Waiting for Grace Read Online Free Page B

appeared at my side.
    “Damn, that looked intense.”
    “Yep.” I nodded.
    “He likes you a lot!” She emphasised the last part and nodded manically grinning.
    “Well, I have some stuff to tell him later that he might not like at all,” I said, and she gasped.
    “Oh, Grace, your life’s like a bloody roller coaster. I love it!” She laughed. I felt dizzy from his presence and giddy like he had always made me feel as a teenager. Suddenly, that fight, those words, they were all forgotten. His smile erased it all and his words played over and over again in my head. I never meant to keep Devon a secret. I never meant to not contact him again but things happened. Words were spoken that kept me from doing the right and reasonable thing. Time passed and the opportunity to own up and speak the truth was missed. I could have told him so many times; I could have written, phoned, visited, but I chose to disappear instead. I believed the things he said and desperately tried to move on and let him live his life without me dragging him down. I thought I was doing the right thing , but with the eyes of a twenty-four year old woman, I now knew that missing out on your daughter’s life is unforgivable no matter what.
     
    ***
     
    At three, I was able to take my break and I walked to the corner shop to get a drink and some chocolate. I didn’t have much of an appetite for lunch because I was nervous about the evening ahead. It had been so long since I had seen Robert that our plans later still seemed like a dream. I had texted Maria and asked if she would mind me going out after work. She always picked the kids up from their after school club, anyway. They had usually done their homework by the time she got there and so she would just get them home, give them tea, and I would either get home for us to eat with the kids or we would eat later. Our routine was rarely interrupted and so she knew something was unusual.
    Her return text said it all: Of course, no problems, call me on your break, what’s going on? I have no meetings this afternoon x
    I decided to get my snack first and then call her to explain when I had relaxed somewhere. As I strode to the corner shop in the bleak weather, I couldn’t believe how far I had come. I was a London native; I lived in the big city and was exposed daily to the sights and sounds of city life. I hardly noticed these days, but it was far cry from the small town upbringing I had endured. I was a faceless name in this sea of people, but the rush of living here and of my independence still surged inside me. I was so much different from the girl who arrived here seven years ago with a dream and an idealistic view of life. Then again, nowhere else on Earth made me feel so alive and so together. I smiled as I walked towards the shop and gained some confidence to see Robert.
    The day he left, the day we went our separate ways, played in my mind over and over again. I had loved him so hard and so strong that I had never, until that moment, had to face living without him. Watching him walk away tore me in two. Part of me left with him. My life hadn’t been terrible, it hadn’t been without money and my father’s garage still churned out an income for my mother, but it was without emotional connection and without love. Robert filled that void for me, and so opened a hole that needed to be filled where it never had before. Thank God for Devon, Maria, and Max as they helped me feel whole and normal after feeling dead inside when Robert left.
    Today I would try to explain; today I would try to make him understand. I didn’t know the day that he left that I was pregnant or for another three months, but there it was. I was having our baby, and it was definitely not in my plans. I wanted to stay here, I wanted us both to stay in London and never go back to that town where I couldn’t make memories like I could in the big city. I was a dreamer and I wanted to live a cosmopolitan life and find my sister. I