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"You can't stay there alone, Sweetheart. It's not safe and you know there are no extra rooms at my place. You can only stay for three days.", Helda says finally and I relax in the couch, with tears stinging the back of my eyes, threatening to spill.
I bury my face in my palm and watch Helda walk away to the kitchen to make dinner.
Why couldn't I have a normal life like anyone else? What did I possibly do wrong?
I look around the small neat hall and stand up, put my hands into the pockets of my very faded extra-large cardigan to survive the weather and walk out.
The tears were already flowing down my cheeks but I couldn't hold it any longer.
I promenade slowly towards my old house on the other side of the town which was only thirty minutes away from Aunty Helda's house.
I clean my tears with the back of my hand and climb onto the front porch, walking closer to the tinted windows, looking at myself.
My too many freckled faces look so pale and my bright baby blue eyes were only bulging out slightly, looking bigger than they seem. My shiny dirty golden brown hair looked so much like a mess in my loose bun which I couldn't do properly. My bony cheeks and my quite reddish-pink full lips, chapped and dry. Lots of stray hair came down my forehead and I tuck them behind my ear before sniffling and wiping my eyes with my faded cardigan.
I knock on the door before entering and the mess had always been there. Not like I live in luxury or we had much. Whoever had much lived with an octagenarian grandma??
She was my only family. Helda was just trying to help but her help was only more problem in my life.
"Pumpkin.. ", I hear Granny call me by my pet name and my lips tugged up in a small smile.
The more I tried to smile, the more the tears roll down uncontrollably.
I reach her side through the mess and kiss her old cheek lightly, swallowing the lump in my throat.
"Don't tell me you've been crying again, pumpkin. Tell me, how did it go?", She inquires and I slip into the seat next to hers and feel her arm drape across my shoulders.
I'm supposed to be happy but leaving Granny wasn't an option I ever wanted to choose. And the distance from the house to college is quite a distance, like two hours walk and I don't have money to take the bus. I don't have money to rent an apartment either.
"It was good, Granny. I got the scholarship, full fees catered for, except accommodation. How I'm I going to cover the distance, Granny?", I ask and put my head on her lap, feeling her rough palms smoothing my hair out as tears escaped from my eyes.
***
I barely noticed that I fell asleep till I heard heavy sounds of Granny coughing. I wriggled out of her lap and hurried to the bedroom to get her anti-cancer drugs.
Otherwise, I don't have any money to take her to the hospital. I blink severally to get the tears back and reach her.
I put the pills into her mouth and wipe the resulting blood from her mouth with the vain tissue that lay on the table and toss it into the bin at the corner of the room.
This isn't the first time this is happening to her and it got me scared because she wasn't reacting to the drugs anymore as she continues to cough more blood into her hands and watch her shiver and her eyes begin to close.
The tears fell from my face as I call the ambulance to give her proper care and call Helda after that. I gather her frail body into my arms and watch her wrinkled pale skin get paler and her lips quiver. The tears in my eyes flowed like no one's business and the forming lump in my stomach clench. I run my fingers through her dirty golden brown hair in a ponytail that almost looked like there was no band holding it up and lots of grey streaks covering about three-thirds of it.
The blaring sounds of the ambulance siren got closer to our small house and they broke in and I step away, allowing the paramedics to carry her out of the hall that could barely be called one.
"Give way..!!!!!", the order burst through my eardrums and I followed the instructions meekly, allowing the tears to continue.
"Who are you?"
"Gr gra gra gra Gran granda granddaughter.", I stutter through my tear struck voice and bury my face in my palm as Helda wraps her hands around me, planting a soft kiss on my forehead.
"She'll be fine.", I hear her says and we watch the ambulance move out of the small yard.
This is my life. What I go through every time so I'm used to seeing Granny pass out in front of me and look like she's almost dead. She's my only family and I don't wanna lose her. I have no mum, no dad, no siblings, no one.
Maybe Helda, Kylie and Jeremy. Kylie and Jeremy are Helda's children. Jeremy is in college and Kylie and I are yet to go and I have a scholarship to the best college in town. I couldn't afford to be a lazy student and fail my tests and end up a loser, living like the excuses I have for parents if they're ever alive. I could barely remember a lot from my childhood and what I do remember hurt me every time I reminisce. So I better don't.
This is the first chapter. if it's boring, don't mind. it's only the start of something great.
