One Last Thing ✅

four things

I halfheartedly push the spaghetti around my plate. I even take a few bites of the limp noodles, but they feel like worms writhing in my mouth. Grimacing, I wash the food down with a drink of water.

Grams takes a sip from her glass, sets it back on the table with a tiny thud. "Your mother sent you a letter."

I pause, my fork poised over my plate. "I saw."

Grams nods sharply, not meeting my eyes. With that, the matter is done. She doesn't ask me what I do with the letters, and I don't offer to tell her. I don't know if she thinks I read them and then put them in some cheesy scrapbook or what. I don't know if she even cares. She's a hard woman to read sometimes.

Especially when it comes to my mother.

Grams clears her throat. "So. How was school today?"

I go back to twirling spaghetti on my fork, seeing how many rotations I can do before the noodles start to slip off. "Okay. I forgot I had a test in physics, but Riley had it a few periods before me, so she told me what to study at lunch."

"That's cheating, Liliana!" Grams says sharply.

I frown. "No, it's not. She just told me what to study."

Releasing a long sigh, Grams looks upward, seeming to ask God for the patience to deal with my stupidity. "Tests are supposed to measure your mastery of the material. How are you demonstrating your knowledge when you only memorized a few facts over lunch?"

I know she's right, but I don't want to admit it. "I already knew the important stuff, anyway. It's not a big deal."

Grams crosses her arms over her chest. "What are you going to do next year, Liliana? At college? Riley won't be able to give you the answers then."

"She didn't give me the answers," I say, too loud. "Just the questions." I let my fork clatter onto the plate and stand up. "Look, I'm tired. May I be excused?"

"Rinse your plate, please," Grams says. She doesn't look at me. Just picks up her glass and takes another drink.

I snatch my plate off the table and stomp into the kitchen. I could leave it there, let my grandmother deal with it, but there would be no point. She'd just rinse it herself and not say anything, and I'd feel even more like an ungrateful brat living off her charity because my mom screwed up and ended in the state pen.

As I turn on the faucet and hold my plate under the running water, I review the day in my head. Stupid quiz. Stupid me for letting Jared see my arms. And that stupid blue envelope waiting for me upstairs.

After scraping the noodles down the drain and flipping on the garbage disposal, I stand before the sink, listening to the meat and noodles grinding together and becoming mush.

There's a brief flash before my eyes, and I picture sticking my hand down the drain and letting the blades scrape the flesh from my bones. I don't know how long I stand there, staring into the sink, but it must be a few minutes because Grams walks into the kitchen and flips off the garbage disposal. She takes the plate out of my hand and loads it into the dishwasher.

She is inches away from me, and I can smell the White Diamonds perfume she dutifully puts on every morning. When I was a kid, I used to love that smell. I'd sneak into her bathroom and dab it on the inside of my wrists and on my neck, picturing myself as a movie star, decked out in a black velvet gown, dripping jewels.

Now it just smells... old.

"Liliana," Grams says, her voice low. "Is everything okay?"

I force my lips to curve into a smile. "Yeah."

A pause.

"Well, then. Good."

I can tell she doesn't believe me. Holding my breath, I wait for her to demand that I push my sleeves up, reveal the mutilated flesh beneath. But then a miracle happens, and she doesn't. She simply whispers, "Okay."

Not waiting for her to change her mind, I take a step toward the door. "I'm going to bed, Grams. Big day tomorrow. We've got that gig at House of Rock."

"Okay," she says again, without emotion, and a chill runs through me.

Has she given up on me?

Does she just not care anymore?

I brush these thoughts away. That's what I want, isn't it? I just need this last year of school to pass quickly so I can get a job at some shitty department store and start making some money to get my own apartment. So I can stop feeling so goddamn guilty all the time for taking up space in this house, for eating food bought with my grandmother's money, for making her worry about me.

As I climb the stairs, I hear her rinse her own plate. I wish for her, as I do every day, that my grandfather were still around, so at least she'd have someone to talk to. Someone normal, someone good.

Someone not like me.