The Start of Something New

Chapter One (Part Two)

Dinner ran along, and my mind kept wandering toward my plan. My younger sister rambled to my dad about her dance class while I searched for other ways I could make a better year for myself. I needed to brainstorm with someone I trusted—someone who would know what to do. And, fortunately, I had the perfect person.
    
At home, I said hello to my mom inside and hurried upstairs to call Grammy. My mom preferred that I only speak to my grandmother in person, since talking on the phone occasionally confused her. She lived only a few miles away, in an assisted-living facility. But it was too late to go over there, and I need to talk now, so I shut my door firmly behind me.
    
My grandmother's memory started to stall about ten months ago, and it quickly worsened to almost no short-term memory. It was sad to watch, incurable and degenerative, so I wanted to keep telling her all my secrets before it was too late—before I faded in her mind.

I told her about my recurring drowning nightmare, about how I couldn't even submerge my head in the bathtub water anymore. I told her how desperately I envied my friends. I complained about driving lessons with my mother and about my annoying sister. She knew every facet of my feelings about Aidan, every sorrow that lingered still.
"Hello?" Her voice sounded tired, and I almost regretted calling.
"Grammy?" I kept my voice quiet so my mother wouldn't hear me. "It's Jess."
"Oh, hello, sweet girl," she said, perking up. "How are you?"
"Okay... just making sure I'm all set for school tomorrow." My first-day outfit hung on the wardrobe door, ironed and ready since I picked it out last week.
"Goodness me, a sophomore already," my grandmother mused. Wrong. A junior. This was where her short term memory hovered—around a year ago. It wasn't worth making the correction and confusing her late at night. "Growing up so fast. Are you excited about your classes?"
"Yeah, I am." Some subjects bored me, of course, but I'd always felt comfortable with my structure of school, the schedule, syllabi and a notebook for every class. "Hey, Grammy?"
"Yes, honey?"
I leaned at the edge of my bed, pressing my feet into the carpet. My voice became a whisper. This was not a question I wanted overheard— by my mother or sister or even the walls of the bedroom. "After gramps died, what did... I mean... did anything make you feel better, eventually? Like, happy again?"
"Oh, sweet girl. I know it's hard, everything with your friend, but it just happened. You can't expect to feel like yourself right away."
Wrong again. It happened 12.5 months ago; 54 weeks.
"I know. I just... wondered."
"Well," she said, a bit of intrigue in her voice. "I dated a little after your grandfather, you know."
"You did?"
"Oh, sure. Never found the same magic again, but I didn't expect to. Had enough love for the two lifetimes." I could hear her smile. My grandfather died before before i was born, so her pain wasn't fresh. "Dating was nice. Usually. I met new people, and I learned a lot about myself. Kissed a few frogs."
I laughed, even though a part of me cringed at my grandmother kissing anyone. "What else did you do?"
"Well," she said. "I traveled. I took a trip to Paris the year I turned fifty."
"You were fifty?"
My grandmother and I had talked about her trip to Paris a hundred times, in the hours I spent getting her help with freshman and sophomore French homework. She'd tell me about the patisseries and the people, the museums and landmarks. I had no idea that was the only twenty years ago.
"How old did you think I was, silly?"
"In your twenties," I admitted, and laughed. On her mantel, there was a framed photograph of my grandmother twirling in a full skirt and tan trench coat in front of the Eiffel Tower. Her body and face were blurred, but her hair was brown and to her shoulders.
"Certainly not." she said. "It was my first time travelling without your grandfather. Your mother was in college, and I stayed for six whole weeks. It was terrifying and liberating. One of my fondest moments."
"Wow." I said. Travelling solo. Like to Manhattan for the screen-writing program.
"Wow, indeed," she said. "I hope it doesn't sound boastful to say that I admire my younger self. That gal had pluck. And you do, too, sweet girl. You just have to ask yourself what scared you most about moving forward."
My mind flashed with images that the recurring nightmare had imprinted—underwater thrashing, water in my nose and filling my lungs. Swimming. That's what scared me most.
Before I could respond to my grandmother, my mom knocked at my bedroom door, opening it simultaneously. This nettled me every time—knocking while already entering. She didn't actually respect my privacy, but she pretended to with her little knock.
"Hey," she said. "Who are you talking to?"
I covered up the phone speaker. "Abi."
My mom sighed as she grasped the door handle. "Okay, well... you have to be up early. And you'll see Abi in the morning, so I don't want you up talking all night..."
"I won't be." I said as she pulled the door closed. "Goodnight."
My mother had always been strict, as if by controlling my life, she could protect me from harm. She constantly encouraged me to be social, but she enforced me a ridiculous curfew. She asked if i wanted to talk, but if I did, she wound up telling me what to do, when all I'd wanted if someone to listen.
"Hey, Grammy?" I said into the phone. "I'm here again. Sorry about that."
"No need to apologise. We should both be off to bed."
I sighed. "Yeah. I guess I have a big day ahead of me."
"You have a big life ahead of you, sweet girl. And beginning again gets easier with each step," she said. My throat aches with repressed tears. After conversations. After conversations like this, I couldn't believe that she'd actually forget my name, forget my face. Forget that she once saw me for who I really was.
After I hung up, I pulled my planner out of my bag and added the things my grandma did for herself: date and travel. If only Finn Wolfhard was single, we could fall in love and got to Paris: two births with one stone.
I could barely bring myself to add the last task. The first four I actually wanted to do, on some level. But I had no interest in swimming or even going near water. I was, however, interested in sleeping soundly again. So I swallowed it hard and wrote it in

1. Parties/social events
2. New group
3. Date
4. Travel
5. Swim

There, I thought. A plan. At the top of the page i wrote:
How to Begin Again.

[ 1184 words ]