Destined

79.

The ambulance had arrived when I called them, taking my Grandmother to the nearest hospital. There was nothing they could do though, because she had already been dead. We were all too late.

My mom and Jasmine had broke down crying when they arrived to the hospital, but I couldn't cry anymore. Most of my tears had been on my grandmothers shirt.

It was now 12:20. Passed midnight. I stood in the empty hallway of the hospital, shaking my head multiple times. I tried to piece together ever inch of memory I had of my grandmother to keep me from exploding. These doctors knew my grandmother wasn't alive. There was no point of us being here any longer. We needed to get prepared for the funeral.

"Jayon, please sit down," my mother spoke quietly. Her nose was red and her eyes were puffy. So we're Jasmine's. "And next time, ask me before taking my car. Putting gas in your car to get here was a hassle. Don't ever do that shit again,"

"I never wanna celebrate my birthday ever again," Jasmine coughed. "She died while I was with my friends mom, she died while I was having fun," she said, her voice breaking.

"Jasmine, stop. Grandma would have wanted you to have fun. You can't stop your life like that," my mom told her. Her voice was hoarse, but she sounded sincere. She was trying to be strong for us, I could tell.

"Jasmine, Grandma loves you, and the last thing she would have wanted you to do was stop having fun on your birthday, but I think she knew she was leaving us mom," I said.

"Jayon, that's ridiculous,"

"Jayon shut up! That's not true!" Jasmine cried.

"I'm serious. She hadn't been feeling well for weeks and neither of you noticed. When I told her to go to the doctor she blew it off like it was nothing. She knew! I know my grandmother. I know she knew,"

The both of them fell silent. Jasmine put her head in her arms, while my mother put her head in her hands.

"What matters now is where we're gonna bury her," I said.

"For Gods sake Jayon! That's my mother your talking about, I don't wanna have this discussion with you. You don't know what's best for her I do!"

"No you don't mom. Grandma wanted to be buried."

"How do you know that?" She asks, getting up.

"Guys stop. We can't argue in a hospital where grandma is in. You know how she felt about that," Jasmine spoke.

"I just know, we're not burning her body into ashes and that's that," I say angrily, taking my keys from her and storming out of the hallway. Before I left completely I tossed her keys to Jasmine. I needed to get out of this place before I put my mom in it. She called after me but I didn't turn around. My grandmother was gone now, if she thought I had any reason to respect her even when she was blatantly wrong, she had another thing coming.

***

*Dj's POV*

"So how was the party?" I asked Deon. We had both just gotten home, and he was heading to the couch.

"It was fun as hell. I wished we didn't have to leave early though,"

"Deon, the party ended at midnight. You literally were picked up at 11:40," I grinned.

"Yeah I know Deej. It just felt weird leaving. I felt like something happened that made them shut it all down like that. Jasmine's mother looked panicked, and that made Jasmine scared, but then they left us all there while telling us to clean up our trash as we were getting ready to leave. We were all so confused but we still cleaned up, then we left their door unlocked which just felt weird to do, but hey we didn't have the house key you know, they did," Deon told me.