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Grade
11

 

When I was six years old, the world felt golden. I didn’t know what it felt like to be hurt beyond a scraped knee on the elementary school playground. My parents were still alive. Well, eleven years later, I was back at that same stupid elementary school playground. The world was a shattered place, and you’d get yourself cut up if you weren’t careful. I’d gotten a lot smarter.

I’d been tracing my feet in the rotting mulch and smoking away, when the school secretary came out of nowhere. I rolled my eyes. Ms. Peterson pounded towards me furiously. Exercising all of what little authority she thought she had, she screeched, “What do you think you’re doing, George?”

“Skydiving,” I replied sarcastically, deliberately blowing smoke into her face. Ms. Peterson took the cigarette out of my hand and crushed it with the toe of her ugly, patent leather shoe. “You’ll have to tell me later about what a horrible kid I am,” I sighed mock apologetically, checking my bare wrist for the time, “I’ve really gotta run.”

I sprinted from the decaying, never-to-be-repaired swing that I’d been kicking around on. It was all Ms. Peterson could do to shake her perfectly painted red fingernail at me angrily. I laughed so that everyone in that school would hear me leave and know that there was nothing they could do about it.

I hopped into my piece of junk car. God, I didn’t know why my mom had kept this thing. The dusty blue paint chipped off with every ride, and even the car itself seemed to beg to be retired whenever I started the engine. Radio worked, though. I blasted something that would make adults go red in the face over and sped home, feeling unsatisfied with my victory.

I stomped up to my house past the long dead garden, and cursed as I jammed my house key in the door. My agoraphobic grandmother always kept the house locked for no reason. She never left home, and it wasn’t like we had anything worth stealing anyway.

“Anybody home?” I called, once I stepped past the thick oak door. Silence. My cheeks got hot, their usual response to some dumb freak out. I told myself that there wasn’t anything to get upset about, but Grandma Abbie, no matter the time, always greeted me with a kiss in her pearlescent lipstick. Usually it pissed me off because I didn’t like to be smothered, but I was getting a little worried having not seen her.

I shook off my backpack onto the linoleum floor and cautiously searched the spotless house, but every room I checked was as undisturbed as ever. I found my hand against a scar under my eye that I generally tried to ignore. In a last ditch effort, I checked the garage, and nearly choked. Her car was gone. Grandma Abbie hadn’t driven in eleven years. Her silver car had always sat there, the outside in perfect condition. If you looked under the hood, you’d have seen the parts were all in need of serious repair. I didn’t even know the thing could still run.

I have to admit, I was getting kind of panicked, as if I were a kid again or something. After my parents died I used to get all nervous, but I’d gotten better. The trick was to not think about them. If I didn’t think about them, then that car crash never happened, and I was still fine. People always admired how Grandma Abbie went on afterwards, but I was the one who saw her cry when she thought she was alone. I was the one who heard her say, “Thank you for inviting me, but I think I’ll stay home tonight.” I watched her clean, and clean, and clean, as if she could scrub away what had happened to her daughter.

If she wasn’t at home, Grandma Abbie must have left. Each and every one of my muscles tightened into a knot of frustration. At first, I begged her for months to take me out - to the playground, to the grocery store, anywhere - and then she was just gone? I was getting pretty worked up. She couldn’t just decide to leave without me. People kept leaving me.

I did something I’m not proud of. I sat on the couch and cried, all uselessly as if I could fix anything by wasting time with tears. It was like I was a first grader again, gripping that awful, brown and mustard scratchy plaid sofa until my knuckles turned white. On the squat, doily covered coffee table sat a yellowing Polaroid. It wasn’t like Grandma Abbie to leave anything out of place, so I picked it up. My eyes were all wet and my hands all shaky. Man, that picture knocked the wind out of me. The back of the photograph had in my mother’s handwriting, “Me and my boys, 1968.” From the day of the crash.

That day, the sky was so blue that I’d wanted to take a piece of it home with me. I was squished between my parents in front of a tree at the park and really hamming it up for the camera. My mom had her head thrown back, laughing at something hilarious my dad said. It was one of those days where the sun shined as if the whole world was bursting with energy. That was the last day the world was golden. Everything shattered when the truck hit us. It wasn’t my dad’s fault.  

That was the moment I remembered the date. It was the anniversary of the crash. I should have been with my grandmother today, and I blew it. I ran to my car, and for once it started on the first try. I sped off to the cemetery, burning rubber along the way. I slowed as I got near that awful waste of land and stone. I took out a cigarette and puffed on it for a minute before turning into the parking lot.

I slammed the door to my car and crept over the soggy lawn. My eyes darted all around, until they fell upon her. My tiny grandmother was curled up next to my mom’s grave. Her typically flawlessly coiffed hair was all over, and her lavender house slippers had gotten soaked. I couldn’t stand how small and scared she looked. It made me nauseous.

Grandma Abbie saw me, and gave me a sad look. I’d never seen the lines on her face so deep. I was so relieved that I found her that I just collapsed next to her. We didn’t talk for some time. Then, my grandmother held my hand and said, “We are not okay.”

And that was it. That day, she told me she missed her daughter. My mom. She told me stories about her. I listened quietly, mostly. I was having a hard time talking; my tongue just didn’t seem to fit in my mouth. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Why now?” I asked Grandma Abbie, still hurt that she left without me.

“It’s time,” she replied solemnly, steeling herself, “Next year, you’ll be an adult. I haven’t given you the support you need to be ready for that. I’m not ready for that. We need to move forward.” I told her that I was scared. “I am too, but that isn’t what Rachel would have wanted for us. I can’t hide anymore.” My grandmother had made up her mind. Somehow, we needed to find a way to get better.

There was a lot of time to think as we sat together. For the first time, I wasn’t alone. I don’t think I’ll ever be completely fine. But Grandma Abbie had determined we needed to make an effort. We decided to start talking and being more open and stuff. She told me she would go outside more. I told myself I wouldn’t smoke anymore. You know, for the first time in my life, I really wanted to try. I hope my parents can be proud of me.