I don’t want to go into detail about what happened when we went back to the house, but I will say there were lots of tears and almost everything was unsalvageable. We found a few small items – a few of my short stories, some of Grace’s guitar tabs, a few outfits each, and most amazingly, there were some pictures of us, pictures that should have been burned, but that weren’t – other than that, though, everything was burned.

We were, essentially, starting over, and it felt like a huge disappointment. A small part of both Grace and I felt like we couldn’t do this anymore, like we should just go home. But home was not an option, and so we looked for somewhere to stay. We eventually found a rather cheap (and you could see why) house to rent, which is not at all where we’d envisioned ourselves, but hey, it was much better than nothing, and better than some people had.


The couple of weeks that followed, Grace and I didn’t see a whole lot of each other. We were both stressed from putting in tons of hours at our jobs, and we’d been a little snappy with each other. Still though, it surprised me when I woke up during the night to find Grace not in bed with me. I didn’t immediately freak out, she could have just gotten up, but I looked through the house and didn’t see her anywhere. I was just about ready to panic, when I looked out the window and saw she was sitting on the tire swing out front. Her fists were balled up and I could see her forehead was pressed against the swing. She was crying I could tell, so I went to see why that was.
I came up beside her, whispering “Grace? What’s wrong?”


She turned toward me suddenly and said “Oh, geez, I didn’t see you there.” Then she wiped her eyes and said “Nothing’s wrong, I’m okay. I just needed a little fresh air.” She tried to flash a little smile, but it was obviously forced.


“You don’t look okay.”
“I am, I promise.”
“You sure?”
“Not really,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes again
“Come here, babe,” I said, holding my arms out toward her.
When she got to me, she basically fell into my arms. I couldn’t believe how much I’d missed feeling her against me.


Tomorrow, I thought to myself. Tomorrow will be the day.


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Eeh-Gasp! What could tomorrow possibly bring?? I had to add some suspense somewhere, and this seemed like a good spot.
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I'll probably update this pretty soon. I SWEAR it won't take nearly as long this time, and I truly apologize for the two month wait.
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Sorry the pics are small and a bit hard to see, I'm not sure why that is. I guess I uploaded them with too small a size.
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My kitty, Peanut, is sitting with me, and she says that you should all rate and comment and tell me what you think. :D