Bad Memories

Chapter 10

—Sun. | November 10, 2019—

I rush downstairs, still stuffing my items into my backpack. My grandma is leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping on her favorite brew of coffee. "Heading to the Fall Festival now?"

"Yeah, I am," I say, checking my watch. It's about 30 minutes after 9:00. "I should probably head out now." As I grab the doorknob, I feel an unnatural force, or maybe just my subconscious, pulling me back. I walk over to my grandma and give her one of my biggest hug. "Bye, Grandma. I love you."

She gives me a soft look and hugs me back. "I love you too, Kyle. Have fun, okay?"

"Okay. Bye." I exit the door and walk to the park where the fair is. Today feels a bit strange to me today. After all, it's been exactly one year since the car accident. Yet, I'm not moping about like usual. I feel... happier for once.

I step onto the grass at the park, and immediately get bombarded by everyone. Tyler, Tina, Lyla, Susie, Prince, and Quinn crowd around me like a pride of lions surrounding their prey.

"Kyle! You're here!" Lyla exclaims. "You ready to enjoy the fair?"

"Of course I am. Let's go!"

We go deeper into the festival, playing a few games. Tyler, Prince, and Quinn enjoy the darts while the other three challenge each other at the basketballs. As for me, I get my food already. I skipped out on breakfast, making the plate lunches much more appealing.

I sit underneath a nearby tree, already digging into my meal. Lyla sits next to me, sighing. "That... was difficult. Susie got so competitive."

"Heh, that's Susie for you," I reply, chuckling with food still in my mouth.

"If you don't mind me asking, how was your therapy yesterday?"

"Uhh, it went pretty well. I don't fully want to talk about it, but I'm getting better. Promise."

"That's good to hear. I really wish I could find some way to relate to this, just so you don't feel alone."

"Be happy that you can't. The stuff that goes through my head is horrible." We sit in silence for a few moments before I continue to speak. "It's so surreal. It's already been a year since... well, that happened."

"You want to talk about it?"

"I do, but there's nothing to really say.
Everything that's going through my mind right now is stuff you already know, and I don't really want to repeat old information."

"Well... do you plan to visit them later today?"

I look up in realization. "I-I wasn't."

"Maybe you should. It's important to visit them as much as you can. Otherwise, you'll end up doing that less and less."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience."

"Yeah. When my grandma died, we didn't visit her as much as we should have. Now, we only see her, I don't know, once a year?"

"You know what? Maybe I will go visit them later today."

Once we leave the festival, I wait by the side of the park for my grandma to pick me up. Lyla and I are holding hands, something I never thought I would do in my life.

That time is short-lived. The second I see my grandma's car drive closer, I let go, not wanting that moment of parental teasing to occur. I enter the car, waving to Lyla, who is waving back to me.

"Ready to head to the graveyard?" Grandma asks me.

"Yeah. Let's go."

We drive to the cemetery, slowing down and parking as we reach my parents headstones. We exit the car, with my grandma greeting them. "Ella, Maverick. I hope you're both doing well. Kyle and I moved in with Robbie and his wife, Nia. And I started getting into knitting, like an old lady would. Kyle, I'm going to get some water for the flowers. Be right back."

When she gets far enough, I start to talk to the graves. "There has been so much that's been going on. I have a girlfriend now, I'm finally going to therapy. Overall, I'm doing much better than the last time we visited." I think back to the dream where I talked to both of them. "And... that dream I had of both of you. I know that that's all it was, a dream. But it felt so real, and a large part of me hopes that it was actually you two talking to me."

Grandma returns with the water and the flowers. We put the roses and lilies into the water containers and stand up. Both of us say bye to them, then we proceed to laugh about how we were talking to stones.

On the way home, Grandma says, "One year already. How do you feel about that?"

"I'm not too sure. It's not as painful to think about. How did you always manage to stay so calm throughout this whole incident?"

She chuckles. "I had so much grief for about a month after they died. You just never saw it. Then, I went to therapy. Soon after, I didn't have to fake being so calm and happy. I healed."

When we get home, I jump down onto my bed and take out my phone, scrolling through my social media. I look at all of the posts my friends made about today's festival. Then I look around the room. There's so many things I could do. Play video games, stand outside on the balcony, read a book. Honestly, though? I just want to stare at my wooden clock on the wall and watch the seconds pass by.

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I know this chapter was shorter, but I didn't want to just end Chapter 9 like that. Just to mention, this has a lot of parallels to Chapter 1. This whole project took about 5-6 months, and it's finally completed.

I would like to give a huge shoutout to bqterowrites for helping me with this. He gave me tons of feedback and different ways to improve.

I'm so excited to continue this series. Next one I'll be writing is going to be Tyler's story. The next three have gone through a lot of planning, so I hope they'll turn out much better than this one. Comment here if you're reading this. I would love to see who stayed to support the story.

Hope to see you all in the next books. Bye!