Blood Lines

"Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin."-Deuteronomy 24:16

…

"You're mad," I say, getting to the point.

But she just shrugs her shoulders and says "I'm not mad."

"Yes you are."

Something flashes in her eyes when she counters back with, "No. I'm not."

I don't quite believe it but I go with it. I don't really want to make things worse. "Then what's up? Why are you ignoring me?"

"I'm not ignoring you-"

"Yes, you are!" I nearly shout. She jumps a little and immediately I want to take it back, but it feels like she's pushing me away, and… I can't… let that happen. "What's going on?"

That was about an hour ago and her answer was, I'm worried about you, Henry.

Those words have been replaying over and over again in my head like a distant echo in a deep cave. We're sitting at the beach because I needed to talk to her. I mean that's what you do when there's trouble, right? You talk about it?

"What are you worried about?" I ask her as she's twiddling with her thumbs, wrists resting on her knees, as she stares out into the ocean. "I'm fine."

She opens her mouth and then closes it again, probably deciding against an unknown thought. Pulling some hair away from her face, her eyes falls into her lap. "You shouldn't skip school," she says simply. I want to laugh. I really do, but I won't because she looks really serious. "You're smarter than that, Henry."

"Is that what this is about?" I say, unable to hold back a few chuckles in my amusement. "Grace? Seriously? I skipped like two days."

She turns her head, eyes meeting mine, eyes wide in worry. "You drank, stole from your mother, and now you're skipping school?" she says this while counting with her fingers, "Why are you doing this?"

Now it's not funny. Not even for me. "I'm not perfect, Grace," I tell her, "I jus- I wasn't thinking."

She doesn't say anything after that, but I can tell she has something deep on her mind. Something she has trouble saying out loud and her silence is REALLY bothering me. Okay so maybe she's right. Maybe I am pushing a bit too much of the boundaries of authority but she has to understand my home life and my situation. If I don't let loose every now and then , I'll definitely be turning all my aggressions on someone else, which is way worse in my book.

"What if I skipped school with you?" Grace said finally and it really took me by surprise.

Grace…

Grace Hatter skipping school… with… with me? No way! Not in a million years! I mean if anyone!and I do mean ANYONE ever found out what I'm doing during school… I… I mean. I promised I wouldn't tell anyone.Not even my own mother. What is he going to say?

"No," I say too quickly, "absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"I skip school to get away from my problems and last time I checked…"

"What? You think you're the only one allowed to have problems?" Grace asks, giving me a hard stare.

"Are you having problems?"

She doesn't say anything.

"Well what is it?" I ask trying to reach for her arm, but she pulls away before I could touch her.

"I'm fine okay?" she says uncharacteristically harsh and I know she's lying, "We're not even talking about me. This is about you."

I continue to stare at her, "Grace?" Tears stream down one eye, as the other one is heavily wet, like a puddle. "Grace, are you okay?" I try to reach for her again, this time she allows it. I pull her in close, eliminating the gaps between us. "Please tell me."

She wipes her tears away, and says, "You can be such a manipulator." Pulling away she stands up and begins to walk away.

"What!?" I yell to her. Okay now I'm mad. Standing up too, I follow her, "Grace! Grace stop!" but she doesn't. She keeps walking. I run up to her and reach for her wrist, but she dodges me.

"What are you doing!?" she says turning her body around..

"Why are you mad!?" I ask, "This is isn't like you? You never keep anything from me! You never not tell me when you have problems! I want to know Grace! I want to help! You wanna know what's been going on with me FINE! I have dreams at night about killing my mother! I skip school to spend time with my grandfather because I feel like he gets me better than ANYONE else! I don't like what I did, stealing from Emma because it was best feeling in the world that I almost got away with it! I… I… You're laughing at me."

She was in fact laughing at me and I wasn't sure if it was something I said or if it was because she made the whole thing up to get me to start… shiiiiiitttt…

"You made the whole thing up?" she nodded, "The wholething." I pointed at her face, "even the tears." She nodded again, "H-how… How did…"

I can't believe what I'm looking at. Grace Hatter. My sweet Grace Hatter was looking at me with so much pride and self accomplishment. I simply couldn't believe it. "Don't you feel better now you have all that off your chest?" she smiles.

I pull her close to me until the tips of my hair were touching her forehead. "And you call me a manipulator," I whisper.

"You are a manipulator, Henry," she whispers back. Her smile slowly falls, "but I amworried about you. The Henry I know believes in good and doing the right thing."

"I still believe in that," I tell her, a bit hurt she thinks that has changed.

"Good. Then I'll expect you at school tomorrow? Or let me come with you when you visit your grandfather, you're talking about Charming right?"

I wince before saying, "Ofcourse."

"Okay. Good," she says, "Now lets talk about your nightmares. Why do you think you have them?"

"I'm not sure," I lie. I mean it's not entirely a lie. I have absolutely no idea why I have them, but I do have suspicions. Those suspicions being, Peter Pan being my Great Grandfather, Rumplestiltskin being my Grandfather, and a Lost Boy being my father. I have a family who comes from a long line of people doing good, but on the other side I have a family who comes from a long line of people doing bad things, and it would be a lie if I said, it has never crossed my mind if I had ever done anything or eventually willdo something to keep up that dark legacy.

As horrible as it sounds.

READER'S NOTE: Okay I'm sorry it took me a while to write this chapter. I'll try to finish these at a more stable pace. Thank you soo much for reading it and I hope it makes sense. I hope you like it and please… love it, hate it, don't understand it, you know the drill…

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