Disgrace

As I turned to face him, his face was red, and his breaths sawed in and out. His hazel eyes locked with mine, and I saw the debate in his mind as he leaned against his doorframe.

“I’m not good with words,” he confessed. “I have all these thoughts in my head, and I don’t know how to express them, so instead, I snap. I come off as hard and aggressive when I can’t express myself in the right way.”

“And what were you trying to express just now by shouting at me?”

“I…” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, snapping the bracelet on his arm. “It pisses me off.” His eyes reappeared, and when I stared into them, I didn’t see his anger, just the gentleness that sometimes slipped out of his soul. “It pisses me off the way these assholes treat you. It pisses me off watching you not stand up for yourself. It pisses me off that you act like you don’t have a voice. It pisses me off that I don’t know how to talk to you...”

My heart was racing as he stuffed his hands into his pockets, and looked down at the ground. “I know it makes no sense, Grace, but I just think you deserve more, and the people in this town aren’t going to give it to you. They are tearing you apart, not stitching you back together, and it pisses me off that I can’t express that in a clear way.”

I swallowed hard. “I think you just did.” He looked up, and I wiped the tears falling from my eyes. “I don’t know who I am,” I confessed.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly that. I don’t know who I am. Someone else has always handled everything I’ve ever done. I went out with Finn on a blind date. I became a teacher because my mama told me it would be a good choice. I followed Finn around like a sad puppy dog. I never made a choice that was of my own doing. The only thing I’ve ever done for myself is get that pink car years ago.” I waved my hands back and forth and began pacing, my heart rate climbing higher. “Who am I? Who is Gracelyn Mae? Do I even exist or am I just a robotic creation of the environment I was brought up in? You know what I mean?” I asked.

“Grace…”

“I don’t know how I like my eggs.”

He narrowed his eyes, confused as ever. “What?”

“My eggs—I don’t know how I like my eggs. Whenever I go out, for as long as I can remember, I’ve never ordered for myself. I always say, ‘I’ll have what he’s having or what she’s having.’ Not once have I ever chosen my own food. Finn always ordered scrambled eggs, so guess what I always had?”

“Scrambled?” he said, playing along with my crazed mind.

“Exactly! But that’s not all,” I exclaimed. “I just realized I don’t know anything about myself. I don’t know what kind of movies I like. I don’t know what clothes look good on me. If I could go on a solo trip anywhere in the world, where would I go? I know where my sister would go. I know where Finn would go. Heck, I even know where Mama would end up—but me? I have no dang clue because I don’t know what I like or what I would want to experience. I think that’s the hardest part of being alone right now.

“I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to be alone with myself because I don’t know who I am. I’ve always been the pastor’s daughter, then I went straight into becoming a wife, then I was a teacher to my students, and if the universe hadn’t fought me, I would’ve gone straight from being a wife to becoming a mom. There has never been a moment when I’ve been able to just fully be Grace. Now I’m in a place where I have that opportunity, but I have no idea how to go about finding myself.”

Jackson studied me for a moment with his eyes narrowed and his arms crossed. The way he tilted his head to the left and then to the right intrigued me. What was going on in that mind of his? What was he thinking?

“Okay,” he finally said, dropping his hands and rolling his shoulders back. “We’re gonna start with the basics.”

“What do you mean?”

He took my hands into his and walked me back into his cabin. He moved me over to his kitchen table where he pulled out a chair and had me sit. He then went into the refrigerator, grabbed a carton of eggs, and set them right in front of me. “We’re going to find out how you like your eggs.”