THE PHOTO TRAVELER (THE PHOTO TRAVELER SERIES - BOOK 1)

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The following week is hell. I’m juggling school and my new job while trying my best to take care of Estelle. She isn’t doing well at all. She’s so sad and depressed that I hate to leave her all alone when I go to school or to work. As for me, my anxiety is almost uncontrollable, causing me to break out into cold sweats at any sudden noises. The cuticles of my fingers have been chewed down raw and I randomly find myself gnawing like a beaver on the inside of my cheek.  The stress is eating at me.

      It breaks my heart hearing my grandmother sobbing every night when I pass by her bedroom. Although she’s still managing to drag herself downstairs to make breakfast for me, she never stays to watch me enjoy it. Now she prepares my food before I wake up and leaves it on the kitchen counter.

      When I try to talk with her, she barely answers, and her voice is a muffled monotone. There’s zero trace of the warmth that used to radiate from her. It’s like I’m living with a stranger. As if her mind has been taken over by some unseen force and turned her into someone I can’t recognize. I worry about her constantly, and every night I pray, “Bud, tell me what to do! Tell me how I can help her!”

      After the coroner’s office released Bud’s results, that he’d died of a “Myocardial Infarction" A.KA. a heart attack, she flatly refused to have a funeral and had him cremated.

      “Bud never wanted a funeral!” she insisted. “Never! He told me he would never want people gawking at him lying there all made up and looking like a clown the way those funeral homes make you look. He said it would be insulting! He wouldn’t have it and neither will I! And no memorial service, either!”

      I’m so tense that I can barely sleep, and I have no desire to do anything social. I don’t even have it in me to visit Alanna although I desperately want to. I want so much to see her, but I only have one photo left.  I want our last time, before I can steal other photos of her, to be special. I want us to be the same as we were last time, but I know it wouldn’t be. My heart’s incapable of it at this moment. 

      In fact, I’m feeling almost as lost and alone as I did when I was living with Jet and Dina. Maybe even worse, because back then I had no family to lose. All I can see right now is that I finally found where I belonged, but everything has shattered so suddenly that my despair is clouding my every thought.

      I haven’t been to school the past couple of days. My voicemail is full of messages from Mario, Meesha, Mr. P, and some other classmates, but Yogi’s the only person I’ve spoken with.

      Still, tonight the pain’s unbearable. Everything around me reminds me of how much I’ve lost. I can’t take it any longer. I pull out my phone and call Mario.

      “Dude, I’ve been calling you! You okay?”

      “I guess so. I just haven’t really wanted to talk to anyone.”

      “No, I totally understand. But I’ve been worried about you. Anything I can do to help?”

      “I need to get out. If I stay in this room any longer, I’m gonna jump out my window.”

      He laughs. “You’ve called the right guy. It may be a school night, but I know just the place. I’ll pick you up in a half hour. Dress nice.”

      I poke my head into Estelle’s and Bud’s room to check on her. Thank God she’s fallen asleep. I feel terrible leaving her alone, but I need this right now. I slip out of the house just as Mario pulls up in a white Bentley.