Episode Seventeen:The Cost Of Peace
847 Words
The victory didn’t feel like victory.
The judge ruled in Jace’s favor. Lucas’s countersuit was dismissed. The restraining order was extended for three years with the possibility of criminal charges pending further investigation.
And yet…
Peace didn’t come.
Not the kind you breathe easily into.
Because the message still echoed in my inbox.
“You think you won. You haven’t even seen the worst of it yet.”
I didn’t show Jace.
Not yet.
Not when he’d just begun to sleep through the night again.
Not when I caught him smiling, really smiling, for the first time in weeks as he painted a canvas full of blues and sunrise gold.
I held onto the threat alone.
And that cost me more than I realized.
The first c***k came three days later.
We were in the kitchen. He was making coffee. I was scrolling my phone, too distracted to notice how quiet he’d gone.
When I looked up, he was staring at me.
“You’re hiding something.”
I set the phone down. “What?”
He wiped his hands on a towel. “You’ve been checking your email more. You flinch when your screen lights up. You think I don’t notice, but I do.”
I hesitated.
Then told him.
About the message.
The threat.
The timing.
The fact that I had chosen to carry it alone.
He didn’t raise his voice.
But his hands trembled as he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you needed to feel safe. I didn’t want to take that from you.”
His voice cracked. “It’s not your job to carry this for me.”
I stepped forward. “It’s not just your story anymore, Jace. He’s trying to reach both of us now. Hurt both of us.”
“And he is,” Jace whispered. “Because you kept it to yourself. That’s what he wants—to divide us.”
We didn’t fight after that.
But we didn’t speak much either.
He painted until late.
I stayed up, reading the same email again, hoping it would lose its power if I stared at it long enough.
It didn’t.
A week passed.
We went through the motions.
Groceries. Work calls. Art submissions.
But the air between us had changed.
Not broken.
Just strained.
One morning, I watched him dress for a meeting with a gallery director. He stood at the mirror adjusting his sleeves.
“You’re incredible, you know,” I said.
He paused.
“Even when you’re scared. Even when you’re hurting. You still show up.”
He didn’t turn around.
But he said, “Then stop treating me like I’m too fragile to hear the truth.”
And with that, he left.
The next night, I found another envelope outside our door.
No stamp. No name.
Inside: a single image.
A childhood photo of Jace.
Ten years old. Smiling, but hollow. Holding a ribbon from an art contest.
On the back, someone had written:
“You’re still that little boy pretending to be brave.”
This time, I showed him immediately.
He stared at it. Then placed it on the kitchen table like it was a bug he didn’t want to touch.
“I remember that day,” he said.
“My father made me redo the painting three times. He said the school wouldn’t take ‘weak brushwork.’ I remember thinking if I didn’t win, I couldn’t go home.”
He looked up.
“He’s playing with memories now.”
That night, we burned the photo.
Outside in a metal pan, flame dancing under the stars, both of us silent as the edges curled black.
It felt symbolic.
But it wasn’t closure.
Two days later, we finally got a name.
The digital investigation team traced the threatening messages to a masked IP—but the routing trail led back to an associate of Lucas’s. Someone Jace remembered from a party years ago. Someone who had stayed silent through everything.
Until now.
“He’s doing it for him,” Jace muttered. “Lucas never does his own dirty work if he can manipulate someone else to do it.”
Our lawyer agreed. “We can’t tie Lucas directly—yet. But we’re building a case. And if your mental health is impacted, we can expand the civil suit.”
“I don’t want money,” Jace said. “I want space. I want peace.”
I watched him say it.
And for the first time, I realized—
He wasn’t just surviving anymore.
He was trying to live.
That night, Jace finally opened his sketchbook again.
Not for court.
Not for pain.
For himself.
But tucked between two pages, folded twice—
Was a letter he didn’t remember writing.
Or mailing.
“If you’re reading this, it means I was too afraid to say it to your face.”
“I went back to him. And I don’t know if I’ll make it out again.”
He stared at the ink.
Then looked at me.
And whispered, “There’s more I forgot…”
- Writer
