They never saw the vulnerable side of me again. Our relationship was purely transactional. I did the dishes, kept up on the chores, and helped them keep up their reputation.
In return, I got clothes, food, and a car from my dad’s shop that he’d won in a work raffle. It was simple; we kept our distance and lived our separate lives inside the four walls of our home.
But when Gran moved in, I gained a friend—a best friend. Someone who asked me how my day was, what was stressing me out or making me smile. She used to come to visit every now and then before moving in. But we never got enough time together before my mom would find new chores for me to do or new people to meet.
Gran coming to live with us was the best thing that happened to me all of my childhood. She became the only reason I looked forward to coming home.
The year and a half we had together in this house was the best year and a half I’d ever had.
And my chest fucking cracks when I push her door all the way open and see her looking much worse than the last time I was here.
The second her sunken eyes notice me, she smiles and tries to sit up, immediately coughing. A raw, painfully dry cough fills the room. My feet take off of their own accord, and I reach for the water on her nightstand.
I thrust it into her hands, helping her get the straw in her mouth between coughs. She immediately drinks, and the hand I have placed on her back feels her heart rate start to slow.
After a few seconds of her collecting herself, she releases the cup into my grasp, and I set it back down on the nightstand.
“Thank you,” she rasps out.
“You don’t need to thank me for that,” I assure her as I pull my chair up to her bed, closing my hands around her frail and wrinkly hand.
She doesn’t say anything else, just smiles at me. Suddenly, I hear a faint scream. But it sounds too quiet to have been in the house.
Oh shit! Stella.
I shove my hand in my pocket and pull my phone out to a completely impatient Stella.
“About time. Turn me around. I’ve already waited long enough,” Stella huffs out.
Gran giggles at her demand, and I wish I could bottle that sound up and feed it to my soul.
I turn my phone, holding it so they can see each other.
Stella talks first. “Hey you! How are you? I’ve missed your beautiful face!”
My grandma flushes at her kind words, and that beautiful smile takes over her pale face. “I miss you too, dear. I have been well. Are you coming to visit soon? It’s been too long.”
“As a matter of fact, we will be there in two weeks for my mom’s birthday. So, you’d better not make too many plans because you are going to be stuck with seeing my face at least once a day,” Stella responds.
And I can’t help the excited skip my heart takes at the fact that my best friend will be here in two weeks. I think people have a hard time understanding my friendship with Stella.
Everyone always makes sideways glances and assumptions because I’m a guy and she’s a girl. But there has never been one moment between us that wasn’t completely platonic.
Wanting to give them a couple minutes to catch up, I lean my phone against the tray that’s attached to her bed. She notices me standing, and I wink and mouth to her,Be right back.
Stella wastes no time in reeling Gran back into the conversation as I walk out of the room.
My muscle memory takes me to my old room. It’s been less than a month since I moved out of here and into the house with my teammates.
But it feels as if it has been years, like I’m looking into a past life from the outside. My hand twists the familiar door handle, and when I open it, my jaw unhinges.
Everything is gone. My old bed, my desk, dresser, everything. There’s no sign that I ever even lived in here. It’s all been replaced by exercise equipment—an elliptical and a treadmill with a small weight set sitting against the wall that my headboard used to touch.
It’s not like I expected them to keep my room the same forever. Our transactional relationship was over the day I moved out. But I didn’t expect them to wipe away the memory of me the second I left.
My fingers run along the wall as I make my way to the closet to see if the carving is still there. I slide the door open and squint in the dark, looking at the back of the closet. To the place where Becca and I carved our future into the wall. Where she was tucked in my arms, away from the reality of the world.
My fingers drag over theBfirst. They trail across the +and end on theC. The happy memories flash through my mind first.
