Chapter
One
Karina Stevens
“You leaving already, baby?”
I’d been trying to pack as quietly as I could. I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye to my grandma. However, I did want to make the process of leaving the day after Christmas as easy as I could, but she had caught me like she always did. If my childhood track record didn’t prove that I had no sneaking out of the house skills, this moment definitely did.
My grandma was the sweetest lady I knew, which made letting her down heartbreaking. Still, it seemed like letting her down was all I had been doing since I left home in search of my purpose. Sadly, I still didn’t know what that purpose was, or maybe it just hadn’t found me yet. Either way, I was getting ready to let my sweet lady down again.
“We sho’ like having you here, baby. Do you have to go?”
She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds and short, just like all the other women in our family, including me. I was only five-foot-two, and my grandmother waseven shorter. The way she looked up at me when she spoke was kind of childlike.
She stood in front of me wearing her housecoat, which she kept closed with her hand. Her hair was covered by the bonnet she wore only at night and rarely outside of her bedroom. Her forehead creased in confusion as to why I was sneaking around to pack in the middle of the night.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Gramma. I just got a call to return to work,” I lied.
I did get a call, but I also could have turned it down if I wanted to. The truth was I didn’t want to stay. Being home and around my grandparents, who loved each other more than life itself, reminded me of everything I didn’t have. The holidays were hard enough without letting the fact that I was still single take over my every thought.
At thirty-four, I was surrounded by women who were already married with kids or working on both. I didn’t fall into either category. I rarely left my house unless it was to go to the office on the two days out of the week we actually had to show up. On the other days, I worked from home, wearing nothing but my pajamas and food stains from the day.
“Well, I guess you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. You know we are so proud of everything you have accomplished.”
“Thanks, Ma.”
I smiled, and my grandma pulled me into a hug. Her hugs always felt like Sunday mornings, like they could wrap not only your body but your mind up in everything good. I loved my grandparents, but I had to get back to my work as soon as possible. It was the only thing that I had clarity on right now.
“I’ll tell your grandpa you said goodbye since you have to leave in a hurry. You know he’s already down at the hardware store.”
“Yes, I do know.” We both laughed.
My grandpa spent most of his days either at the hardware store or outside in his shop. Now that he had retired, he spent his days working on anything my grandma even thought she wanted. She even had him make stuff for people down at the church. He never minded though.
My grandparents had been together since they were teenagers, and they never seemed to get tired of each other. Not only were they inseparable as a young couple, but they’d raised two generations together flawlessly. Although they didn’t have much, I never heard either of them complain, not even when my mother left me for them to raise or when I left after all they’d done for me.
“I hope we get to see you again next year, baby. I appreciate the daily phone calls, but please don’t stay away too long.”
When I first moved out, I tried to come home as much as I could, but when life really started hitting me, those visits became less and less. I could actually point out the bitterness I had with love, but I hadn’t worked to correct it in the slightest. I honestly wasn’t aware of needing correction until I was around couples like my grandparents.
“I won’t, Gramma. I promise.”
I hugged my grandmother one last time before heading out the door. I didn’t know what next year would hold, but I knew I needed to get back here no matter how much it hurt. My grandparents weren’t getting any younger, and I was all they had left in this world.
I letmy bags hit the floor as soon as I stepped inside my apartment. I’d spent over thirty days back home celebrating the holidays with my family. I missed them like hell whenever I wasaway, but this trip reminded me why I rarely went home in the first place.
I was tired of the constant questions about when I’d get married, have kids, or hell, even date someone longer than a week. I was nearing thirty-five, and outside of my high school sweetheart, I’d never had any real prospects. That was probably the reason Gramma had invited him to Thanksgiving without telling me.
If she had told me, I probably would have skipped Thanksgiving altogether. That would have kept me from having to explain why I’d stopped talking to him in the first place. Kareem was probably the most perfect boy I talked to in high school, but after watching him on social media over the years, I was sure he’d lost some of that perfection.
I had witnessed his ho phase while he was in the military. I had even witnessed him having a baby pinned on him a couple of years ago when he first took his now million-dollar company public.
I was sure his hands were full of the many women he’d encountered over the years, which is why his pop up at ourfamilydinner shouldn’t have fazed me at all. But it did. Kareem had built a reputation for collecting women like infinity stones, and I refused to be one of them. I didn’t even compare to the type of women he dated.
I had always been pretty but in an average kind of way, the way that got you voted prom queen but didn’t set you up to be a runway model. That was the type of woman Kareem dated.
They were pretty, polished, and famous in their own right. I was mortified that my grandma had imposed on his trip back home, probably to seehisgrandparents, and insisted he spend the holiday with us instead. It wasn’t right.
