The News

3038 Words
“Garrett, your grandma is on the phone!” Garrett Holmes looked over in surprise and saw Craig, his co-worker and friend, peeking in through the back kitchen door.  “What?  Now?”  He was in the middle of cooking for Table 8 and Table 15 and really didn’t have time to be on the phone right now.  “Tell her I’ll call her back tonight!” “She said it was something she wanted to tell you before you ‘heard it from someone else,’” Craig finger quoted, shrugging. Groaning in frustration, Garrett walked over and passed his flipper and spoons to Craig.  “All right, all right, but don’t burn my entrees.” “Yeah, yeah, just make it quick.  I didn’t finish my break yet.” Garrett sprinted to the back room and picked up the wireless phone left lying down on the desk there. “Hi Nanna,” he said in rush, “I’m working right now.  Can’t it wait—” “I know, I know, but I know how news like this can get flung around fast and I thought you shouldn’t learn about it on some silly internet post since… you two were so close once.” Garrett stilled, hearing the hesitancy in his usually straight-to-the-point grandmother.  “What is it?”  Chills began sweeping across his back as he had a feeling… that what she was about to tell him wasn’t going to be good news. “Garrett, it’s Taylor.” Garrett’s hand clenched on the phone, not having heard that name in over two years. But never, ever forgetting it. “What about Taylor?” he said as quietly and calmly as he could.  Even as his chest got tight and it became difficult to breathe. “I’m sorry, sweet pea…  Last night Taylor committed suicide.” --- Three Days Later Garrett stared down silently at the cold granite slab that marked the freshly laid grave of 20-year-old Taylor Hitchens. Most everyone else had already left the cemetery so it was quiet now, with just the sounds of murmuring voices and the wind through the few trees around giving background noise he did not hear. “Why…” He whispered to the tombstone.  Like he’d asked so many times since that day his grandmother called him.  “What could have been so… so …  Why…” Garrett closed his eyes and dropped down to his knees into the fresh dirt, unable to keep standing any longer.  “Why!” A gentle hand touched his shoulder and he flinched, realizing that he had just yelled that word to the grave. He looked up to see his grandmother looking down at him sadly and he couldn’t stop the tears that rolled down his cheeks.  He squeezed his eyes tightly again and bowed his head so no more would escape. “Come on, dear,” she said quietly.  “I’m afraid there are no answers here.” “I…” He turned back to look at the tombstone again and read Taylor’s name yet again.  “I…I can’t leave him.” There was silence for a moment, his grandmother’s hand still resting on his shoulder.  Then her hand squeezed gently and she let go.  “Okay, Garrett.” There was a THUMP sound beside him and he looked over in bewilderment. His grandmother was sat with folded legs in her best black dress right next to him on the dirt. “Nanna!” he said in a harsh whisper, shocked.  “What are you—” “He was special to me, too, you know,” she interrupted, though she spoke quietly.  “I was sad when you two stopped playing together.  You used to have so much fun together.”  She sighed and looked up at the sky.  “It’s going to rain soon.”  She looked back at Taylor’s tombstone and smiled sadly.  “He used to like the rain.” Garrett felt a hard lump develop in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut again, his hands clenching on his lap. It had been raining then, too.  The very last day Garrett had seen Taylor. At their high school graduation. The unexpected rainshower had ruined the entire outdoor ceremony, forcing everyone to race inside to the gymnasium, but Garrett hadn`t followed the crowd.  Because, through the many bodies clothed in black graduation robes, Garrett`s eyes had been glued to another person not moving, sitting several seats away, looking up at the sky. Garrett had thought then, too, that he would never see Taylor again, but that was because Garrett had already made plans to leave town, to start training to be a chef while he helped his uncle at his new restaurant in the city. Not only had he been eager to start training for his career there, Garrett had been eager to try to love anew. Until he had seen Taylor sitting there, enjoying the rain, that quiet smile of his spreading over his face as he slowly got soaked. And Garrett fell in love with him all over again. Garrett gasped in air, the pain causing trembles to move through him as the memories wouldn’t stop flowing. Taylor and him when they first met, high-fiving each other for finally finding someone else their age on their street, only eight years’ old. Taylor and him sneaking out late at night to be spies, until his grandmother caught them and scolded them all the way back to Taylor’s mom’s house where they had been having a sleepover. Taylor in his little tux at twelve years old walking his mom down the aisle to marry her soon-to-be new husband, making Garrett’s heart skip a beat at how good his best friend looked. Taylor at fourteen, on the basketball team even though he was too damn short to do anything but steal the ball away, looking amazing beyond belief as Garrett came to realize that his feelings for his friend went far deeper than friendship would. Taylor at sixteen, looking so confused when Garrett stopped hanging out with him, and started distancing himself from him without ever really telling him why. Taylor at seventeen, singing his heart out in the talent show, his eyes searching for someone whom he never found, as Garrett hid, watching from a distance, silently going crazy. And again, Taylor at eighteen, dressed in a soaking wet graduation gown, looking back and locking eyes with Garrett, who for once couldn’t look away.  But Taylor looked away.  And when he left with his mom and stepfather, he didn’t look back. When had things gotten so bad for Taylor that he had… just given up? Taylor had had such big plans when he was younger.  He’d been so full of dreams. Garrett bowed his head again.  “I should have been there,” he whispered bitterly. “We don’t know why Taylor did what he did,” his grandmother sighed next to him, “So we can’t know what effect if any our actions would have had on him.  There is no sense in casting blame, Garrett, on something you couldn’t have possibly known.” “He used to be so… happy,” Garrett rasped, barely getting the word out past the terrible lump in his throat.  “I took that happiness away.  Because I avoided him like I didn’t want to be around him.  Because I was too scared…” His mouth twisted as hate for how much of a coward he was made his stomach churn.  “I’m so sorry, Taylor.” His grandmother was quiet for a while, and Garrett didn’t question it, so lost in his memories and regret that the world around him died away and all he saw were images of his precious friend he`d been too afraid to love. “—rett… Garrett.” At last, his grandmother’s voice broke through his pain and he looked over at her once again. “Garrett,” she said again, “It’s time to go home now.” Garrett immediately opened his mouth to protest, but he saw the pink of her cheeks and nose and realized that he couldn’t keep his grandmother in the cold any longer.  And he knew she wouldn’t leave without him. He looked down at the grave one last time.  But he had run out of words to say and only tears flowed. Quietly, he helped her rise from the ground and gently brushed off the dirt from her dress, and for once she was quiet, where normally she would have told him not to fuss. They left the cemetery in silence, arm in arm, but in truth, Garrett felt like his heart was still there, bleeding all over that freshly filled grave. --- Two weeks later. Garrett was back at work, and though everyone was supportive of the loss of his friend, they soon carried on with their tasks like before, only pausing now and then when they realized that he had still not lost the dead look now permanently cast on his face. It was a good thing for the restaurant and for Garrett himself that muscle memory allowed him to cook the dishes that he had made over and over the past two years, because Garrett’s mind wasn’t in it at all anymore. What happened, Taylor?  What could I have done?  Was there really no one with you that you could turn to? A tear fell as he squeezed his eyes closed in wordless remorse. “Garrett?” He opened his eyes and looked over to see his Uncle Trevor in the back doorway to the kitchen, a look of concern on his face. Garrett quickly dashed the tear on his face away and nodded to his uncle, “Yes, Uncle?” he said, as brightly as he could, not wishing to worry him anymore than he already had. “I think you should go home early today.” Garrett had hoped his uncle hadn’t seen his earlier scene, but the look in his uncle’s eyes told him the truth.  “No, no, I’m sorry, I’m okay, really.”  As if to prove that, he more vigorously tossed the vegetables in his pan about and added a dash of more oil to the mix, the sizzling sounds of food cooking comforting to his ears. “No, Garrett, thank you, but I want you to go home.” Garrett winced, hearing the quiet command in the older man’s voice.  “Yes, sir,” he said quietly, angry at himself for letting his uncle down. Yet another person I have let down.  The thought whispered in his mind and he sucked in his breath as he handed his utensils to the assistant chef already waiting quietly at his side and walked past his uncle through the door. “There’s no need to rush things, lad,” his uncle told him as they walked to the back room where staff members kept their belongings while they worked.  “You know you will always have a place here, when you’re ready.” Garrett couldn’t force himself to reply, so he just nodded silently as he gathered his things, too disappointed in himself for being unreliable to the man who had had his back whenever he needed it. His uncle gave him an awkward pat on the back, and then Garrett went home. --- But strange activities were going on in his home he hadn’t been aware of. “Ah, Garrett, I wasn’t expecting you yet, but never mind, never mind, everything is ready.” “Nanna, what… are you doing here?”  Garrett stared, astonished, as his grandmother hurried around in his kitchen, all sorts of strange bags and bottles and other objects he didn’t recognize scattered across his kitchen table. “And… what are you doing?” “Right.  So,” she said as she hurried over to him and pulled him to stand in a circle of the strange items she had decorated the floor with.  “There are a couple of things I haven’t talked to you about yet, Garrett, and truthfully, this really isn’t the way I would have wanted you to find out—” “Find out what, Nanna?” Garrett asked, his voice a little more high-pitched than normal as he was now holding a vial with a mysterious clear fluid in one hand, and an egg far larger than a chicken’s in the other.  “What exactly are we doing?” “So, Garrett, you see…” Nanna put her hands together entreatingly as if she knew he wasn’t particularly going to like what she was about to say.  “I know it might be hard to believe, but…” “You’re a witch,” Garrett broke in sarcastically, looking at a large, weathered tome open on the table.  It definitely looked like a book of spells from where he was standing. “Oh, thank goodness, you know already,” Nanna breathed a big sigh and smiled with relief.  “I was sure you would be—” She cut off when she saw Garrett’s face. “…more like that.” “Nanna…” Garrett began, moving to put down the items in his hands. “No!” Nanna’s shout caused him to stop in his tracks in surprise. Garrett immediately looked down and around to see if he was about to step on something.  “Wh-What?  What did I do?” “You can’t leave the circle once you’re holding the symbols, or it won’t work and we’ll have to start again.” Garrett stared over at her.  For the first time in his life, he seriously wondered if his grandmother might be becoming senile. “Garrett,” she said in an admonishing tone, crossing her arms, “I am not going senile.  I am a witch.  And so are you.  And,” she added quickly when he went to put the items down again, “I will prove it.” Garrett stood there, trying to take that in for a moment, deciding what to do. On the one hand, if he left this circle of hers right now, he might just be able to get someone to help his grandmother before she did anything dangerous to herself. On the other hand, there didn’t seem to be anything particularly dangerous among the items she had, and it definitely looked like if anyone was going to be swallowing a toxic witch’s brew right now, it was going to be him.  She seemed really eager for this, and for the first time since Taylor’s death, Garrett found himself feeling something besides debilitating heartache. He sort of wanted to see where she was going with this. And maybe, this was just her way of trying to distract him from his constant misery. He breathed in deeply and nodded.  “Okay, sure, Nanna, prove it.”  He managed a smile and lifted his eyebrows in challenge. “That’s my boy!” She laughed and clapped her hands together.  “All right!” Garrett watched as Nanna hurried over to the tome on the table and followed the words on the page with her finger, mumbling under her breath and glancing at him and the floor as she did, as if making certain everything was in place as it—apparently—told her in the book. “So…” he interrupted her reading, “Where did you get that book from?” “It’s been handed down through the witches in our family,” she said, clearly distracted with her reading.  “It’ll be yours soon.” “Will it?” Garrett said casually, rolling back on his heels as he waited for her to tell him what she wanted him to do. At his remark, she glanced up with a smirk on her wrinkled face, “I don’t expect you to believe me yet, Garrett, no need to pretend.” “Oh, good, because I doubt I could have kept that up for long.” He looked closer at the egg in his hand.  “Is this… ostrich?” “Phoenix, silly boy.  We need Rebirth, not New Birth.” Garrett laughed out loud and shook his head, surprised to find he was enjoying this.  “Of course, silly me.” He looked down at the vial of clear fluid in his other hand.  “What’s this then, children’s tears?” His grandmother looked up again from the tome and smiled.  “Now you’re getting it.” Garrett’s eyes widened in spite of himself.  “What?  Is it really?” He looked down at it again with an uneasy grimace. “No, dear, it’s water.” Garrett’s face dead-panned.  “Oh. Of course.” “Water from the year of your seventeenth birthday.” Garrett frowned down at the water in disbelief.  “How did you manage to get water from my—” “I collected it, of course,” she said as she moved to stand in front of him just outside of the circle, a large hourglass in her hand. “In case I might need it.  I have water from every year that something important happened in your life.” Garrett couldn’t help but ask the next question.  “What happened when I was sevent—” “You and Taylor stopped hanging out together.” Garrett stilled as her words hit him like a punch in the gut.  For these past few moments, he had forgotten.  And it was a shock to his system to be reminded so abruptly. His hands lowered on their own and only his grandmother’s sharp shout of his name woke him back up enough not to drop the objects in his hands to the floor. “I’m sorry, Nanna,” he said quietly.  “I don’t think I can play this game anymore.” “You don’t need to, Garrett,” she said gently.  “It’s already done.  I wish you luck.  And if you have too much trouble, you`ll know where to find me.”  And with that, she raised the hourglass over her head and threw it at his feet.
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