Page 43 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

Why be naughty when you can be a bitch?

—Hoax’s secret thoughts

HOAX

Past

Grandma died.

It was horrible.

For the last few months, I watched the life drain out of her.

First it started to where she was just too tired to do many things.

It then went from her being able to move from chair to chair to bed, to only being in a motorized chair everywhere she went.

That was where she was last week when she came to my birthday dinner at Olive Garden.

She’d still sounded pretty upbeat and healthy, if you didn’t count the fact that she couldn’t get out of the chair. Nor could she get herself in and out of the car, or even into her house.

Last week when they’d arrived, Grandpa had parked in the handicap parking even though he didn’t have a sticker. We’d all given him shit for it, but that laughing had died down the moment we saw how he’d had to lift Grandma out of the car seat and into a wheelchair.

He hadn’t complained when he’d gotten a ticket later, either.

No, he just took the ticket, thanked the officer, and left.

I’d just seen Grandma yesterday, and though she hadn’t looked great, she hadn’t looked like she was on death’s door, either.

I’d heard Dad talking with my uncle and aunt, though, when we’d left.

They’d both said that it would be soon.

I just hadn’t realized how soon.

And looking at my grandfather now, seeing the utter grief on his face, I knew that what he was feeling right now wasn’t something I ever wanted to experience myself.

If it hurt this bad…

No.

No, love definitely wasn’t for me.

Walking up to my grandfather, I stood beside him silently.

He didn’t say anything and neither did I.

But it was at that second that I promised myself I would never leave him alone to think about how lonely he was.

I’d be there for him whenever he needed me.

And, as if he could sense that promise in my silence presence, he bumped me with his shoulder and said, “Love you, kid.”

I turned to him, giving him a glimpse of my grandmother’s eyes that she’d passed down to me, and said, “Love you, too.”

Chapter

Twenty-Three

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