I'm Here

My Grandmother is sick in the hospital. She’s eighty-nine years old. We know that if she comes home, it won’t be to recover; it’ll be to die in comfort. Still, knowing that brings no closure, and the realization hits me late at night as my boyfriend and I lie awake in the guest room of my dad’s house.

“My grandma is dying,” I say out loud, my voice cracking.

He sighs next to me, a deep thoughtful sigh, “I know, baby.” And then, I’m sobbing uncontrollably into him.

In all honesty, my grandmother and I have never been all that close. We live a full a state away from each other, and with each passing visit, she seems to get a little meaner, but she’s my blood, and this is the first death in my family that I’m old enough to truly process.

I cry and cry and he sits there and rubs my back. “Is there anything I can do?” He already knows the answer before I shake my head. Another sigh falls from his sweet lips and he tells me, “Well, I’m here. I’m right here.” It’s all I need to calm down. I release the bunched-up fabric of his already worn out shirt and unclench my jaw. He strokes my hair while I steady my breathing and I let myself melt.

Michael and I don’t fight often, and even when we do, we usually only stay upset with each other for a few hours. When we do fall out of sync, though, we feel it deeply and sometimes it takes us a while to get back on track even after we’ve forgiven one another.

He comes over one evening, the day after a particularly nasty spat. We sit in my room for a little while after a couple of face-to-face apologies and dissolve into silence. My fingers twitch. He scrolls through his phone. I chew on my lower lip. He taps his foot.

“Okay, I have an idea.” I get up and jog down the hallway, through the kitchen and into the small garage attached to my house. There are a few little tubs stacked up and I grab one of the smaller ones from the top and carry it back to my room. Michael stares as I take the lid off and show him the contents: beads.

Beads and string. Letters, rainbow, hearts, glow in the dark.

“We’re gonna make each other bracelets.”

He eyes me curiously for a few seconds before shrugging. “Okay, baby,” and begins rooting through his different options.

It doesn’t take us long. We pick similar color schemes and both decide to spell something out but keep our small projects hidden from one another. I’m pretty happy with my finished product, pastel beads with the cubic letters that spell out ‘HAIL SATAN’, an inside joke of sorts. He chuckles, finishing the knot of what’s to be my bracelet and then shows it to me. ‘IM HERE’.

“Aww, I didn’t know we were making cute ones! Now I feel bad,” I pout.

He picks up the blasphemous article and slips it over his hand. It rests snugly on his wrist and he grins. “I love it. This was a really good idea, babe.” I beam at him as I pull the elastic of his work over my fingers and feel so lucky that I’m with someone who puts up with me and all of my silly ideas. We pick up where we left off before our spat and everything goes back to normal.

A year or so passes. We’ve moved in together and I’m huddled over my laptop, staring at the screen as tears roll down my face. He’s standing behind me silently as I try to work out the math problem in front of me, but it just doesn’t make sense.

“Baby, you need to breathe. You’re psyching yourself out.”

“No! I’m not psyching myself out,” I mimic. “I can’t fucking do this! I don’t understand this! And if I don’t get it right now, it’s only gonna get worse! I’m gonna fail algebra, Michael! I’m gonn—”

“Babe, it’s not that…” He trails off, knowing well that nothing he says is going to make me feel better. He’s been watching the same cycle nearly every night. I get home, relax, take notes for Anatomy and then open my laptop to do Algebra homework. It’s all downhill from there. He tries his best to help, give me pep talks, tell me that I understand it better than I think I do, but there’s only so much he can do when I insist on beating myself up over and over.

So he just steps forward and wraps his arms around me. We stay still, standing next to our “dining room” table that’s just a little too big for our tiny new home. The music from his video game plays in the background as I hiccup into his shirt, dampening the soft material with every breath I try to take.

“It’s gonna get better, baby. I’m here. I promise, I’m here.” And I believe it.

Late at night is when it means the most, though. I lie there, barely awake, eyes heavy, and suddenly his hand slips under the blanket to find mine. I smile sleepily and lock our fingers together, reaching over with my other hand to stroke his forearm. “I’m here,” I breathe out. “I’m here.” He snuggles closer to me so that our bodies are touching, and soon his breathing evens out and his soft snores lull me to sleep.