Forelsket.

My grandfather was a pot-bellied man who, after his wife left him (which would make her the second), came knocking at my families door. He had a wheezing cough from the years of smoking, and I believed that, if anyone had been shown mercy, it was him. Smoking since the age of thirteen, and aged at sixty-five when he arrived at our doorstep looking like a lost, scared puppy, you’d think his time was just about up.

We’d taken him in, even fixed up the basement, which would become his layer and one of the most avoided (by me, at least) rooms within the house. His footsteps would later become so distinct to me, that I could calculate his steps in order to avoid him as a whole.

Though, when he first moved in, he used to bring little things for my older sister and I when he used to go out. Small things like chocolate, cheap bears/toys, gum. Stupid things like that, that just made him grandpa.

He paid particular attention to me – I was his favourite. I remember my sister having a fit once. She wasn’t used to me being the favourite because it was usually her. She did everything right, and she was the angle and mom and dad not only loved her, they adored her. But they took some of the adoration they had for me to use on her. She was the center of attention, the most important. Naturally, I loved my grandfather very much, because for once, I felt important.

He used to take me out for ice cream, and we’d laugh about it because mostly, we didn’t bring Lindsay along. And we’d never actually tell her where we went, either. That was the start of things he’d tell me to ‘keep between us’.

He somehow, carefully and subtly, blurred the lines of the grandparent/grandchild relationship. He had warmed me up for years before anything began to happen. I’d never forget the smell of his breath, tinted with the scent of cigarettes, nor would I ever forget the hotness of it hitting my ear, travelling through strands of my hair. I’d never forget the first night he made his way into my room, rubbed my legs a little to high. Enough for the hairs on my body to stand up – enough to give me goosebumps.

I guess I blocked it out, that night. I just remembered the words he said.

“This’ll feel good, I promise, peanut.” The nickname he used for me was no longer endearing, it had sounded sinister that night. And I was frozen by it. And I didn’t know what was happening back then, but my body responded. And I am ashamed now. But then, as a eight year old, I had actually thought it felt good.

He said to me, he didn’t share this gift with my sister. He said to me, it’d have to be a secret – I’d be in big trouble if anyone would have known what happened. He said that he never wanted to see me in trouble.

And the weight of that secret, until this day, could weigh me to my knees.