What I Never Told You

Chapter 14

  Grandpa Jack and I decided to call it a day around six and stop working on the fence.
  After getting cleaned up, I called my mom and she booked me a flight home for the day after tomorrow. I only had one more day left before I would have to return to my life where Asher was waiting for me and Everly wasn't. 

  I sent a group text on Snapchat to Aurora, Amber, Ryan, and Noah saying that I was leaving the day after tomorrow.

  Now, my grandparents and I were watching The Notebook, my grandpa's favorite movie. They were sitting on the couch with a blanket draped over their laps while I was laying on the lounge chair wrapped in a Snuggie.

  On the t.v. screen, Noah, played by Ryan Gosling, and Allie Hamilton, played by Rachel McAdams, were laying in the middle of the road and then dancing in the street.

 My phone lit up with a message from Amber and I opened it. Let's do something tomorrow.
  It lit up again. Shopping spreeee! Aurora replied.

  I sent a message asking about details and then turned my phone off. I wanted to enjoy my time with my grandparents before I had to go back home.  

  My grandma and I were those type of people that get bored by only watching a movie and need something else to do at the same time.

  Halfway into the movie, we couldn't take it anymore and moved to the rug to start a game of Wordsearch- the board game version.

  The board was covered with most of my red chips and a handful of grandma's blue chips. I scanned the board back and forth looking for the word "tears". This was probably the longest I had taken to find a word.

  My eyes moved toward the top of the board, moving from right to left, and found the word backward diagonally from the first row. I snatched the fluorescent neon yellow squeaker from the board and squeezed the life out of it. 

  "Again?" Grandma Rose asked. "How did you get so good at this? I used to beat you all of the time."

  I placed my chips on the board and smiled. "Practice."

  The truth was after the accident, I locked myself in my room and didn't come out for weeks. I occupied myself by doing word searches, reading tragic romance books, and eating cartons of cookie dough ice cream, and wore nothing but sweatpants and baggy t-shirts.

  It was like a post-breakup depression but much worse. I only went out of my room when I needed to restock my junk food supply but I made sure nobody was home when I did.

  Everly tried calling me several times a day and I felt bad for dodging her calls because I knew she was hurting and needed someone to lean on. But I could not be that person. How could I have comforted her when I was the one responsible for her grief and falling apart myself? 

  "I need to up my game," Grandma Rose said and motioned towards grandpa. "Jack, come down here and help me out." 

  "One minute." His eyes were still glued to the t.v. and tearing up as Noah flipped through a notebook to the first page that said "Read this to me, I'll come back to you."

  I plucked a tissue from the tissue box on the coffee table and handed it to him. 

  "This scene gets me every time," he blubbered and blew his nose.

  I patted his knee. Grandpa Jack was the most sensitive guy I knew and a big mushball, which I loved about him.

  He wiped his eyes one last time and slid off the couch to join us. "Ok Rose, let's beat Bella."

                            ~~

  "Why did I agree to come? Shopping is the most boring activity to ever exist." Ryan said as he banged his head against the wall of the store.
  "Because you want to hang out with me on my last day here," I replied.