Chapter Thirteen

Missy

Sitting on the plane on my way to Ohio, I couldn’t get my mind on anything other than Mason. I had never left the store before, and normally the thought of leaving it in Eliza’s care would terrify me, but at that moment I just needed to get out of town. Everything with Mason had drug up a lot of old memories and even more old wounds. I had gone for a drive and made it several hours outside of the city. I had thought about just continuing to drive, showing up at my grandma’s house and calling Eliza then, but I knew that wasn’t fair to her, and I didn’t want to put my issues on her back. So, I went home, packed a bag, organized everything for Eliza, called in a friend to come sub some of the classes, and bought a plane ticket instead.

It almost felt strange making all of these arrangements and not panicking or thinking twice about them. The studio had become my life, and it was what kept me going every day. But in the current situation, it didn’t comfort me at all, and I knew Mason would come for his appointment wanting answers. I didn’t have any answers to give him.

When the plane touched down, I was more than excited to see my grandmother. As I walked through baggage claim, I could see her standing by the door holding a sign. She looked adorable as always in her jeans, white Keds, and white blouse. Her hair was a mess, but that wasn’t anything new, and just the thought of hugging her seemed to fill my heart. I laughed as I walked up reading her sign. It read “Granddaughter That Only Visits When Something Is Wrong.”

“Hello, Grandma,” I said, smirking. She looked over the sign and squinted her eyes.

“Well, hello there.” She chuckled. “Did you get drunk on the plane?”

“No,” I said, laughing and picking my bags back up.

“You wanna be drunk?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s so good to see you,” she said, dropping her sign in the trash can and hugging me tightly. “Come on, let’s go home and get some nice hot tea.”

“Sounds perfect,” I replied, forcing a smile.

When we got there we talked, not about what was going on, but just about life. Reminiscing seemed to be the thing we both loved to do the most, and I wasn’t shocked at all when the boxes of my childhood belongings started flowing from the closet. I sat there in the middle of the floor looking back at where I came from, trying to remember where I wanted to go. I sat back in the rocking chair on the porch of the farm and sipped my tea, reading through chapters of old journals I’d kept when I was younger. My therapist had told me that I should write everything down so it didn’t just stay balled up in my chest. So, that’s what I did. I wrote down every single little thing I felt in this book, but at the end of the day, I still felt disheveled and torn apart. It was a difficult time in my life. After a while, though, I stopped writing in them since I felt like it only dredged up bad memories instead of helping me deal with the ones I had.

“So,” my grandmother said, sitting down next to me on the porch. “What’s going on? It’s not that I don’t love having you out here, but I know there’s something up if you took an impromptu trip and left your business in the hands of hyperactive Eliza.”

“She’s not that bad.” I laughed. “She is just very high-spirited.”

“So is old Ben, my dog, but I wouldn’t let him run the farm,” she said, looking out at her old hound dog spread out in the grass. “Well, he used to be high-spirited; he just lays there now.”

“Sounds like you,” I said, sticking my tongue out at her.

“You’re never too old to beat,” she said with a wave of her finger.

“You never beat me when I was a kid,” I chuckled. “Why would you start now?”

“Just to show you I can,” she said. “Gotta keep the fear of God in the little ones, or they’ll go all crazy on you.”

“You watched Chucky again, didn’t you?”

“I keep telling you,” she said, shaking her head. “That little red-haired bastard just needs to have a little discipline in his life. Then maybe we could get the sharp objects away from him.”

I laughed listening to her go on and on about that damn scary movie. When I was growing up, it was really hard to ever be scared since my grandmother loved to crack jokes. It was a good thing except for the fact that as an adult, I had to talk to myself during scary movies in order to no longer be scared. Mason had laughed at me when I told him about my scary-movie phobia, so he started making random comments during the film that made it completely hilarious instead of terrifying. And there I went again, shifting my thoughts back to Mason. He was on my mind 24/7 now, and it was starting to get frustrating. I just wanted to feel better; I wanted my heart to stop opening and closing whenever it got scared. I had a serious flight response every time something like this happened, but this time I really wanted to fight, not just slink away and live silent and alone. Loneliness was painful, and I’d felt it for a really long time. It was something that needed an end. I took in a deep breath and looked at my grandmother, knowing she would have the right advice.

“I met a man,” I said, smiling. “He’s smart, successful, handsome, intelligent, and everything a girl would want in someone.”

“And?”

“And I can’t keep my feet on the ground long enough for him to get to know me,” I replied. “I saw one of my students, who it was obvious he knew from the past, flirting with him when he came to pick me up for dinner. So, freaking out, I canceled. I did the same thing mid-date a couple weeks before that.”

“Okay, so he took this other girl to dinner, then,” my grandmother said.

“No, of course not,” I said, scrunching my nose.

“Oh, okay. So when you ran, he shrugged and started dating someone else,” she replied.

“Well, no,” I said, realizing where she was going with all of this. “He came back for me. We had dinner the very next night.”

“So, this is your problem and not his,” she said, looking over her cup of tea at me.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I suppose it is.”

“So, since you are so afraid to lose the people you love, are you going to disappear from my life?”

“No!” I said. “I would never do that.”

“Why?”

“Well, because you are my grandmother, and you’ve been here forever.”

“So, the amount of time someone is in your life determines whether they get to stay,” she said. “It seems to me, my dear, there is a difference between how you feel for me, and how you feel about him. That part of your heart is the one that is fighting you.”

“How do I fix it?”

“You just decide to,” she said, looking out at the farm. “You just decide you are tired of loneliness and you fix it. It only happens when you are ready.”

I smiled and stood up, setting my cup down and looking out at the farm. It was nearly sunset, and I loved walking through the paths of the farm during this time of day. I turned to my grandmother, who was looking up at me.

“Going for one of your walks?”

“I love you,” I said, leaning over and kissing her on the forehead. “You always know just what to say.”

“I’m a Guru,” she joked. “But more than that, I know you well.”

I walked down the steps and onto the dirt path that led around the back of the house and through the fields of the farms. There used to be so many animals here, or at least that was what I was told. I would spend my summer evenings as a child walking through the grasses, imagining the cows, the chickens, and all the other animals, just meandering through the fields. There was always such a beautiful glow across the area, and it made the farmhouse really feel like home. I missed it here in the quiet, something I never thought for two seconds I would admit. I couldn’t wait to get out of here and to the city, and now I was wishing I could stay. But why really? Was it because I missed the place or because I didn’t want to face my issues? Running away was always an easier option than fighting myself.

I looked out at the blowing grasses and thought about my parents, what they had been through in their lives, and how they’d died together, just like it should have been. They’d left me behind, and that put a huge dent in my soul, always making me wonder who was next. In reality, though, I was more into Mason than I had ever allowed myself to be into anyone. He was kind, sweet, and had the best intentions for me and him. There was something about him I couldn’t put my finger on, but nothing about him made me believe he would leave me too. I needed to get past this feeling that my parents abandoned me. I needed to understand that they didn’t have a choice. The longer I based my decisions off their deaths, the longer I lived in that shadow.

I took in a deep breath and stretched my arms high over my head. I knew that it was time for me to let go and take a chance. I wanted that chance to be taken on Mason, and I knew what I needed to do. He had no idea what was going on with me, yet he still tried his hardest to keep me close. I pulled out my phone to text him, but it was dead. I chuckled to myself at how fate always seemed to play out. No matter, it was probably better that I talked to him in person anyway. I was going back to the city the next day, so I would go and surprise him at his apartment, lay it all out for him, and hope that he would understand and give me another chance. Either way, it was important that I kept that feeling of freedom from fear, no matter what Mason decided to do.

I stood there in the field watching the sun set, hearing the bugs and frogs in the distance, and I smiled, feeling my mom and dad standing next to me. I knew, wherever they were, they didn’t want me to suffer like this. They didn’t want me to hold on to the past that was damaging to me and everyone around me. I knew that standing here in this field I needed to let go of that fear and let it blow through the breeze.

I was nervous, having lived my life based on that series of events for so long I didn’t even remember what it was like to be normal. I was nervous that if Mason didn’t take me back, I would be crushed and would slink back into my little castle I had built myself for protection. But in the end, if I didn’t break free, I would be stuck in an endless cycle, and that was definitely not where I wanted to be ever again.