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Excuse the Mistakes, everyone, but it's late and I too sleepy...
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The bags crowded my arms, and it felt like they were filled with lead. I trailed behind Grandma Aggie as she strolled through the mall, trying to adjust the bag hands so they didn't cut so hard into my skin. Unfortunately, I wasn't at all successful.
For a 67-year-old woman, Grandma Aggie loved to shop. She'd let me sleep in until ten o'clock, and then I was swept away to the mall. We'd visited store after store, buying things like clothes, shoes, and electronics including a cell phone and alarm clock.
Apparently, my grandfather had been wealthy, and he'd left her with a lot of money, which seemed to be burning a hole in her pocket. According to Grandma Aggie, she "finally had a grandchild to spoil!"
At about five o'clock, Grandma Aggie declared that we were finished, and we made the trek back to the car to load it up with our goods. As I piled into the passenger seat next to Grandma Aggie, she turned to me and asked, "How about an early dinner?"
"You read my mind," I replied with a smile, and we pulled out of the parking lot. About five minutes later, we pulled into an Olive Garden, and my mouth started watering. I hadn't had Italian food, my absolute favorite, in so long. My seatbelt was off and I was hopping out of the car before Grandma Aggie even had the chance to turn off the ignition.
We were seated immediately, and I enjoyed the feeling of the clean wooden chair. The last restaurant I'd eaten at was a crappy McDonald's in a city, and the booths had been cracked, dirty, and covered in something I'd suspected to be vomit. The seats in Olive Garden were definitely much nicer.
"What can I get ya'll to drink?" asked a perky waitress, her ponytail bouncing as she talked.
"I'll get some peppermint tea," said Grandma Aggie without looking up from her menu.
"I'll have an iced tea, please," I replied, and the waitress nodded before flouncing off to another table. I watched her for a moment before scanning the menu, looking for something stuffed with cheeses and slathered in marinara sauce. After deciding on the baked ziti, I folded the menu and looked up to see Grandma Aggie staring at me.
"What?" I asked self-consciously, "Is there something on my face?"
"Oh, no. Sorry," she said, blinking. "You just... You're the spitting image of your mother. The same light brown hair and bluish green eyes; it's a little weird, truthfully."
I smiled at the comparison and laced my fingers together under the table. "What was she like?" I asked. "I don't really remember her."
Grandma Aggie leaned back in her chair and knit her eyebrows together as she sorted through her memories. "You're mother was very intelligent," she stated. "She was always getting top grades in all her classes and she was a hard worker; never taking anything for free." Her eyes clouded, and she frowned as a thought seemed to cross her mind. "I never understood why she went down the path that she did."
"What do you mean?" I asked confusedly. Grandma Aggie opened her mouth to reply, but the waitress loudly interrupted with our drinks and breadsticks. After we gave her our food orders and she left, Grandma Aggie seemed to become transfixed by her napkin, and I could tell she was holding
back. "What do you mean?" I repeated, this time using my serious voice.
"I changed my mind," she replied simply.
"You can't just do that!" I said, now getting a bit angry. "You started saying it, and now you have to finish what you were going to say."
Grandma Aggie sighed and dropped her napkin on the table. "After college, your mother stopped coming home. She barely talked to me, and two years after her graduation, she called me up and told me that she was getting married to a man she'd been with for the past nine months. I didn't even know what to do! My only child had contacted me after six months to drop a bombshell like that. I thought she was being stupid, and I told her so."
Grandma Aggie looked like she was getting upset, but she was far too into the story for me to let her stop. "What happened after that?" I asked, and Grandma Aggie swallowed.
"She told me that if I was going to be like that, I wasn't invited to the wedding, and so I didn't go. I wasn't going to support a marriage that I didn't believe in. Sometimes, I wish I had gone so that I could've seen the face of the man she'd married. I would give anything to see the man that had murdered her in person."
"Excuse me?" I asked, taken aback. Did she mean my dad?
"Do you know how your mother died, Sawyer?" Grandma Aggie asked, and I frowned.
"I... I don't remember," I answered slowly, unsure of my answer.
"She died of an accidental overdose," Grandma Aggie stated, "and it was your father's fault."
"What?" I cried, looking at her like she'd grown a second head. "How was it his fault?"
"Your father is a drug dealer, Sawyer," Grandma Aggie replied like I was being stupid. "If my daughter hadn't been in that environment, then she wouldn't have been exposed to those drugs and she wouldn't have overdosed!"
Anger flashed through me. How dare she accuse him of that! Despite his job, my dad was a family man who cared deeply about me and my mom. I distinctly remember him coming into my room one night to tell me that if I ever did any of the stuff he sold, that he would string me up by my toes. When my mom had died, he'd been devastated and had blamed himself.
"You have no right," I hissed, and Grandma Aggie's eyes widened in surprise. "You don't know my dad and what he's like, so how dare you accuse him of killing my mother. He cared about my mom and me, no matter what you believe." I could feel my face getting hot and my nostrils flaring, and I was surprised I hadn't drawn attention to myself.
Grandma Aggie studied me a moment before saying, "We're both tired from shopping. Maybe dinner wasn't such a good idea."
"Maybe," I replied, crossing my arms across me chest.
"How about I get the food to go, and we'll just eat at home so we can cool down," Grandma Aggie suggested, and I nodded and stood up.
"I'm going to wait outside, alright," I said, and Grandma Aggie nodded. I placed my napkin on the chair and hurried from the restaurant. The cold air hit me as soon as I opened the door, and I sat down on one of the metal benches at the front of the restaurant.
I didn't mean to seem ungrateful to the woman, but when she talked bad about my dad, I had felt the need to defend him. My dad had raised me after my mom had died, and so he was really all I'd ever known.
Sure, I was pissed as hell at him. I mean, he decided to have a profession which included putting both of us in danger, especially when he owed important people large sums of money that he didn't have. I also hated the way that he'd have people coming to the house at varying hours of the night, begging for the drugs that they'd gotten addicted to.
I know that he knew that I was in juvie, and the fact that he didn't risk jail to come and get me hurt a little bit. Okay, it hurt more than a little bit. I wondered how long he would be able to elude the police, but I'd feigned innocence whenever someone had asked me if I knew anything. I'd played the part of innocent daughter perfectly.
Still, I've known my father all my life and I would always care about him.
"Are you alright?"
My head snapped up to see a boy standing in front of me with a concerned look on his face. "What?" I asked blankly.
"You look like you're about to cry," he stated matter-of-factly. "What's wrong?" I don't know why, but the way the boy talked to me like he knew me was irritating.
"I don't think it's any of your business," I snapped, but the boy didn't look the least bit offended. He just plopped down next to me on the bench and looked at me.
"Obviously, something's wrong, and you probably wouldn't look so upset if you had someone to talk to," the boy said, and I clenched my jaw to keep it from dropping. Who was this guy? Actually, the better question was who did he think he was?
"I don't even know you," I said irritably, "so why would I tell you, assuming that something was even wrong?"
The boy nodded, like he hadn't considered this, and he said, "You're right; we don't know each other." However, instead of getting up and leaving me alone, the boy stuck out his hand. "The name's Griffin." I stared at his hand for a moment before sighing and giving up. I shook it and then returned my hand to the pocket of my hoodie. "You know," said Griffin, "Usually, after one says his name, the other person says theirs."
Reluctantly, I said, "My name is Sawyer." Griffin nodded, and looked at me expectantly. After a second, I realized that he was waiting for me to confide in him, since now we "knew" each other. Yeah, right, like that was going to happen.
Griffin seemed to notice this, and he sighed. "You're not going to tell me are you?"
"Nope," I replied, popping the p.
"Why not?" he asked and I just looked at him incredulously.
"Um, let me think," I said, "Oh, right! I have known you for like two minutes, so I don't think I'm going to give you my personal life story."
Griffin finally seemed to get it, and he frowned. "Excuse me for seeing a random girl near tears and asking to see if she was okay!" he said, suddenly very angry, and he pushed himself off of the bench.
Another boy walked out of the restaurant, and he looked around until his eyes found Griffin and I. "Griff, c'mon," he called, "Our tables ready!"
"I'll be right there," Griffin replied, and he shot me one last look. "I hope you get over whatever's bothering you, Sawyer." Then, he left me alone on the bench to join his friends inside.
I blinked, unsure of what had happened was a reality or not. Some random guy just came up to me to see if I was okay. That had never happened to me before, and looking back on it, I felt bad. I mean, I wasn't going to talk to him of course. However, I shouldn't have been rude like that. He was just trying to be nice.
Well, it wasn't like I was ever going to see him again... Right?
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NEW CHAPPIE WEE!!! So, I'm kinda tan cuz i spent all day in the sun at my little brother's LAX tournament... yay! I don't put paper to shame anymore!
hope you enjoyed the chapter, lovelies :)
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