Stay Gold

The ride home seemed to go by faster than the ride there. Before I knew it, I was home with a lazy sister, an overprotective mother, and a father whom I never saw. To tell you the truth, out of everyone in my family, besides my grandmother, I liked my dad the best. That also might of been because he was my grandmother’s son.

I always wondered why my parents were even together. They were nothing alike whatsoever. My mom was overprotective, bossy, and like to control everyone and everything. My dad was laid back most of the time, I couldn’t really complain about him, other than him not being home a lot of the time, or being in our garage most of the time.

My dad fixed cars for a living. It was something he loved, and I was almost sure he loved it more than Nova and I. But, I could be wrong. He had a sense of humor, much like Gram’s. I was still surprised on how he could stay with my mother with her being so uptight.

That might be one thing about love that I will never understand.

I walk into my house, box and all. Mother was nowhere to be found. Nova was still on the couch on her laptop. Father, well... Hell if I know where he is. Everything was normal.

Nova peaked up from her computer screen, “How was Gram’s? She give you money? What’s that?”

The usual questions she’d ask whenever she’d leave me to go to Gram’s by myself.

I rolled my eyes, “She gave me this box. It has books and stuff in it. Nothing you’d be interested in though, it has to do with learning, and doesn’t have a penis,” I cracked up.

Nova gave me one of her “you’re such a bitch I hate you” looks, but didn’t say anything. She looked back at her computer screen, probably knowing I was right.

I walked upstairs and went in my room, closing the door behind me. I put the box on my bed and sat next to it, ready to investigate me.

I spend about 20 minutes re-investigating the box and all of it contents. There were books, a bunch of unused journals, and a few photo albums. I began looking through the photo albums. They mainly had picture of Gram in it. Gram when she was a baby, Gram when she was in high school, Gram on her wedding day, and so on. There were even pictures of my Grandad in them. Then there were pictures of my dad as a baby, when he was growing up, his senior pictures, and when he married my mom. There was a book of poems as well. From the looks of everything in this box, it didn’t look like it had been opened since the late 80’s, or even the early 90’s.

A spent another decent period of time looking through the different photos and poems. Before my phone rang, at least. I was almost not gonna answer it, until I saw the caller ID.

Hunter’s name showed up. I didn’t hesitate to answer it after that.

“Hello?” I spoke into the phone.

“Nala,” he began, “Where have you been? I was beginning to think you forgot about me.” He sounded disappointed, sad even.

“No, no!” I exclaimed, “Not even. I’d been at my grandma’s all day, doing chores,” I said, sounding bored half to death.

Hunter began telling me about his day, about how some douche bags my sister probably boned, he got into a fight with. As he was telling me about everything, I noticed another book in the box. A journal or diary of some sort. It was dusty, so it was hard to make out what the words were on the cover. I wiped it off a bit, revealing “Elaine Williams” on it, Gram’s name.

I hadn’t realized I wasn’t saying anything on the phone for a long time, zoning out until Hunter repeated “Nala”, at least a dozen times.

“Sorry about that,” I began, “I...uh, can’t come tonight. Something just came up and it’s rather important,” I tried sounding convincing.

“Oh,” Hunter said, sounding even more disappointed. “Is everything okay?”, he eventually asked.

“Everything’s fine, just family stuff. Can I take a raincheck on tonight?” I sighed. I felt bad, but I was also interested in what was in that journal. Maybe it had the secret to why I was so fucking weird. Probably not, though. Wishful thinking, right?

Still sounding disappointed, and even a little bit sad, Hunter finally responded, “For a pretty girl like you? Of course. Just name when and where.”

His voice drove me crazy. It gave me chills. But it was the chills of excitement.

We talked for a few more minutes before hanging up. I dusted the diary off a little more before finally opening it up to the first page.

July 7, 1964.

Julia asked why I hadn’t been around lately. I was quick to fib and told her I was out visiting family. When really, my daddy had me locked in my room. I always dream about moving far, far away from here. About becoming a writer out west, maybe.

A woman can dream, just maybe, one day it will come true. One can only hope. I’d never cry, or be hit again. No more bruises. No more pain.

Happiness. Pure bliss.

Oh, no! I hear Daddy coming up the stairs, I’ll write again soon.

“My great grandfather abused my grandma?” I said out loud, confused. What the hell, my family may be different, weird, maybe, but never abusive. Gram said that there was a lot of memories in Tulsa, but why would she want to stick around a place where she was abused?