I race toward the apartment stairs and see her hunched on the second landing and briefly wonder what she’s doing out here and where she’s trying to go. Was she coming to me? Guilt floods me as I climb the stairs two at a time.
I expected her to be upset. I expected tears, sobbing in fact, and incoherent curses for losing him, but the magnitude of her pain terrifies me. She’s not hunched, she’s crumpled on a stair, holding her knees to her chest with her face buried as pain wracks her body. She looks broken. Absolutely, horrifyingly, broken.
“Oh, babe,” I cry softly, feeling the tears returning to my eyes. I don’t know what hurts me more: the pain of losing David or seeing her like this.
She doesn’t make any effort to move. I’m not even certain she’s heard me over her own cries. As I lift her up and awkwardly work to cradle her against me, something that is a hell of a lot easier to do when it’s a fireman’s hold, I see Landon descending the stairs, stopping when he’s just a few feet from us. His face is distorted with a look I haven’t seen him wear in over a year—the same one he used to have when I knew he was thinking about war and loss.
He allows me to pass him and I hear his footsteps on the stairs as he follows me back up to her apartment.
She doesn’t fight me at all as I carry her, as though she isn’t even aware she’s being moved. Ace has always been strong, fiercely so at times. She has such a presence to her, but tonight she looks so small and fragile it terrifies me.
I carry her through the living room where I see Jameson holding Kendall on his lap. Her face is buried in his neck, but Jameson looks up to see me and grimaces as he sees us. I watch his nostrils flare and his head shake. His eyes are rimmed with tears that slowly start to fall, and I know he feels the same magnitude of pain and loss that I am.
When I reach Ace’s room I gently lay her on the bed, and move her bare feet so I can lift the covers over her. All I want to do is hold her and somehow absorb some of this pain from her. I wish I could take it all, every last ounce, but I know I can’t. I may be able to help dull it, but time and acceptance are the only things that are going to allow this pain to ease.
I sit beside her with my back propped against the headboard and pull her against my chest, holding her so tightly I have to consciously loosen my grip a few times out of fear I’m hurting her. Ace loses all of her composure and lets out gut wrenching sobs that dampen my shirt. I cry my own tears, pressing my lips to the top of her head. It’s been weeks since I’ve kissed her, and I hate that this is how we’re reconnecting. Trying to offer her comfort, I brush her hair back and softly run my hands through it until I lean my face closer to smell her sweet scent that fades as my nose starts to run from tears.
I have no idea what to say. Telling her that everything will be alright feels cold and untrue. Everything isn’t going to be alright. She just lost her father. Nothing is ever going to be the same. When Keith died, I recall so many people mentioning he was in a “better place.” I loathed hearing it; it seemed so dismissive. And who in the hell knows if they’re in a better place? I know that it’s one of Ace’s fears, so I quickly force away my thoughts and hold her tighter.
“I’m so sorry, Ace. I’m so sorry,” is all I can manage to say.
The night somehow turns to morning, and I wake up to find Ace curled up next to me, my arms wrapped around her and my leg thrown between hers like we’ve always slept. But this time, she’s facing away from me, something that in nearly a year of sleeping next to her has never happened. The foreignness causes a shadow of something dark and crippling to creep through me. I can’t place it. I have no idea what causes my heart to stammer and my lungs to begin shrinking.
It takes me a few moments of confusion to realize it’s fear. What has my body on alert, ready to spring? I sit up so I can see her face and take my time looking over every inch of Ace as she lies beside me, still asleep. I hardly ever wake before she does, and on the rare occasions that I have, I’ve spent them lying beside her, marveling the fact that she’s mine.
This morning the peacefulness that usually exists on her face while she sleeps is completely absent. She somehow looks distraught, haunted. Knowing Ace and how much she fears death, I know this is going to be the most difficult experience she’s had to face yet. It’s never easy to lose someone. I still have a difficult time with swallowing the loss of my own dad, and he’s been gone more years than he was in my life.
The mental home video starts playing again, recapping the past eleven months that I’ve had with Bosse family. Laughter and splashing, David’s advice and Ace’s carefully thought-out words fill my ears, while smiles and hugs, Clementine, and blond heads fill my visions. The flood of memories makes my chest ache in a spot that I’ve become too accustomed with over the last few weeks of not speaking or being around Ace. It’s dark, consuming, and impenetrable.
I lie quietly beside her as my own tears slowly fall again at the loss of the man that was my mentor, my friend, and the closest thing I had to a father in the past thirteen years.
An hour or so must pass when there’s a knock on her bedroom door. I can’t see a clock and refuse to move in case it disturbs her. Kendall appears in the doorway looking haggard. Her whole frame is slouched forward, not showing any signs of her usual confidence. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Kendall in her pajamas, or without makeup, and the reality of what we’re about to experience sends a wave of chills through me.
“We should go home. The others will be there soon.”
“I can bring her when she’s up,” I whisper as Kendall wipes her fingers across her cheeks as more tears begin to fall.
“I’m up,” Ace mumbles groggily. “Let me grab a few things.”
She rolls off the bed and grabs a bag from her closet and begins shoving it full of clothes. I’m familiar enough with her obsessive organizing to know she’s grabbing her ‘comfortable’ clothes. She pulls on her Converse sneakers, not bothering to change, instead staying in the short cotton shorts and T-shirt I found her in last night.
Her fingers shake as she lifts the laces, making each of the white threads look like they weigh an excessive amount as she works to tie them. I focus on her face and see the concentration in her eyes, the tightness in her jaw and neck. The shaking is from something far more powerful than a lack of sleep; it’s from heartache.
I stand from the bed and kneel beside her. My hands reach out to take the laces from her, and she jerks away without even looking at me. She’s struggling for control. I understand this feeling well.
Pulling back to allow her some space, I watch as she ties her shoes with a look of contempt. She stands and dusts off her ass. Ace is possibly the cleanest person I’ve ever met, especially when something is bothering her, and after the past couple of weeks, I’m sure her apartment has been scrubbed over many times. I can smell the faint traces of bleach in the air as proof.
Jameson drives Kendall’s car with Ace and me in the backseat. She sits with her hands knotted together in her lap and stares out the window. I consider reaching over to touch her, but she looks so closed off I don’t want to push her. Instead, I closely watch her out of the corner of my eye.
The car ride is silent, except for Kendall occasionally crying into a tissue or blowing her nose. I catch Jameson glancing at me periodically as we make the quiet trip. He’s nervous and twitchy, making his driving even worse, but neither of the girls says a thing. They’re lost in their own worlds, worlds that Jameson and I don’t fully understand the language, customs, or expectations of. As we get closer, Ace begins fidgeting, a telltale sign that she’s nervous, which makes it that much more difficult for me to not reach out and try to comfort her.