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Voluntold

Just like Jacqueline said would happen, Leigh ended up with an injury after soccer practice. That was the price of being a terrible goalie, getting hit in the head repeatedly with the ball because Leigh just could not help by shy away from it every time the ball came into the box. Leigh sat in the back seat with an ice pack on her head while her mom drove her and Noah to their grandma's house.

"Just a warning for the two of you, I don't know what we are about to walk into so I just want you two to prepare yourselves for anything."

Her normally confident mother was not sure what was going to be waiting for them in the house, that was more than enough to set Leigh's anxiety at an all time high. It didn't help that her head was throbbing either, she hoped the ibuprofen kicked in soon. At last, the dreaded moment arrived, Jacqueline had pulled into the driveway of her great grandma's house. Anne's car was still in the driveway when the clock on the dashboard 3:55.

"Oh my god, why is that woman so slow. She's going to be late for work, again. I don't understand why they don't just fire her," Jacqueline scoffed.

Leigh truly didn't know what to expect when walking into the house but it wasn't what she had walked into. The house smelled so terrible she wanted to throw up, in fact it smelled as if vomit and urine had been mixed together. There was trash and small crumbs of food scattered across the floor making Leigh's entire brain go into clean freak mode.

"Why is it so gross here? Mom what is going on?" Leigh whined, feeling like she was suffocating.

"What do you mean dirty?" Noah spoke up, "It isn't that bad in here. It sure smells terrible though."

"You have got to be joking," Leigh said, "How are girls supposed to like you if you live like a freak?"

"I don't live like a freak you do! All you do is sit on the couch and watch cheesy romance shows while eating ice cream." Noah retorted.

Leigh was at a loss for words, "You, you jerk!"

"I'm not a--"

"Be quiet both of you," Jacqueline interjected.

"You can't tell me to shut up," Noah burst out.

Jacqueline gave him the mom look, the one that made any child shut up out of fear of getting into more trouble than it was worth, but Noah just stared straight back at his mother. 'He's an idiot' Leigh thought. While all of this was happening Grammie decided to make her appearance in the room. At first nobody noticed she was there, then she started making confused babbling noises that caught the family's attention.

The elder woman seemed upset that the three of them were in her house, she kept pointing at the door and more noises came out of her mouth. Leigh looked to her mom to figure out if she could do something to help but what she saw broke her a little. Her mom was really close to crying, and Leigh figured it was because Grammie appeared not to know any of them. Jacqueline had basically been raised by the woman, whenever Anne had to go to work she would just drop her off at Grammie's house.

"Hi Grammie, How are you?" She said. The elder woman babbled some more and pointed towards the hallway that led to the kitchen, "Are you hungry? Why don't we go to the kitchen and I'll make you some food."

When her mother left, her grandmother decided to make her appearance. Leigh's anxiousness spiked for the umpteenth time that day, she could never explain it but she felt like her grandmother had never really liked her all that much.

Leigh remembered back when she was only five years old, she had gotten one of those cheap dollar store coloring toys. Leigh had decided in her mind that the girl in the picture was going to be an alien so she started to color her skin blue. Anne had gone off on the little girl, arguing that it wasn't realistic, making her color the skin a peach color instead. Ever since that moment Leigh had always been cautious about what she said and what she did whenever Anne was around.