Swish

.16

Saturday night rolled around and I had successfully avoided Eli for almost an entire week, not counting the Monday afternoon/night tryst.

Short of blocking his number so that I could still see if he had even cared about me ghosting him, he had kept his distance even at the gym, leaving with the team every night and not staying late and ask me what was wrong, considering I'd done all the talking without ever having to say a word.

My father had called incessantly Friday morning through the night, texted, left voicemails, each one begging me to come back home, then demanding until he finally just gave up and assumed that I wasn't coming back home for the weekend which was a very true assumption.

My grandmother, however, had kept in contact with me throughout the entire week, even FaceTiming with me a few times just to make sure that I was real. I never realized how much I'd missed her until seeing her face.

I'd stayed clear of her Facebook profile, mainly because I was scared to see what was there after knowing that one daughter had abandoned her and the other killed. Kara never called her mother. Never.

When asked why I finally decided to reach out after so much time had passed since turning eighteen, I froze up.

I came up with a fake excuse, soaking up her features that reminded me so much of my mother while trying to formulate a way to ask her what I wanted to know without coming off as a terrible granddaughter than only got back in contact with her to unearth an ugly secret about her father.

Surely she wouldn't see it that way, right?

Still, I couldn't ask. So we'd caught each other up on our lives since the ban on our contact five years prior, and I hadn't had the heart yet to apologize for the wait in unblocking her number.

The happy birthday, Merry Christmas and other various holiday texts and voicemails she'd left me still brought tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat when I thought of it.

She wasn't alone, my grandfather was still alive, but both of her children had left her in one way or another and I knew for a fact Sara never spoke to her, so hearing her voice and seeing her face was like a salve to a wound I'd never even realized was there.

Her love filled into me and patched up the cracks in my heart that my mother's death had created, and the premium my father placed on his love and affection hadn't done those emotional injuries any favors.

And still, despite these abandonments, she welcomed me back like I'd never stopped taking her calls or texts, like I'd never blocked her number and succumbed to my father's demands. She acted as if we were merely catching up after a long weekend of not being able to talk to one another, and the relief that flowed through me that I hadn't alienated such an integral piece of my family was more than all encompassing, it was downright consuming in my joy that she'd forgiven me.

Still, as I sat in my chair in front of the vanity Bea had set up in our dorm, I couldn't get the nightmare/memory out of my head, my father's voice mocking my musical dreams, his slurred words and anger filled speech finally coming to a head as he punched the gas into the middle of traffic, effectively killing my mother and paralyzing himself in one fell swoop, not to mention the paralysis that had occurred in my heart.

Witnessing your mother's death for your own two eyes as a twelve year old girl who depended so deeply on her could definitely screw with someone's head, just like it had with mine.

Mascara and eyeliner applied after the contour and eyeshadow, all that was left was some highlighter and lip products and to get dressed for the party where Maddie had invited me the week before.