Until you call again. (Complete)

Photograph.

"Are you ready?"

I'm not. But it's too late to turn back now. This has to happen! It's been way long overdue.

"Yea." I say with a sigh then he opens the car door and I mimic him.

I feel my heart beating a mile a minute as we make our way towards the foyer of the familiar house I'd hated with a passion. I'd practiced for days what I was going to say but my mind seems to be void of words right now.

The walk to the door feels like an eternity but we soon get there and he insists on ringing the door bell. I let him, just like I let him hold my hand to calm me down as we wait for someone to open.

He's done the whole hand holding thing with me so many times that I expect it now. I need it.
It comes with a certain warmth of knowing that someone's there. Someone cares.

"Good Morning." An elderly lady greets after opening the door. She's wearing an all black suit and I'm hardly surprised by the high horse that she's sitting on.

"Hi, my name is Mia. I'm here for..."

"Oh yes Mia! We've been expecting you. Please come along." She says cutting me off. I thank her with a smile she doesn't bother to look at as we now enter the house to follow her.

My mind takes me to the first time I came here.

I don't like the word traumatized because it's almost always overused. When someone says they were traumatized, you know they're exaggerating. But that's the first word that comes to my mind when I think of that day. I had just buried my parents a few days prior and then I found out that I was going to move in with my grandparents a day later. The same people who abandoned my mother. The same people I never wanted to meet my whole life.

I was literally traumatized.

I was filled with so much anger and I hated everything. My teenage brain couldn't decipher why I was going through all the things I was going through. If there was a God, why did he or she hate me so much? Losing my parents was bad enough, now I had to move in with the people I'm ashamed to share the same blood with. Could life possibly get any worse?

I let my eyes travel along the fancy walls of the corridor to look at the expensive paintings as well as the pictures I'd forgotten all about.

"No way! Is that you?" Luke asks and I hide my face in embarrassment.

"No." I then say to him as he moves closer to the pictures I'm guessing to make fun of that version of me.

They'd gotten baby pictures of me from my old photo albums and put them on the wall to make me feel welcome but it didn't work, and I'd made sure to tell them I wouldn't care even if they bought mom and dad's house and framed it. There was nothing they could do to make me feel welcome. I hated it there, I hated them..

But looking at the pictures now, I feel so... included. I haven't had much of a family these past few years and seeing my baby pictures makes me feel like I belong somewhere. Like I have a family.

I'm shocked that despite all that I've done to them, how I've treated them, they still kept them up. I can't help but smile at that. I guess that's what they mean when they say family is forever.

"Please don't touch anything." Her voice is calm yet commanding.

So we can't help but drop our hands down like kids at a day care who'd just been caught eating crayons. Of course we weren't afraid, we just always joke around with each other like that. It's one of the endless things I love about him.

Love?

He then looks at me as I try really hard not to laugh. "Shhh!" I threaten as we continue following the older uptight lady. She looks like someone you don't play around with.

We soon reach the gigantic living room and I barely have time to take it all in before,

"Mia darling. You made it!" It's incredible. She looks exactly the same. Still old, but it's like she hasn't aged a bit since the last time I saw her. I might really look into this Botox thing for myself.

"Hi Grandma." We do the cheek kiss thing that I've only ever done with her in my life and she holds my face to scrutinize it, I mean look at it.

"Your skin is looking rather ashy dear. Have you been drinking your 8 glasses of water a day?" You literally could be the most perfect human in the world, she'll find a flaw. Also, 8 glasses of water a day has been proven to be largely misinformed. I don't tell her that though. I instead say,

" You look lovely Grandma."

Then turn my head to the side to say,

"this is my boyfriend Luke."

I look at him to see his reaction at the b word but he doesn't seem phased. We still haven't had THE conversation yet, but everything we do together seem to be pointing in that direction. Grandma turns to look at him with a smile I've never quite seen before, but I know it's because he's very good looking. We're late because he looked too great and I just couldn't hold myself.

"You must be... the older sister?" Are you kidding me? This is the first time I see him ass kissing. Luke has three companies and he's also got a lot of money. Because of that, he's the one who's always getting ass kissed. That's why this whole picture looks unusual.

Grandma Kwali giggles making me roll my eyes, she's got a whole husband. Speaking of,

"Where's grandpa?" Wherever she is, he's always around too somewhere. "He's got golf today." She answers then takes Luke's hand I'm guessing to lead him to the living room. She's being dismissive, clearly because she's lying. She let him go play golf knowing I was coming? Yeah right.

When I told Grandma I wanted to come over, she'd practically jumped up and down in celebration. She even wanted me to come on the same day but I needed time to think about what I was going to say to them, so I'd told her I was going to come in a week's time instead.

I know she went and told the world I was coming back, so it's beyond shocking that grandpa isn't here.

"Margarette, would you be so kind and get us something to hydrate?" She asks the scary lady in black who then asks us what we'd like to have before disappearing into the kitchen.

Grandma asks Luke what he does for a living and they soon engage in a long conversation about business and owning property. This whole day was planned so I could finally talk to them about my childhood. Dr Moyo said I needed to see them for the next part of my healing.

But grandma is acting like the last couple of years didn't happen. Like I didn't walk out after I'd told them I hated them and wanted nothing to do with them.

Grandma is acting like I saw her just yesterday. And I don't think I mind that entirely.

Maybe we don't need to revisit the past, but rather fix the present so we could have a future.

So we lay by the couches, now outside with our appetizers just catching up on life.

I pause to look at a happy grandma Kwali chatting and laughing with the love of my life.

I couldn't be happier.