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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


 

I didn’t want to think about the fight anymore but just like my actions on that day, I couldn’t stop myself. I kept reverting back to my mistakes. Maybe I shouldn’t have swung first or maybe I should’ve taken taekwondo lessons. Perhaps, if I’d just gritted my teeth and let their words go in one ear and out the other-just like I had every single other day, I wouldn’t be in this predicament. But no, I had to punch my bully square in the face and single-handedly go up against five of her cronies.

“Don’t put too much pressure on it,  Adelaide,” my mom nagged as we made our way outside the hospital. A broken arm and foot. That was the punishment I received for being an amateur fighter who couldn’t control their impulses.

“I’m fine, mom,” I said putting on a fake bright smile. She ran her hand down the back of my head and subsequently laid it across my shoulders. The pressure of it brought pain to my bruised back but I smiled through it.

Before today, I would never call myself an outdoors person, but being restricted to a hospital bed for three days could change a person. As my mom and I waited for the automatic revolving doors to allow us to go outside, my body vibrated with excitement at feeling the autumn breeze.

Once outside, the cool and crisp wind hit me so hard I almost lost my balance. I clenched my teeth as I watched the leaves on the branches-with their beautiful colours of green, orange and red sway in accordance with the wind. The thick dark grey clouds that obscured the sun were a drastic contrast against the trees.

“There’s the car,” my mom announced as she zipped up her thick winter jacket. Being from the Islands, she was sensitive to the cold-though she lived most of her life in Toronto, she claimed that the Islander in her would never succumb to the cold weather.

I internally groaned at the sight of the approaching soccer mom car. I hated riding in it. It was black and tainted with scratches and dents. The car had been beat up more than I had. I smiled at my self-deprecating humour.

“Why did you guys have to bring this car?” I whined as my dad parked it.

“What do you mean?” my mom asked with a frown on her face. She pulled the sliding door open and gestured for me to get inside. “You get more leg room in here than the other car. You should be thanking us.”

I mumbled a small thank you as I carefully got into the car.

“Hey, Jackie Chan,” my older brother Jaden joked. My older sister, Ida, cackled at the joke as if she’d never heard it before. They started calling me Jackie Chan ever since the fight happened.

“Shouldn’t you guys be at school?” I asked. Jaden was in grade 12 and Ida was a year below him. They attended the same school and I was meant to follow in their scholastic footsteps.

“School ended,” Ida answered.

The ride home was spent in relative silence. Jaden, Ida and my mom were busy on their phones while my dad was focused on driving.

“Where are we going?” I asked looking out the window, realizing we weren’t headed home.

“We’re going to my mom’s house,” my dad said. “It’s Friday, remember?”

Every Friday without fail, Jaden, Ida and I went to our 71 year old grandmother’s house. We’d spend Friday evening and all of Saturday there. She was widow who lived in a two story house she owned. She was my favourite person in the entire world.

Once at our grandmother’s house, Ida got out of the sliding door beside her, Jaden followed after her. I attempted to leave through the same door, but my mom ordered me to stay put. She got out of the car and opened the door on my side.

“We went to your school to collect your homework,” she said handing me my backpack. With a disappointed tone she added, “just because you got suspended doesn’t mean you can’t keep up with your schoolwork.”

I sighed and caved in on myself. Getting suspended was just as humiliating as getting beat up. It was going to show on my academic record that I got suspended, but what wasn’t going to show up was the years of torment I withstood before I finally cracked.

“Thank you,” I said taking the backpack.

She gave my good shoulder a gentle pat. “See you on Sunday,” she said. “Have fun and don’t give your grandmother too much trouble!” She said the last part louder so Ida and Jaden-who were already at the door, heard her.

I hobbled to the door as Jaden rummaged through his keys to find the right one and let us in. Our grandmother gave each of us a key just in case one of us ever wanted to visit her or anything at all, we were always welcome.

When he finally opened the door, I smiled as the smell hit me. Everyone had their, “grandparent’s house smell.” Some people’s grandparent’s house smelt like flowers, cookies or cigarettes. Others’ smelt like cat pee, mothballs and old people.  My grandma’s place smelt like love, old wood and food. There was warmth in the house. Not externally but internally. My heart felt at ease whenever I came here. It no longer felt like the world was against me.

“Hi, grandma!” Jaden called.

“Oh my babies,” grandma yelled. We walked towards the kitchen where we knew she’d be. She was wearing a purple t-shirt along with loose bright green pants. The colours clashed but they simultaneously suited her.

Jaden was the first one to receive her hug and kisses, then Ida and finally myself.

“How’s my fighter?” she asked.

I groaned. “Not you too, grandma.” Jaden and Ida laughed as they sat down at the island ready for the food they were about to be served.

Grandma squeezed my cheeks and shooed me to sit down too.

“Have you guys eaten yet?” grandma asked with pleading eyes. She had this idea in her head that we’d eat before we came over or that we’d refuse to eat her food. She was the best cook we knew.

“No, we haven’t,” Ida answered.

“Wonderful,” she said. One by one, she brought over the food she’d made onto the kitchen island. There was Caesar salad, fried rice, jerk chicken, beans, carrots and potato curry.  “Eat up.”

“Thank you,” the three of us said in unison.

I dug into the potato curry first and closed my eyes in gratitude. This was the first time in three days I had damn decent food. Hospital food was an insult to anything culinary.

It took no time at all for us to plow through the food. As expected, everything was devoured.

Ida and Jaden were tasked to wash and dry the dishes while grandma and I went into the living room. I pulled out my homework from my backpack while she turned on the television.

“Did the curry burn your lip?”

I instinctively touched my split lip with my tongue and shrugged. “A bit but it was worth it.”

The evening was spent with all of us watching television. I went back and forth between watching TV and doing my homework. Jaden and Ida didn’t believe in doing their homework until Sunday night, which by then, they’d stress out about not having enough time to finish it.

It was around 9:30pm when grandma announced she was heading off to bed. Ida and Jaden decided to follow suit. I said I’d stay in the living room a little longer.

Not for the first time, I was happy my grandmother had a Netflix account. I’d been watching a movie for half an hour when I heard someone come downstairs. I assumed it was Jaden because he was a night time eater but surprisingly, it was grandma.

‘Hey,” I said attempting to get up from laying down on the couch.

“No, stay,” she said. She sat on her armchair, a chair none of us dared to sit on. It was an ugly outdated floral printed chair, but it was her pride and joy. “What are you watching?” she asked.

“Thor Ragnarok.”

“His golden eyes are beautiful,” she commented when Idris Elba came on the screen.

“They’re contacts, grandma,” I teased.

“I know that. Don’t sass me,” she harmlessly warned.

Together, we watched the entire movie.

“So why did you do it?” she finally asked.

Slowly, I faced her and replied. “I was tired, grandma.” The tears I’d been avoiding to shed for years finally came out. “Since grade 2 these girls have been bullying me and I’ve done nothing about it,” I wept. “I couldn’t take it anymore, grandma. I hate them but more than that, I hate myself.” I admitted aloud for the first time.  “Their words hurt but what hurt more was that I agreed with them. They’re awful people but they not liars. They were right that my skin was too dark, that I wasn’t smart enough, my hair was too kinky and my body was too big.  That I was ugly. I really tried to change myself, but I couldn’t. No matter what I did, I couldn’t study harder and make myself smarter, I couldn’t get my makeup right, nor straighten my hair. I couldn’t lose the weight.”

My grandma kept quiet. I was hurt and happy she did. I didn’t want pitiful words of comfort but I did want to be comforted. For so long I’d suffered through this alone and the one person who I thought could help me wouldn’t.

Wanting to change the topic to something happier, I demanded, “tell me about how you and grandpa met.” I already knew the story inside out. Sometimes, I knew it better than grandma did. It was my favourite story because it never failed to make me feel better. I’d been hearing it a lot throughout the years.

“How about I tell you a different story today?” she suggested.

My grandmother laughed at my look of distaste.

“Did you know that your grandfather was not my greatest love?” she questioned.

“What?” I shot up from the couch but the shooting pain that rushed through my body had me immediately lay back down.

“I loved him dearly but not as much as I love her.

“As you know,” she began, “after I graduated high school, I worked at my father’s restaurant. My parents couldn’t afford actual staff so I worked for free. Seven years of my life I put on hold to help my family. I was happy to help but at the same time, I was hurting. I watched my peers get their degrees, then careers and then start building their own families. I watched as the girls who used to bully and criticize me for who I was, start to do things the way I did. They began dressing the way I dressed, styling their hair the way I did. When they did it, it was beautiful but when I did, it was blasphemous. It hurt.

“So a few months after my 25th birthday, my parents surprised me with money and plane tickets to Egypt and Paris. It was their way of thanking me for years of hard work. I was hesitant to go but the business was now doing so well and they’d already bought the tickets, so I went.

“When I got to the airport in Egypt, one of the first things I did was go to the washroom. There, I ran into this woman. I didn’t think anything of it at first until she looked at me with these hateful eyes. I immediately loathed her. We silently stood there, in a public washroom, in a foreign country glaring at each other. I left first. I thought that was the last time I’d see her, but boy was I wrong. We both stayed at the same hotel and on the same floor. We went to all the typical tourist areas so I saw her almost everywhere I went. The whole time, we never spoke to one another, just shared hateful glances.

“One day, I got a picture of me taken in front a pyramid. I really wanted the pyramid to be the highlight of the shot. When I had the picture developed, guess who appeared on it? My greatest enemy. She had the audacity to pose for the picture as if she belonged there.

“Angry, I went to her door and yelled at her for ruining my picture. She was so ugly to me and I told her that. I told her that she’d ruined my picture. She tearfully stared at me for so long before she confidently said, “well I think I’m beautiful.” I was dumbfounded. I didn’t agree with her but I felt awful and I felt worse when she kindly invited me to dinner.

“That night, during dinner, I developed a liking for her. It wasn’t long before we became fast friends. We went everywhere together and took so many pictures together. What do you kids call it now? Selfies?

“Anyway, the craziest thing happened.”

“What?” I whispered.

“She followed me to Paris.” My grandmother laughed at my wide-eyed reaction. “She had nothing better to do apparently. For nearly two months, we spent every day together. I’d never felt that happy before. She made me feel comfortable in my own skin. She made me realize how beautiful, amazing and unique I was. She touched my heart and spirit. She brought feelings of love I didn’t even think  were possible. That was where I fell in love with her. How ironic is that? The city of love was where I fell in love.”

My grandmother abruptly ended it there. I waited a beat and when she didn’t say anything else, I sat up and asked, “what happened next?”

“I came back home.”

“And?”

“That’s it, Adelaide.”

“So you’re saying you loved this woman more than grandpa? The man you married and adored for decades.”

“Yes,” she answered instantly. “She loved me like no one else. She gave me purpose.”

“Do you have any pictures of her?”

My grandmother groaned as she got up from the chair. “Just a minute.” She went upstairs to her bedroom, came back down and handed me a photobook I’d never seen before.

I opened it and frantically flipped through it, my heart beating in excitement to see this mystery woman I’d never heard of before. After a few pages, I looked up at my grandmother in confusion. “These are all pictures of just you, grandma.”

“Correct.”

My mind raced as I tried to figure things out. Then it dawned on me. “She’s you. You’re your own greatest love.”

My grandmother leaned down and kissed me on the forehead, “be your own greatest love.”

 






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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.