Chapter 31
JACE
“Yep, so that’s me!” I say after several long and awkward minutes of silence. “Figured you should know everything off the bat before…you know? I dunno.” I shrug, swallowing the lump in my throat. The longer everyone goes without talking, the harder it gets to breathe.
Clearing my throat, I flick a crumb off the table. “I get it if it’s too much, if you don’t want me around Charlotte. It’s a lot. Honestly, I don’t know how Charlie deals with it.”
When I finally get the courage to look up, Bonnie is chewing on her bottom lip. She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes before casting a quick look at Mitchell and leaning forward, reaching across to squeeze my hand.
A part of me wants to pull away, knowing this is where she lets me down softly. She will squeeze my hand and comfort me as she gently explains that she’s sorry but yeah, it’s too much.
Instead, she clears her throat. “After they separated us…those nightmares I used to have got real bad and…I attacked my foster father. He came into the room to close my window because a storm hit in the middle of the night.
“I don’t really remember what happened, but he told the police and paramedics that when he came in, he thought I was awake because my eyes were open but then I started thrashing and clawing at my throat.
Apparently he called my name a few times, tried to talk to me but he said it was like I wasn’t seeing or hearing him.
“When my neck started bleeding he said he panicked and tried to pull my hands away but the second he touched me I flipped.
“When the police and paramedics arrived, I was still out of it but rather than attacking him, I was just trying to get away. I tried to jump out the window, I threw myself at it but thankfully, he already closed and locked it, but still…
“It felt like I was awake, but not. When I fully came out of it, I was so confused, I didn’t remember any of it.
My shoulder was killing me – turns out I dislocated it.
My finger was throbbing because the nail was broken almost right down to the bed, and when I touched my sore throat, my hands came away with blood.
“I could see David out in the hallway. The paramedics were checking him over because he was covered in scratches everywhere, his eye was swollen shut and he was clutching his arm. The lamp on the nightstand was on the floor, shattered to pieces and when I stepped toward him, he flinched.” She shakes her head, tears filling her eyes.
“I remember asking “did I do that?” and when no one answered me, I started panicking. All I could think was I attacked him. Just like my father attacked me. I was no better than him.
“Then one of the paramedics asked if I’ve ever had a night terror before. I didn’t even know what that was, I told him I have nightmares all the time, and he explained the difference to me, and that he thought that’s what happened.
“He asked me to explain how it felt and if I remembered what I was ‘seeing’ but I couldn’t. I felt foggy and weird and tired and…scared.
“Then David started apologising to me.” Bonnie stands up, pacing on the grass. “I attacked him, and he was apologising to me? He kept saying it was alright, that I did nothing wrong, that it was his fault. Not mine-”
A loud clicking noise has her flinching hard, cutting her off as she starts to get agitated and we all turn in the direction it came from to find there’s nothing there.
Mitchell and I don’t turn back to the conversation straight away, eyeing the trees and the river nearby.
I get a crawling feeling that turns to an itch, much like the one I got last week when I thought Charlie’s parents were listening and I start to wonder if this is in my head as well.
It sounded like the shutter a phone makes or the clicking noise when you lock your phone only a lot louder, but there’s no one around, we’re alone.
I look at Mitchell first, his eyes still scanning the area and when he sees me watching him, he gives me a confused look. If it was in my head, why did he and the others hear it too? My eyes quickly look back in the direction it came from.
“They took me to the hospital too.” That has my attention snapping back to Bonnie, instantly forgetting about everything else. “They ran a bunch of tests, including a tox screen to rule out drugs and alcohol and a bunch of other shit before they transferred me to the psychiatric ward.
“They confirmed that I was experiencing a night terrors through a sleep study and they ended up transferring me to a long-term psychiatric unit for minors because they deemed me a risk to myself and others. A few months later, I was diagnosed with delayed-onset PTSD.
“During one of the therapy sessions, they were asking me about my nightmares and when they started.
I told them that whilst I had them I occasionally before we were separated, they started occurring every night since they split us up.
They just got worse and worse. When they asked me why I thought that was the case, I told them plain and simple.
You made me feel safe, so the solution was simple. Let us be together.
“But they refused, said it wasn’t right and that it wouldn’t solve the problem, it was just a bandaid. I stopped cooperating after that. I refused to speak during therapy, getting me to take any medication was a nightmare. I just didn’t care anymore.
“Until I realised they would keep me in there, well in an adult facility, after I turned eighteen because I was still considered a risk to myself and others.
“After that, I started participating in therapy again, started taking my meds, I did everything they asked me to because I wanted to get back to you guys. When I said I wanted to go to uni, they helped me get into a university they had a partnership with for people like me and I took it. I figured I could transfer eventually and well…you know the rest.” She picks at her nails for a long moment before looking directly at me. “Is it too much?”
I rear back, unable to stay seated any longer and round the table, squeezing myself into the gap between her and Mitchell and pull her into my arms. “Never.”
“Then you know my answer, Jace. I would never think you’re a danger to her just because you have bipolar. Fuck, I killed someone”
“It was self-defence. He deserved it.”
“He did, but I still ended his life. I still have night terrors that can be violent. I’ve attacked Mitchell before. But we taught Charlotte how to recognise if I’m having a night terror and what not to do in those instances. We can teach her this.”
“What about you?” Bonnie finally asks, turning to Charlie who scratches the back of his neck, his cheeks turning pink in embarrassment, and I frown. “You don’t have to share, if you don’t want to,” Bonnie quickly adds and Charlie winces.
“It’s not that. It’s just-”
“Next to what they went through after you were all separated, it feels a little…inadequate?” Mitchell guesses and Charlie’s shoulders drop, his head handing as he avoids looking at us.
“What? Charlie it’s not a competition, you don’t have to feel bad for that.
Just because you didn’t suffer like we did, doesn’t mean you didn’t suffer,” I tell him as adamantly as he tells me there’s nothing to be shameful of my BD.
If that’s the case, there’s nothing shameful about how he dealt with our separation just because he didn’t end up in a hospital or psych ward.
It’s what makes him him, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Huh, I think get it now.
Sighing, he finally answers Bonnie’s question. “You guys just disappeared in the middle of the night. No one knew where you went or if you were even okay. They didn’t even withdraw you guys from school straight away.
“We checked all the hospitals, even went to the police and requested a welfare check when my dads couldn’t reach your parents.
“I tried calling, texting and even messaging you guys on social media but your phones were disconnected, and your accounts were deactivated. Didn’t stop me from obsessively checking my phone for missed calls or messages.
I even got suspended for refusing to hand it over when they caught me with it at school.
“When I realised you guys weren’t going to call or text, I started checking the mail every day hoping maybe we’d end up being pen pals like in the movies. I sat outside every day, didn’t matter what the weather was like, and I waited for the postie to show up.
“Then the cops got back to us, told us you guys moved and the next day you were withdrawn from school.
Then the for-sale sign went up. I ripped it out of the ground as soon as the guy left.
And the second one. I even egged the first person who arrived when they had an open house day.
The realtor went off her head and Dad came racing outside when he heard her screaming at me.
“Later that night, they all sat me down and told me they managed to get a hold of Grant, but he refused to give them any information, wouldn’t answer a single question and told them never to contact him or his family again and hung up on them.
"That’s when it sunk in. That you guys weren’t coming back. I didn’t get out of bed for a few days. It took Mum crawling in beside me and telling me she understood how I felt because she felt it too when she lost Dad, but fate brought him back to her.
“She told me fate would bring us all back together one day and handed me our notebook we used to scribble all of our plans in and that when we did reunite, I had to be the best version of me, for myself and for you guys.
“So, I got out of bed. I went back to school, and I aced all my tests. I was convinced that we’d all meet at uni, just like we planned. I thought I saw you guys so many times, but it always turned out to be someone else.
“Then I met Ari and her guys. We quickly became friends. A whole bunch of shit went down with them when I went home for Christmas, but when we got back Ariana gave me her sister’s contact information.
” Charlie locks eyes with Mitchell, finally answering the question he asked us yesterday.
“Mia is a private investigator, she’s the one who discovered Ariana and their sisters, brought them all together.
Anway, she helped me find Jace, but she didn’t know where you were, Bonnie.
“She didn’t believe your hus-his lies about your death though, so she kept digging. She found your posts. That’s how we found you.”