Free Disturbed Mind (A Grace Ellery Romantic Suspense Series Book 2) by Charlotte Raine Page B

away. Problems like these don’t just disappear.”
    “You’re the problem.”
    The words rolls off my tongue like cherry bombs that explode as soon as they are out of my mouth. I immediately cover my mouth.
    “I didn’t mean that,” I mutter. “I’m sorry.”
    She shakes her head. “No, you meant it. I am the problem.”
    “Grace—”
    “No,” she repeats. “You’re right. I’ve caused you pain, and then I stuck around. I should go.”
    “Grace,” I say. “Come on. You can’t be serious.”
    She ignores me, walking into our bedroom. By the time I walk in, her suitcase is already open and she’s throwing all of her clothes into it.
    “You can’t leave on Valentine’s Day.”
    “So, what? I should wait until midnight and leave then?” she asks. “It won’t be Valentine’s Day anymore.”
    “I can make this up to you,” I say. “You know how I suck at communicating. I didn’t mean that in the way that I said it.”
    She shuts the suitcase and zips it up. “I’ll come back for my school stuff tomorrow morning. I’ll leave my key on the kitchen counter.”
    “Grace, you can’t just leave! You’re the one who said that we need to talk about this.”
    She pivots on her heel to look directly at me. “Then talk. Tell me exactly how you feel.”
    I open my mouth, but my mind goes blank. I don’t know how I feel. I love her—maybe to the point that it makes me stupid and reckless—but the pain of her rejection lingers as if it were burned into my palms and I feel it every time I touch her.
    “That’s what I thought,” she says, before turning around again and walking out of the room. I watch every step she takes. She stops in the dining room to grab her bag and coat, and then keeps going toward the door. She opens the door and walks out. The door closes.
    I watch it all, not moving, not protesting, not telling her that I know how I feel now.
    I know that without her, my heart is suffering from transient apical ballooning syndrome. Transient apical ballooning syndrome, or takotsubo, is when the myocardium is suddenly and temporarily weakened. It can cause acute heart failure, arrhythmias, and ventricular ruptures. It’s also known as broken-heart syndrome.
    I walk into the kitchen, my feet dragging with every step. I stop near the stove and pick up the present that Grace gave me. I contemplate giving it back to her unopened since I have no right to have it anymore, but curiosity gets the best of me.
    I carefully peel off the tape until the paper falls away and all that is left is a watch. It’s a silver-tone, stainless steel band, but the most noticeable part is that under the glass, within the numbers, there’s a heart organ etched into it.
    I put it on to remind myself what it’s like to have a heart.

Chapter Twenty

Grace, 2015
    ( V alentine’s Day ; Waycroft Elementary School, Murray, Virginia)
    I HAVE QUIT SMOKING so many times and failed in each attempt. I suppose it’s a metaphor. When times get rough, I put something known to cause cancer in my mouth, so I can die slowly and it will be my own damn fault.
    The playground at Waycroft Elementary School is different at night. The laughter of children is gone and the recreational equipment—the slide, the swings, the seesaw, the merry-go-round, the monkey bars, the jungle gym, the chin-up bars—all seem ominous instead of fun.
    I sit on the merry-go-round, continuing to smoke. Sam found me here last time on the swing set after he told the police about how Francis attacked me. He knew me so well back then, but now it seems like we have drifted so far apart that nothing could repair us.
    “Grace?”
    My head shoots up. It’s not Sam. It’s John Seoh, his best friend.
    “Did Sam send you?” I ask as he approaches me. His nose crinkles.
    “Why would Sam send me?” he asks. “Why aren’t you with Sam? I thought that’s what couples did on Valentine’s Day…spend the night together.”
    John is a Korean American who was born