. It’s easy to look at someone from outside your world and make blanket statements and judgments on who those people are. Because when you see others’ flaws, you somewhat justify that your flaws are better than theirs. But when you zoom in, when you truly look at the person beside you, you’ll see many of the same things. Hope. Love. Fear. Anger. Once you zoom in, you realize we are all similar in so many ways. We all bleed red, and even monster’s hearts can break. Just gotta remember to always zoom in.”

  To always zoom in…

  I liked that more than I could express. I wasn’t the perfect person. I judged others without being aware of it at times, and that was one flaw I knew I had to work on. Just like Jackson, I, too was far from a saint. I needed to zoom in more often.

  “After my dad’s accident, he turned to the bottle for a while, too. Did you know that?” Josie asked.

  “No, I had no clue.”

  “Yeah, we were young when the accident happened, so it’s not shocking. For a good while, he suffered from depression. People judged him hard, and if he didn’t have my mom to help him through the dark days, he could’ve easily turned into Mike Emery. And I could’ve easily become Jackson. I feel like the whole world could be Jackson or Mike, based on one left turn.”

  “That’s true…” I swallowed hard. “I guess I never thought of it like that.”

  “But then again, who knows? I could be wrong, and Jackson could seriously just be a total asshole who just sleeps around,” she joked. “But watching him with that dog of his is the biggest turn-on in the world to me.”

  “His dog?”

  “It’s an old black lab. You’ll see him in town with him. Just watch how he treats that dog, and you’ll realize more than just darkness lives in that boy.”

  We spoke for a few more minutes before I found myself walking into the silent book area. As the door closed behind me, I inhaled deeply, looking around at all the beauties against the wall.

  Hello, friends.

  There were so many words throughout the space that I wasn’t quite certain where to even start. I loved the idea of falling into the pages more than ever now since my own story was quite a mess. I’d rather read another’s happily ever after than waste time debating my own.

  As I walked through the aisles of books, my fingertips danced across the spines. I smiled at those who looked up toward me, and ninety-nine percent of the individuals smiled back, with warm, welcoming looks. But that one percent…

  Jackson sat in the far-left corner of the shop. It was the darkest corner with only a small flood of light from a small window. My eyes fell to the book in his grip.

  Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi.

  Gosh, he was so complex. A big, muscular, mean man reading young adult novels.

  Fascinating.

  Right as I studied the cover of the novel, I felt his eyes on me. I lifted my head a bit, and his eyes burned into me with a look of complete disgust. The corners of his lips stayed turned down, and he slightly grumbled before looking back down at his book and flipping the page.

  Knots formed in my stomach and my nerves twisted up with confusion of the boy who seemed to despise me more than anything. I tried to understand why he was the way he was toward me. I tried my best to zoom in on him and see his true colors.

  “Hey, Jackson,” I said, nodding his way.

  He looked up, then back down at his book. “No talking in here,” he muttered, flipping his page.

  “I know, but I just wanted to say thank you for yesterday, for when you—”

  “You can’t talk in here,” he hissed once more.

  A chill raced down my spine. “I know but—”

  “Listen, princess, I get that you might think you’re beyond privileged, and that rules don’t apply to you, but please, just take your comments elsewhere, cuz I don’t want to hear them.”

  Wow.

  Mean Jackson was back in full force.

  “Just go away,” he told me, his voice hard and mean.

  And without a single sound, I did exactly that.

  9

  Grace

  As I walked up to Judy and Hank’s place after spending most of the day in The Silent Bookshop, I saw the panic in my sister before she even spoke a word my way.

  She rushed out the front door, whisper-shouting, “Grace, listen, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know this would happen, and you’re going to kill me because I let it slip, but I didn’t mean to let it slip, and I’m so sorry!”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s Mama.”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s here, and she knows about Finn.”

  “What? How?”

  “Well, she doesn’t exactly know, but people were gossiping at the service about how they saw
you and him fighting in town last night. They asked her about it, asking if you two were okay.”

  Oh, great, people were already running their mouths about Finn and me. That didn’t take long.

  “Mama was so thrown off, but she smiled through it all. Then she gave me a good talkin’-to…and she invited herself over for dinner. Which is happening now.” The guilt of it all swam in Judy’s eyes, but it wasn’t her fault.

  I gave her a tight smile and told her it was okay. Mom would’ve found out anyway. I just wished she hadn’t learned it from random people in the church. Even though she smiled through it, I knew that being blindsided would’ve upset her.

  “We better get inside before she loses her mind even more,” Judy warned.

  “Where’s Hank?”

  “Are you kidding me? The moment he found out Mama was coming over, he got out of dodge.”

  Smart man. “What about Dad? Is he coming?” He worked pretty well as a buffer between Mama and me when we ended up butting heads, which was inevitable. If anything, I was a daddy’s girl through and through, so I always did better when family dinners involved him.

  “Mama said he’s working at the church tonight, so it’s just the three of us.”

  “Oh.” I groaned. “Wonderful.”

  The moment we stepped into the foyer of the house, Mama was there wearing the biggest frown of her life, and her arms stretched out to embrace me.

  “Oh, Gracelyn Mae.” She sighed, shaking her head back and forth. “You look awful.”

  Home sweet home.

  * * *

  “I was blindsided at the church today,” Mama told me as we sat down at the dining room table. “You could’ve given me more warning, Gracelyn Mae.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t know anyone saw Finn and me last night.”

  “This is Chester. Someone is always watching.”

  She wasn’t wrong about that.