Page 19 of Tangled Up In You
I was right.
“We’re sorry, but there was nothing more we could do,” he said after taking me into a back room. He said something about it being a massive heart attack and they’d tried to act quickly, but then the rest faded to white noise.
I’d been too late.
Regret hit me like a fucking freight train. I should’ve tried harder to see my grandpa instead of putting off my visits because of stupid shit in my life that didn’t even matter now. I’d let too many things come before him, and I hated myself for it. Busy life or not, I should’ve made time for him. He was the only family I had.
And now he’s gone too.
***
Grandpa’s house had never been a sad place. For all the years I’d lived with him after my mom died, he’d always made it a true home. One of warmth, love, and happiness. But as I stepped through the doorway days after his death, all I felt was grief.
Regret. Sorrow. Guilt. And more grief.
It was hard to believe it was the same place—a place that had once been such a safe haven for me. Memories sprang to life: Grandpa cooking something in the kitchen, us watching football on Sundays in the living room and him telling me I’d make it to that field someday, and all the laughs we’d shared within the walls of the two story manor.
I shut the door but didn’t walk farther inside, not ready to face the ghosts of the past just yet.
Hunter had comforted me at the hospital right after I found out Grandpa had passed away. Never having been one to cry in front of other people, I’d composed myself while there and as I’d made the proper burial arrangements.
On the inside, I was a fucking mess, though, and Hunter had sensed it.
He’d kept his hand at my lower back as I talked to the personnel, and he’d occasionally moved his fingers in small circles, as if to remind me he was there. He’d cried at the news, but not the outright sobbing kind. Tears had fallen from his eyes, but his expression had remained composed.
I’d gone to my hotel after that, not in the mood to deal with anyone or anything. Instead of unpacking my suitcase, I had collapsed on the bed and hadn’t moved for the rest of that night. Hunter had texted me a bit more, but I’d only responded with the bare minimum. Yes. No. Ok.
Not because I didn’t want to talk to him—it would’ve probably helped not to be alone—but I didn’t want to face it right then. I didn’t want to see Hunter and face the guilt of leaving him, of leaving my grandpa. I just wanted to forget and drown everything out.
“Sorry, I let you down, Gramps,” I whispered, hanging my head.
The house was quiet. Unsettling.
I finally moved from my spot in the entrance and walked past the winding staircase that went to the second floor. Grandpa had said he’d moved to a room on the first floor a year or so before because the stairs were becoming too hard for him.
More tears sprang to my eyes at the memory. Maybe if I would’ve spent more time with him, I would’ve seen the signs that he wasn’t well. Those tears fell full-force when I entered the living room and saw all the pictures on the mantel above the fireplace. There was a huge photo of me in my uniform framed in the center, and there were others from various games throughout the years beside it, as well as pictures from me in school.
One caught my eye, and I went over to it. It was of me and Grandpa, taken two years ago when I’d flown him out to one of my games. He looked so proud as he stood beside me, smiling ear to ear and wearing a jersey with my number.
I felt like a phony.
He’d been so proud of me, but he’d never known the real truth about me and Hunter. Of what we’d been to each other. Every time he’d asked me over the years of whether I was seeing apretty little lady, I’d always saymaybe.When the rumors started spreading that I was seeing a model from the UK named Veronica, Grandpa had asked me about it, and I’d played along even though it wasn’t true.
I had planned to tell him the truth one day, but now I’d never get the chance.
Once again, I’d been too late. Too preoccupied with my own shit.
His funeral was the next morning, and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. It’d taken me days to work up enough courage to even enter his house—the house I’d grown up in. It was going to be damn hard to see him in a casket, absent of his funny personality and everything that made him who he was. Lifeless.
Grandpa Bill wasn’t a drunk or anything close to one, but he always had a stash of whiskey in a cupboard in the kitchen. When I’d been younger, he had kept it locked up, but as I’d gotten older, he had trusted me enough not to get into it.
I walked that direction, hoping he still had some stashed away. I needed a strong drink to calm my frayed nerves. And to help numb the pain. When I opened the cabinet, I exuded a relieved sigh.
Good oldJack Daniels.
After grabbing the bottle and a small glass, I poured some into it and drank it like a shot. Then I had a second. And a third. On my fourth, I sipped it and stared out the French doors in the kitchen that gave a view of the backyard and all the land beyond it.
Grandpa had been pretty well off financially for as long as I could remember, and his house was considered a manor instead of a simple farmhouse. It sat on twenty acres, made up of woods and a small field, and the house itself had been in the family for generations. I’d offered to buy him a brand new one before, but he’d said no, saying this was his home and he didn’t want to be anywhere else.
