Page 64 of The Wrong Prom Date

Teagan

Grandma Carol was far stranger than I recalled. She didn’t turn up at our house until Sunday morning, but when she arrived it was with a burst of energy and enthusiasm. She wore a face full of makeup, and her short, peroxide-blonde hair was perfectly coiffed. Her clothes were a riot of bright colors, and the feather boa wrapped around her neck did little to calm her outfit.

“Teagan, darling, it’s so good to see you,” she said, blowing me air kisses as she walked through the front door. She had two large roller cases with her, and they glided along at her side as though they were extensions of her arms.

I stood back, feeling slightly overwhelmed as she wafted into the house like we were the best of friends. Carol’s discerning eyes took in the empty foyer, but she didn’t say a word as she continued into the house. She left a trail of her floral-scented perfume as she headed toward the guest room. I followed after her, not quite sure what else to do. The woman was practically a stranger to me.

“I am so looking forward to our time together,” Grandma Carol said. “It really is a shame that Linda had to land herself in rehab for me to finally get invited here.”

I pursed my lips as I considered my grandmother. She spoke as if Mom’s condition were a silly inconvenience rather than the life-altering addiction that it was. Perhaps, if she’d seen what it had been like over the last few years, she would have spoken about it differently. Or maybe, this was just how my grandmother was and she liked to play down the more difficult things in life. I didn’t know this woman, so I couldn’t really tell.

“Thank you for coming, Grandma Carol,” I said.

She scrunched up her nose as I said her name. “Please, just call me Carol. I’m hardly old enough to be a grandma.”

I smiled politely and nodded. Carol seemed a little delusional, but I wasn’t about to call her on it. She’d been a grandma for seventeen years, though I guess it was easy for her to forget that when she never saw her granddaughter.

“So,” she said, clapping her hands. “How do you feel about a spot of shopping today?”

I frowned as I looked at her. We hadn’t spent time together in years, and the first thing she wanted to do was go shopping? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone shopping for anything other than groceries. There was never the money for it, and when I couldn’t buy clothes with my babysitting money, I usually borrowed from my Mom’s wardrobe. It was lucky we were the same size, or I probably would have been turning up to school in rags.

“I have homework I need to get done today,” I said.

Carol flippantly waved my comment away. “Nonsense. I want to spend time with my beautiful granddaughter. I’m sure you can put off one day of homework.”

She didn’t seem like the kind of lady who was used to being told no. I half-considered pushing the point, but the truth was, I’d finished my homework while babysitting yesterday and I’d probably just spend the day watching my phone if I weren’t distracted.

Liam still hadn’t been in contact since our kiss on Thursday night, and I was slowly going crazy. I could only assume that he regretted it, because why else would he be going to such lengths to ignore me?

“Okay, let’s go shopping,” I said before I could question the decision.

Carol clapped with glee. “This is going to be so much fun.”

* * *

Shopping with Carolwas like nothing I’d ever experienced before. She spent cash like it was a game of Monopoly and bought anything I showed even the slightest amount of interest in. I’d been saving my babysitting money for years, and in one morning, she spent almost as much as I’d accumulated over all that time. It was ridiculous, and I couldn’t help but feel bitter about it.

Mom and I had been struggling for years, so why hadn’t Carol helped us?

It wasn’t just me Carol was shopping for either. She kept picking up pieces of clothing, showing them to me and asking for my opinion. “Do you think your mother would like this?”

I always gave a noncommittal answer because it all felt too weird for me. It was like she was trying to make up for her absence by buying my love with pretty things. I didn’t care about material objects though, and I would have traded a few nice dresses for my grandmother’s support at some point over the last few years in a heartbeat. Looking after my mother wasn’t something I should have had to do on my own.

“This one would look nice on you,” Carol said, lifting a skirt from the rack to show me. We were in some boutique clothing store I’d never entered before and the price tags on all the clothes had at least one too many zeros on them. The place was like something out of a magazine, with fresh flowers on the counter and marble tables running down the center of the room. The shop assistants all looked like models in the perfect outfits they wore, and I couldn’t have felt more out of place.

“I’m not sure that’s for me,” I said. The skirt was nice enough, but I was growing tired of shopping and standing in the expensive store made my stomach roll.

“Nonsense, you’d look lovely.”

She tried to pass me the skirt, but I pushed her hand away. “I really don’t think it’s something I would wear, and maybe, you would know that if you’d ever bothered to come visit us.”

Her face paled, and she pulled the skirt back toward her chest as she stared at me in shock. I didn’t wait for her response before I turned and strode out of the store. I hated myself for lashing out at my grandmother, but she couldn’t just rock up at my front door and expect me to be ecstatic to see her. Buying me clothes I didn’t need wasn’t going to make up for the fact that I’d spent most of my teenage years running a household, working every babysitting job I could get,andtrying to keep up with my schoolwork. I’d needed help and my grandmother should have been there.

There was a park across the road from the store and I walked over to it and sat on a bench just inside the entrance. My blood was still pulsing with adrenaline, but as I took some deep breaths in and started to calm down, it was replaced by remorse. I couldn’t believe I’d snapped at my grandmother. For years, I’d been completely in control of my emotions, and I’d always managed to say the right thing.

Something had changed in me recently though. It seemed like ever since Liam had entered my life I’d been struggling to keep my feelings all bottled up. He’d placed a fracture in the delicate container I kept them in, and the fissure was only growing larger as more emotions leaked out.

“I’m sorry.” I turned at the sound of Carol’s voice, and she slowly approached the bench I sat on. Her eyes were sad, and I couldn’t help but feel like I’d truly hurt my grandmother. The buoyant, carefree woman I’d been shopping with all morning was nowhere to be seen. “I can be a bit intense,” she said softly.

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