Chapter 4

I walked for miles, the city lights blurring through my tears. I didn' t know where I was going, only that I had to get back to the one person who had ever loved me. It took me two days to hitchhike and walk back to Grandma Rose' s town.

When I finally stumbled onto her porch, bruised and exhausted, she opened the door and her face crumpled. She didn' t ask questions. She just pulled me into her arms, her tears soaking my hair.

"You' re home," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "I' ll never let you go again."

And she didn' t. For the next few years, I thrived under her care. I studied with a single-minded focus, fueled by a burning desire to make her proud, to give her a better life. I got a full scholarship to the state' s most prestigious high school.

During my senior year, just weeks before my SATs, the world fell out from under me. Grandma Rose collapsed. At the hospital, the doctors told me she had a long-undiagnosed heart condition. She needed surgery, an expensive one we couldn' t afford.

Desperate, I called my parents. I swallowed my pride and begged.

My father scoffed. "That' s not my problem." He hung up.

My mother' s phone went straight to voicemail. I left message after message, my voice cracking with desperation. She never called back.

I had no choice. I went door-to-door in our small, tight-knit community, begging for loans, signing handwritten IOUs. I missed my SATs. I was too busy trying to save the only family I had.

We got the money. The surgery was a success, but when Grandma Rose woke up and learned what I had done, she was devastated.

"You sacrificed your future for me," she cried, her voice weak. In a moment of grief and guilt, she pushed me away. "Go! I don' t want to see you."

The rejection, even born of love, was a physical blow. But we reconciled quickly, clinging to each other, two broken people against the world.

Her health, however, continued to decline. A month later, she passed away in her sleep. She was wearing a new, warm coat I had bought her with my first paycheck from a summer job at the local diner.

At the funeral, only one other person showed up. My brother, Matthew. He looked older, tired. He didn' t say much, just pressed a crumpled envelope of cash into my hand. It was all his savings.

"I' m sorry, Jocelyn," he mumbled, before turning and walking away.