Chapter 5 - Jace
JACE
Blinking my heavy eyes open, I stare at the blank wall opposite me and pull the blanket up to my chin. Voices from the other room filter through the closed door, but I can’t bring myself to get up and check who else is in the house.
Logically, I know I’m happy to be here. To be with Charlie again and I was – am? I’m grateful he found me and was willing to bring me the rest of the way home, something I failed to do myself.
I was so close, only three hours away and yet…
It’s embarrassing really.
Everything I owned fit into two trash bags. One of which I threw in the bin because it was simply filled with kitchen utensils and other useless shit that Charlie already has.
My eyes cast down to the remaining trash bag that holds all of my clothes and bathroom shit. Huffing, I roll over to face the other blank wall. It’s kinda fitting that all my belongings fit in a trash bag.
What must Charlie think of me? I’m the eldest, even if it is only by a year. It was my plan all those years ago that we attend the same university, that I’d find us a place to live, and they’d move in with me when they finished school a year later.
I hadn’t accomplished any of that. Fuck, I was a couple of weeks away from being homeless.
“Jace, you awake?” Charlie whispers into the room, but I don’t react, not even when I can see his shadow casting over my closed eyelids.
He sighs, no doubt as done with me as I am with myself. “Look…I don’t want to overstep but when I was putting your bathroom stuff away, I couldn’t find your meds,” his voice trails off.
A part of me wonders how he knows I’m supposed to be taking medication, but the rest of me just can’t muster up the energy to ask or even care how he knows.
“Maybe…maybe we should look at finding you a new doctor, one close by? Or we can call your old one?”
“Why? They don’t help anyways.” Even to my ears, my voice is thick with exhaustion and empty.
“That’s when you talk with your doctor, tell them what’s going on and they work out a new script, or dosage, or whatever that does work for you.”
“What’s the point? They won’t change anything.”
“What are you talking about? Of course they will,” he says softly and something about that just pisses me off.
“What would you know?” he flinches back at that, but I don’t stop. “They don’t do shit. They cant change the fact I’m a fucking failure. I stopped taking them not just because they fucked with my head, but I can’t afford them.” And there it is.
“My house wasn’t empty because I was moving in with Jake, Charlie. I couldn’t afford anything. I had a shitty job that paid fuck all because I barely graduated school. Taking my meds doesn’t change any of that, they just make me feel more like shit and are a waste of money.”
“What do you mean, you barely graduated? Jace, I saw your grades. They were good, you got a decent ATAR. You aren’t giving yourself enough credit.”
“Whatever. It still doesn’t change anything. I have no skills, no job and no money.” Swallowing the limp in my throat I add, “And no Bonnie.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“You don’t understand. It’s all my fucking fault! I was supposed to protect her. She got hurt because of me. Because I left the room. I left her, Charlie.”
“Jace…you couldn’t have known.”
“But I should have! I should have protected her!”
“You did. The police report said-”
“She still got hurt and if I hadn’t of snuck in her room that night, they never would have separated us in the foster system, and she’d be here right now.”
“Jace, no…that’s not all on you.”
“I’m older-”
“By a year.” Charlie grips my shoulders, and I blink not knowing when I got out of bed. “Bonnie has just as much responsibility as you for what led to you guys being separated in foster care.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” I shake my head, stepping back, unable to look him in the eye as I climb back into bed and roll over, giving him my back. “She’s dead.”
“No. Mia believes she’s alive. We’re going to find her. Jace, I-” my voice cracks and I my shut my eyes. “-I don’t know how to help you right now…But I need you to know, none of this is your fault.”
“Hip, Hip! Hooray!” we all sing together, Charlie rolling his eyes as he blows out the candles with a wide smile.
Flashes go off as Charlie’s parents start taking dozens of photos. One of his dads, Declan, gives a mischievous wink before he reaches over Charlie’s shoulder and grabs a handful of cake.
Before anyone can react, Charlie is out of his seat, ducking under Declan’s arm and lifting the entire cake right off the plate and shoving it into his dad’s face.
Every single adult and child in the backyard freezes before all hell breaks loose. Declan chases after Charlie, who dodges his other dads all the while his mum films the entire thing.
“They still do this?” I wonder out loud, watching the scene play out before my eye whilst I stand beside Charlie’s friend, Ariana.
“Yeah, every year. They’ll take photos after too then bring out the real cake for us to eat,” she answers, the smile evident in her voice before I even turn to look at her.
She sips from her champagne glass, a soft smile and faraway look on her face whilst her guys all watch her with pure adoration. I don’t respond though, mulling over childhood memories of this very scene.
A hesitant smile starts to form as I watch them finally start to settle down, huffing and puffing, wiping grass and icing from their face and eyes as they make their way over to sit on the concrete and take their family photo.
I forgot what this was like. What having a family was like. It’s been so long since I’ve even witnessed something that so much as resembles familial love, but as I watch them, it all comes back.
I missed this.
My smile falters. The only thing that is missing is Bonnie.
My eyes roam over the garden, her ghost racing around the yard as we join in in their fun, dodging Charlie’s dads covered in icing.
I can practically hear Bonnie’s squeals as a lob of cake hits her.
Eventually, we make our way over to the same spot they're all sitting in now and take our own photos. Just the three of us.
Photos that were long ago lost when Grant decided what items in our house were worth money to sell and the rest…the rest he threw in the bin, only letting us keep the bare minimum.
I make a note to ask Lucy if she has any copies of those photos to replace the ones I lost.
“Hey, you okay?” Charlie whispers, towelling his now wet hair before his eyes meet mine. I don’t respond, he can see the answer in my eyes. “We’ll find her,” he reassures me, just like he’s done dozens of times the past two months.
It took some time, but he finally convinced me to find a new doctor and after explaining the extensive side effects I experienced with the lithium mood stabilisers, she suggested something different, as well as antidepressants.
So far, they’re helping. I’ve noticed a huge difference between the old meds and these ones, but it’s still been a long two months. Two months of Charlie putting up with my manic episodes as my body adjusted to the new medication.
“You don’t know that. There’s no proof she’s even alive.” He’s been my rock these past two months, but we’ve gone back and forth over this a lot.
He opens his mouth to respond, the argument becoming a familiar one but before he can, the sound of the side gate opening and closing echoes through the yard and a young Asian woman walks through the backyard.
She’s dressed smartly, her long black hair straight and falling down her back behind her as her eyes scan the yard. “Hey, sorry to interrupt.”
“Mia, it’s lovely to see you.” Lucy waves her over and the two quickly share a hug before she turns to Ariana and pulls her into her arms, whispering something in her ear.
Then she turns toward Charlie and I, and I swallow. Charlie told me everything Mia told him back then, but this is my first time meeting her.
“You have news, don’t you?” Charlie asks the moment Mia reaches us.
“I do,” she says tentatively, her eyes looking around at the people in the yard who are focused intently our way, and she sighs. “This isn’t really the time and place for this, but it feels wrong sitting on this.”
Charlie takes a step closer to me, his hand seeking mine and I thread my fingers through his, drowning in the possibilities of what she could be here to tell us.
“Did you guys want to go somewhere more private?”
“Just tell us,” Charlie says, and his parents move to join us, his father, Elijah, squeezing my shoulder in support as his twin does the same for Charlie. Everyone steps closer, offering their support and I struggle not to tear up at the amazing people around me.
“Bonnie is alive,” Mia tells us, and my feet fall out from under me, multiple arms reach out to catch me before my knees can hit the ground.
She’s alive.
“Where is she?” I choke out, looking behind her as though Bonnie is going to pop up any second.
“We don’t know.”
“We?” I’m not sure who asks the question or what they say after that because my ears start ringing and I cling to Charlie, my fingers digging into his skin hard enough that I’m sure he’s going to have bruises, but he makes no move to pull away, instead he just holds me tighter.
“I think we should sit down,” Mia suggests, and we all follow her, sitting around the table before she starts explaining how Bonnie’s death never sat right with her, so she started investigating her husband and a week ago, she broke into his house.
“...I found her husband dead in their basement. He faked her death two and a half years ago and had been keeping her captive down there until his death."
"How did he die?" Charlie whispers beside me.
"I can’t really go into the details because it’s now an open investigation.”
“Fuck what happened to him. What about Bonnie?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Bonnie wasn’t there. He’d been dead for a while…M.E. estimates about six months.” Six months? Where is she then? “She was injured before he left but she did walk out of there alive.”
Murmurs sound around the table as everyone processes the news, but I don’t join in on any of the conversations. My mind stuck on the fact that Bonnie is alive. Alive and hurt.
“How do you know?” I ask and everyone stops talking.
Mia opens her mouth before closing it and shaking her head. Finally, she sighs, closing her eyes briefly before she answers my question. “He had cameras in the basement.”
“Why do I feel like there’s more to it than that? What aren’t you telling us?” Charlie asks.
“The cameras showed that she walked out…carrying a newborn baby. Bonnie gave birth before she escaped.”
Silence.
No one says a word, and for once, my mind goes blank.