Unfortunately she never made it home. Almost, but not quite.
Grace’s neighbour found her lying on her front lawn, right outside the front door. Grace was having an allergic reaction; she was really allergic to peanuts. Her mom was going through her bag, trying to find the epi-pen. God knows why she didn’t run inside and grab one of the others. Panic I guess. But it didn’t matter. She was never going to find it because no one knew it was lying under my bed at home. No one knew it had fallen out and rolled under there when Grace had emptied her old bag to throw everything into the new one I’d bought her. Neither of us saw it happen. I was too busy trying out her new lip gloss and she was too busy checking out her present from me. I never even found the epi-pen until years later when I was rearranging my bedroom.
The big question was how Grace had ever come into contact with the nuts in the first place. She knew she couldn’t eat them, knew she couldn’t go near them. Even I knew she couldn’t. It’s why I hadn’t bought her the chocolate M&Ms in the first place. Even the plain ones were made in the same factory as the peanut ones. All chocolate was bad for her.
I knew this.
Of course, I didn’t stop to think about what I’d been eating when I tried on her lip gloss. Didn’t stop to think about the peanut M&Ms I’d snuck in after school when I was getting us something to drink in the kitchen. The peanuts that still would’ve been on my lips when I tried her lip gloss on. The same lip gloss she probably used when she was walking home from my place.
But nobody ever knew, nobody ever worked it out. Grace’s mom, my Dad, they all asked me and I swore she didn’t eat any of the chocolate I brought home. I promised, I was certain, it wasn’t even in my room. I mean, I couldn’t work it out, didn’t work it out until years later. I was ten, remember. All I knew was that my best friend, the one person I could talk too, had died. Wasn’t going to be sitting beside me at school the next day or ever again. All because of what turned out to be a stupid, dumb decision on my part. A stupid, stupid decision that meant Grace, my best friend, my saviour, died.
The teasing started up again not long after she died and this time I had no one to stick up for me.
The human heart, four chambers supplying life to the body in repeated rhythmic contractions
∞
Playlist:
1. Dakota – Stereophonics
2. Talking to the moon – Bruno Mars
3. Punching in a dream – The Naked & Famous
∞
Music is an escape for me these days and sometimes I think it’s the only thing that keeps me sane. It’s hard to believe that a combination of sound and silence can have such an effect on you. But it can. And it can affect you in ways you never thought possible.
It can make you smile. It can make you cry. It can make your heart stop and it can make your heart race. It can make you feel things you never even realised were inside of you. And it can stop you in your tracks before you even realise what’s happening.
Watching someone create music like that is amazing. Seeing, feeling someone have that affect on you, on a whole room full of people….it’s unbelievable, indescribable, breath taking. There’s no other way to say it. It’s why I love watching and listening to live music. Why I love going to see a band play, no matter if it’s a huge concert or a tiny pub.
It’s just always had that effect on me and for a second, it almost lets me forget everything else.
∞
Selena was my mom’s baby sister. I never knew my grandparents on mom’s side because they had both died long before I was born. Growing up with an older brother and my Dad, I always longed for the girlie things. Someone to go shopping with, to talk to about boys, someone to ask about all the stuff my Dad was only going to be too embarrassed to talk about. I remember watching Grace and her mom when we were kids and being envious of their bond, their connection. Although I was very close to my Dad, there was still a hidden longing to have my mom, even if it was something I’d never grown up having. But, Selena did that for me, she took on that role and helped fill the gap of my mom not being there. She did a lot more too. She was the mother I never had, and the best friend and confidant I needed. We were very close and I loved her very much.