A goodbye never said (by EliIsCool555)

Chapter 14

        A week later...

Melissa's POV:

.

Today is September 3rd.

I wanted to stay home today.

But I didn't.

I dragged myself to school, like I always do. The world outside was gray and quiet, with the kind of cloud cover that makes everything feel heavy. It's like the universe knows exactly what day it is and is in no mood for pretending. September 3rd. Grandpa's birthday.

It's been ten years now. Ten years since he passed. A decade without his voice, his laughter, his little quirks that always made everything feel more... real. And yet, even after all this time, it feels like I'm still right in the middle of missing him. Every year, the pain of it eases a little, but today—today, it feels like the ache never really went away. It's been ten years, but I can still feel the gap in the world where he used to be. And today, more than any other day, it feels wide and empty.

I didn't want to go to school today. I wanted to stay home, in my own space, and just think about him. I wanted to sit with the memories—let them wash over me like I always do when the world feels too cold. I wanted to feel the warmth of his presence again, to let the little things we shared—his laugh, his voice, his stories—fill me up like they used to. I wanted to remember that no matter how tough life got, it always felt like everything would be okay when Grandpa was around.

But here I am, sitting in school, watching the clock tick slowly. My head is somewhere else, stuck in a loop of thoughts and memories that keep tugging me back to him.

Grandpa always had a way of making the ordinary seem extraordinary. There was something magical about the way he could turn a mundane moment into something special. Like when he'd let me jump on the bed. He knew Grandma would never approve, but he didn't care. "Don't tell Grandma," he'd whisper, with a mischievous grin that always made me laugh. We both knew it was our little secret. I used to love that—how we had these small, quiet moments together that no one else knew about.

Or the cookies. They were always just a little too sweet, a little too much, but Grandpa never let me eat just one. He'd sneak me one when Grandma wasn't looking, and each time he'd say, "Don't tell Grandma," like it was part of some unwritten rule. And I never did. Maybe it was because it was more than just the cookies. It was the feeling of being seen. Of being his partner in crime, in the way we snuck around, doing something small but somehow important. I didn't realize it at the time, but those little moments shaped so much of who I am.

And the hat. That old, worn-out hat of his. It wasn't anything special, not in a "wow, that's a designer hat" kind of way. It was just a hat, but it became part of his identity. I can still picture him in it, no matter what he was doing—whether he was sitting in his chair, watching TV, or outside in the garden, pulling weeds in the summer sun. He never took that hat off. It was like his signature, his trademark. The same hat that's now hanging in my closet. It's the only thing I have of him beside the pictures.

There's one memory that sticks out in my mind, something my mom once told me about when she was pregnant with me. Everyone was waiting to find out whether I'd be a boy or a girl, and there was this big anticipation. My uncle had just had two sons, so everyone thought I'd be a boy. But Grandpa? He didn't need any guesses. He looked at my mom one day, all serious, and said, "Now I know for sure that this is a girl." Just like that, with no hesitation. My mom always told me how sure he was in that moment, like it wasn't a guess—it was just the truth. And when I was born, it felt like Grandpa had known all along. It was the first time I'd ever heard anyone speak with such certainty.