Broken Hearts (Light in the Dark 5)

We start tossing around ideas. I write down the good ones but as we go along most get crossed off. Naming a business is hard. It needs to represent us and be memorable.

“This is exhausting,” I declare, tossing my head back and groaning.

“What about JiN?” Joel tosses out.

“It’s catchy,” I agree. “But it doesn’t tell people what we do.”

“We could add photography to it then?”

I nod, thinking it over. “It could work. Let’s think on it for a few days and see if we still like it.”

“Sounds good to me.”

I stand and shrug into my coat. “I’ll see you later.”

I hug Joel goodbye and head home. I could’ve hung out longer, but I wanted to get home and lie down, maybe take a nap. This baby, as much as I love it, is sucking the life out of me.

I pick up some lunch before I head home—since I don’t feel like fixing anything. I doubt I’ll be able to keep it down, but Jace can eat the rest so it won’t go to waste.

I get back to the apartment and bump the door with my hip to close it. It’s quiet with Jace not home. It’s always weird. I prefer being here with him. I’m sure some people think I’m crazy—that I should want to have time to myself—but we’re so alike his presence calms me instead of bothering me.

I take off my coat and kick off my boots. I hang my coat up and set the boots up so Jace doesn’t trip on them when he gets home. I sit down on one of the barstools and pull out my sandwich.

I take a tentative bite and wait for the nausea to hit. When it doesn’t, I take another little bite. Eating slowly until I manage to get the entire sandwich down. Now I have to hope it doesn’t take revenge on me later.

I clean up my trash and decide to start tackling the spare room. Since Jace and I got together we’ve been using the room I used to sleep in as a makeshift storeroom. It’s full of my photography equipment, boxes from Jace’s dad’s house, some of my clothes I never moved over, and much more. But now we need the space for the nursery. I know eventually we’ll have to move into a house or at least something bigger, but while the baby is small this will be perfect—less space for the tyke to get in trouble.

I start with my clothes. I toss what I don’t want to keep on the floor and then carry the rest over to our bedroom and put them away.

I grab a trash bag on my way back and use it to put my discarded clothes in to take to donate.

Next I tackle my photography equipment. There isn’t much and I set it near the door so I can take it to Joel’s or he can come and pick it up. It’s mostly backdrops that might be useful and a couple of costumes.

I leave the boxes to Jace, not wanting to toss something he might want to keep. I stack those outside the bedroom, though, so he’ll be sure to see them.

The floor and bed are finally revealed. Jace will have to take apart the bed and do something with the mattress, because that’s past my expertise and I definitely can’t lift a mattress.

The rest of the room is filled with odds and ends we should’ve thrown away a long time ago. I pile them with my clothes to donate.

The room is dusty and kind of gross since it’s been unused and piled with junk. I dust over the windowsill and dresser before vacuuming. Once I do it looks one hundred percent better.

So much for my nap. I think to myself, but this needed to be done, and Lord knows Jace won’t do it.

I’m hot and sweaty from working so I take a shower and change into pajamas—an old pair of sweatpants and a tank top. I gather my long wet hair up into a bun so it doesn’t drip all over me and I lie down on the couch. I put the TV on a random channel and lie there thinking about how amazing my life is now.

I think, maybe, I had to go through all those horrible things in my life in order to better appreciate the good.

Everything happens for a reason, and I have to believe there’s a bigger purpose for my past.

Not everyone is bad, there are people you can love and trust in the world, and I have some of the best people in my life now.

I know they’ll be there for me no matter what.

Through thick and thin.

Jace

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” I ask Nova for the five-hundredth fucking time as we stand, ready to board the plane.