Page 113 of Set the Moment
It’d become our thing to watch home movies together on Thanksgiving, reminiscing and laughing at both of our childhoods on film.
“I’m okay,” I say with a shrug as he side eyes me, placing his photobook in his lap to look at me.
“Want to tell me the truth?”
“Nope,” I say popping the ‘p’ as he laughs aloud.
“Fine, it was a boy. Which one? The guy who left you stranded or someone different?”
I chuckle, considering both JaceandAric left me stranded before, but instead of answering, I play the home movie that he’d paused when I walked in the room.
“So itisa boy. Did you forget what I said about bums? I told you not to date them…Why didn’t—”
Sighing, I cut him off, “He’s not.”
“Is he broke?”
I laugh. “He’s richer than me and probably the prince of Wales combined.”
Uncle Clef blows out a huff of air. “So he’s a rich bum?”
I smile, loving my uncle. “You like this one.”
Uncle Clef is silent for a moment, my words sinking in. It doesn’t take a full five seconds before his neck is snapping my way and his jaw drops. “No!”
Cue the theatrics.
“The team is OFF limits! No, they are the worst of the worst. Besides Heart, I like Heart…he’s a good—Oh for the love of God, it’s Heart, isn’t it?”
“It’s Heart.” I nod.
Uncle Clef smacks his teeth, shaking his head like the disappointed uncle his. When he looks up at the TV, a video of Jace and I dancing on the screen plays.
The way he looks at me, holds me. Even at ten-years-old, Jace’s eyes have always been the same whenever he’d looked at me, and it warms my heart.
The video shifts and it’s one I’d never seen before. The camera wobbles slightly as Uncle Clef’s voice blares through the speaker.
“Come on, kid. Record her right!”He coached even then.
The boyish, childlike giggle has my spine stiffening as Jace’s voice calls back, “I’m trying, I’m trying! She’s moving so fast…God, she looks like an angel.”
The last line is mumbled, but I hear it loud and clear as the video cuts.
The recital. The first ever recital that my uncle and everyone flew to California to see. He’d called me an angel, even then.
Jace had been my number one supporter that day, showing up with my first ever bouquet of flowers and a smile on his face. At the time, he had green braces, and they were the cutest things in the world to me.
I remember it like it was yesterday, when I’d looked around and couldn’t find my parents in the crowd. I instead saw his mess of blond, wavy hair and knew that he was there for me.
That same day, he called me an angel and gave me flowers.
Stargazers.
They were bright and the most beautiful thing that I’d ever seen.
Jace Heartsawme, and dare I say he may have evenlovedme, all those years ago. Little did I know then, but I felt the exact same way.
forty-three
