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Chapter 4
“I see the liver did you some good,” my grandma says. “You’re looking better already.”
I shiver at the mere remembrance of having to eating the few pieces I did when her keen eyes were on me. The rest I tossed in a napkin that I kept in my pocket until I threw it in the garbage the moment she left the kitchen.
"Or it could be that I have a date tonight." I chuckle.
Her eyebrows raise. "Is that right? Well, good for you. It's about time you got out of here for something other than work. Who is she?"
"Someone I met at that group I went to last week."
This time her eyebrows dip down. "Oh, so she..."
"Lost someone too."
Sadness enters her eyes. "I see."
I nod, glancing away from her, away from the look that she gets every time there's even the slightest mention of Ben. Well, that and anger sometimes. It feels good to see that one honestly. To know that I'm not the only one who's angry at him sometimes. Because like me, she loved Ben, but she's upset with him for what he did.
I could never discuss that with his family. The conversation could never even take place when they're all still in denial that he meant to jump at all. Hearing them talk about him puts me in a constant struggle of wanting to shout that he meant it with every fiber of his being and being sympathetic to the fact that they didn't know the Ben that I knew. They don't know why he would've wanted to jump. And it feels wrong to tell them about the Ben I knew now. Feels wrong to distort their memory of him with my memory of him. So when I'm with them, I just nod along, biting back the truth that would crush them.
"So other than my apparent paleness having disappeared, how do I look?"
I spread my arms wide, and she comes forward with a smile.
"Handsome as always. I mean, with my genes, how could you ever really go wrong?"
I roll my eyes. Just as grand as her ability to command a room is her confidence. It reminds me so much of how everyone thought Ben was.
"Hey," my grandma states, making my eyes meet with hers. "None of that on your date."
"What?"
"Thinking of him. Don't bring him to your date. Leave him here for the night. I don't think he'll mind."
I still at her words, my eyes going back and forth between hers, realizing that her words hurt. How can I leave him behind? How can I forget about him for the night, for the few hours that I'm with her? Don't I owe it to Ben not to ever forget about him again? My trying not to think of him for just a little while cost me my best friend.
"Leave him here Elijah," she demands this time.
"But...how, grandma? How?" I croak.
Tears begin to fill her eyes. "By knowing that you deserve a night without the memory of him haunting your thoughts. You loved him. Constantly asking yourself why your love wasn't enough won't make things any better."
I nod. "Okay. I'll try."
"You know that's all I ever ask."
I kiss her forehead because it really is all she ever asked of me. When I struggled in school when we first moved here and brought home grades other kids would probably be put on punishment for, all she ever asked was if I'd tried my hardest. If I answered yes, then she smiled and sent me on my way.
When my mother decided she wanted to play mommy for a little while and came back into my life when I was ten and my grandma asked me to give her a chance to do right by me. I tried but I couldn't find it in my heart to forgive her for leaving me when I was five, when I needed her. So I pushed and pushed until my mother left. My grandma just asked if I tried to let her in. I told her I did, and she told me that was good enough for her.
When I dropped out of college after Ben died, she’d asked if I'd tried to keep my head above water before I decided I couldn't continue going there. I told her I had tried, because even though I felt like I was drowning every day, God, I'd tried. All she said after that was she'd already cleaned my old bedroom out for me.
Trying was always good enough for my grandma. Would it ever be good enough for me? To know that I'd tried to save Ben from himself? That I'd tried, harder than I even knew I could, to be whatever he needed that time around? Because in the end, my trying wasn't enough to save him, wasn't enough to make him stay.
"You better get going," my grandma says. "Don't be late meeting her."
"See you later. Love you, Grandma."
