I Left My Heart In Cafe Craeneburg

“hey, you awake?” Jace asked tenderly as he stroked my arm.

“No, I’m skydiving” I replied sarcastically rolling over to face him. The sunlight streamed through the window onto us which made last night seem like some distant nightmare. My mum did used to say that everything seemed better in the day. I guess she was right.

“Ok, sergeant sarcastic” He replied rolling his eyes at me.

“Shut up General prick”

“Get a better insult”

“Get a brain” I retorted now fully feeling awake.

“Ok, ok I give up. You win”

“Good” I said kissing his cheek. I got out of bed and arched my back trying to crack it.

“You know cracking bones isn’t good, right?”

“It creates an air bubble and when you crack your bones, all your doing is popping it” I replied with a yawn.

“You’re too smart for your own good, you know that right?” He replied with a shake of his head also standing beside me.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I?” I asked. I stood straight and went over to find some clothes for the day.

“What are we doing today? Or are we staying housebound?” Jace asked watching me hunt for clothes.

“It’s up to you” I replied, taking my pyjamas off. I wasn’t self conscious at all since we’d already...well you know.

“Are you trying to tease me?” He moaned causing me to giggle.

“I’m going to take a shower.” I said as I gathered a towel and my clothes up in my hands. “On my own” I added as an afterthought.

*

"I'm going to take you to meet my mom" He said when I'd fastened my seatbelt.

"What, right now?" I asked.

"Yup...if that's ok. I mean, will you be ok? I mean-"He tripped over his words nervously.

"I'll be fine, Jace" I replied with a small smile. I really wouldn’t be fine. What if she hated me? What if she just blanked me or didn't let me in the house? What if she turned Jace against me? What if- If she raised Jace, then how bad can she be? The rational part of my brain said calmly. I sighed; Jace was good, so why wouldn't she be?

"She'll love you, don't worry" He said as if reading my mind. One of his hands rested on my knee to soothe me, only moving when he had to change gears.

“You sure?” I asked still scared. What if she didn’t like me?

“Stop worrying” Jace ordered. I nodded. Taking a deep breath, which instantly soothed me, I thought of the worst case scenario. If she hated me, then I could deal with that just as long as Jace could.

Five minutes later we pulled up to an old ish looking house. It was painted a pale aqua colour and had white window frames. The drive leading towards it was pebbled with flowers breaking through the borders into it. Jace stopped the car.

“It’ll be fine, Rave” I nodded, reassuring myself mainly. As I got out of the car I noticed that there was an older woman stood in her doorway looking impatient and angry. Crap!

“She hates me!” I squeeked into Jace’s shoulder.

“She’s just angry that I didn’t warn her, is all” He rubbed my back with his hand.

“Hallo Mama” He said as we approached her.

"wie is dit mooie meisje??" She replied in what I assumed was Dutch.

"Het meisje dat ikbenverliefd op.HaarnaamisRavenmaarik noemhaarrave Gewoon om tepestenhaar"

"Ah" then she began to move her hands all over the place, frantically. I became worried if she was ok but then I actually saw what she was doing. She was signing.

"Whydidn'tyoutellmeyouwerebringingherover?Ineedtocleanupthehouse!" She signed. I was lucky I'd been learning sign language since I was ten. My parents encouraged me to so I could talk to deaf people.

"Its...fine...my...house..is always...way...more messy...than this" My signing was slower since I hadn't been doing it for a few years; I was a little rusty.

"You sign?" She asked. I nodded since I still didn't know yes or no yet. Ironic really.

“yes I can...if you don’t mind me asking...how can you talk and hear what Jace is saying?” I asked.

“I can lip read” She replied with a smile.

“Oh. Can Jace sign?" I asked.

"No...so that means I can talk about him behind his back without him understanding" she chuckled slightly.

"I never...thought of it that way...but yes. I guess so" I nodded turning to see Jace staring at us like we were aliens.

"Hi" I waved to him.

"You can sign?" He asked in awe.

"Yeah"

"Teach me, please! I have this feeling like she talks about me behind my back" He begged.

"Nah, I don't think she does" I said whilst signing to his mum what he'd just said. She laughed.

"Aren't you going to introduce us?" She asked in a heavily accented voice.

"right. Ok, this is my mom, Jaap. My dad is currently working abroad in America but he's called Gabe." He said to me. "mom, this is Raven" He said talking to his mum.

It turned out that Jace’s mum liked me very much and constantly said how much she’d love me as a daughter in law. Jace just blushed every time she said it out loud for his benefit.

“So how ‘bout it?” He asked.

“Let’s go to Vegas right now then” I joked with a grin.

“Yeah!” He exclaimed, his eyes gleaming over. I rolled my eyes completely forgetting about the things that’d happened.

We spent all day at Jaap’s house and it was the best day ever. Jaap was signing to me about Jace at every chance she got, often making fun of him. Eventually, though Jace had had enough, lept off his chair and conceded that he’d take sign lessons to make us shut up. It didn’t work, though, because as soon as he’d sat down again we were signing again. I really did have a great day and Jaap’s antics nearly had me forgetting about what is happening to me. Almost being the operative word. I knew that eventually something would happen to me and I also got the feeling that I wouldn’t like it, either. Mum said I’d have to make a difficult choice and I’m beginning to see what it could be. And it wasn’t to do with my life.

I glanced over at Jace arguing with his mum. It was an amusing sight really. She was bawling him out in a heavily accented voice while he had his fingers in his ears humming loudly. Usually I’d feel like I was imposing on a family in this situation but, thinking about it, I felt a strange sense of home. Like this was where I belong. I glanced at my watch which read half past three which meant that my stomach started to growl. As soon as it did, Jace looked at me and burst out laughing causing me to turn bright red. I guess it was loud then.

“If you were hungry you could have just said!” He exclaimed shaking his head at me. I just stuck my tongue out a him in a childish gesture. He rolled his eyes and turned to his mum. “Mama, we’ll have to take off now but thanks for accepting Rave. It means a lot. Ik hou vanje” He leant over to kiss her cheek and hug her.

“Bye now, take care of her; I want lots of grandkids!” She replied back with a cheeky grin. As I’d gotten to know her over the day I realised that she was quite childish in many ways and I could see where Jace got his mannerisms from. Nevertheless I still blushed from that comment.

“ma, you’re insufferable sometimes” He shook his head slowly.

“Why thank you” She grinned following us to the door. “now go get Rave something to eat”

She shut the door behind Jace and I. I chuckled at Jace’s baffled expression.

“Come on, lets go before I die of starvation” I chuckled getting into the car.

“So where do you want to go?” Jace asked as we pulled out of the driveway.

“Cafe craenenburg” I replied with a grin.

“Of course you would” He mumbled earning a gibbs slap from me. “What? I was just stating a fact” He rubbed the back of his head while wincing slightly.

We parked up just a little outside the square and walked inside. The square was beautiful, it had a stream running through it with a small bridge where, every so often, boats with people in floated down having a tour from the waters edge. There were a few chocolate shops there as well as other small shops and of course Cafe Craenenburg. It was a tall building connected to other really tall buildings. It had a glass ground floor with tables set out outside. Above the doorway hung a hug green painted sign that said the cafe’s name on in thick writing.The Cafe Craenenburg was a bar and brasserie in a place called Markt- something I’d learnt the first time I came here as the placemats were paper and had a sketch of the cafe with information on. People were chatting whilst drinking some sort of beer. The chatter sounded friendly and people were smiling but my stomach knotted and my heart clenched painfully. I didn’t let on but it really hurt and made me scared. It felt like he was here but I couldn’t be sure; the square was busy with tourists and non-tourists. The sun was shining, though, which was good. I was beginning to think that the heat wave had worn off which would make Paige angry and I’d be hearing about it until my ears were chewed off.

We took our seats in the corner of the room and started to look over the menu.

“What time is it?” I asked Jace whose mouth was watering.

“three” He replied still looking at the menu.

“Continental breakfast it is” I replied. I knew that it wasn’t breakfast time but I’d heard that it was really nice. Jace chuckled. The waiter came and we ordered what we wanted. I ordered a hot chocolate with mine; we were in Belgium after all.

“You know I never came here until I met you” Jace said after a moment of silence.

“Really?”

“Yeah, all my life, nearly, I’ve lived here” He replied, “And I still never came” He shrugged.

“Well your here now” I grinned.

“With you” He replied with a smile.

The waiter then came back with our food and we sat in a comfortable silence as we ate. Occasionally I would glance outside to check if he were there but he never was. I glanced outside again and sure enough, he was there watching me with a clam look on his face but I knew that, if I were to get close enough, I’d see the malefic look in his eyes. Noting that he had my attention, he waved to me. I harmless gesture to an outsider but I saw the power behind it. It wasn’t a request, it was a command. Jace noticed him too.

“Who is he?” He asked “Do you know him?”

“You could say that. I better go see what he wants” I replied as I went outside.

I watched her go outside to greet some boy. A million thoughts raced through my mind but the most prominent one was ‘is she safe?’ She walked outside stiffly, like she was a puppet on strings. The man looked harmless, like a nice person even. So why was Rave scared of him? I watched hin horror as he bent down to her ear and whisper something in it. She stiffened up even more, if that were possible, and glanced at me. She looked heartbroken; tears formed in her eyes and her posture deflated instantly like she could no longer hold her own weight. And it was in that very moment that I hated that man. I despised him for whatever he said to make her look so...empty. she mouthed a ‘sorry’ to me as I began to angrily stand up. And I watched in horror as he led her away from me by their conjoint hands. Suddenly, the ground seemed far far away. How could she leave like that? There had to be a reason. Angrily, I dialled Paige.

“Hello?” She asked.

“Meet me at my house in ten minutes” I barely held my composure to speak. I needed to get to the bottom of this. Sooner rather than later.