A long silence.
"Karen is my only girlfriend."
Slap!
A sharp crack rang through the air. It was Grandma, her palm striking my face.
She was trembling with rage, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"What did I teach you growing up? To live with dignity and honor!"
"How could you try to break up someone else's relationship? Apologize to this young lady right now! And pay for her clothes!"
"Grandma, it's really not what you think..."
I pressed my hand to my burning cheek, my heart shattering into pieces.
"Shut your mouth! If you won't apologize, you're no granddaughter of mine!"
Grandma's voice thundered through the room, but mid-sentence she clutched her chest, her face draining of all color.
"Grandma!"
I screamed, lunging forward to catch her.
Her body went limp, sliding toward the floor. She'd lost consciousness.
Karen let out a cold, contemptuous scoff.
"Oh, please. She doesn't want to pay up, so now she's faking a faint? I've seen this little sympathy act a thousand times."
She grabbed Drew's arm and started pulling him toward the door.
"Drew! Drew, please!"
I spun around and seized his sleeve, tears pouring down my face.
I abandoned every last shred of pride, my voice cracking with desperation.
"She needs to get to a hospital. Please. It'll only take a few minutes."
Drew frowned, and for a split second it looked like he might agree.
Then he glanced at Karen's sour expression, and the coldness slid back into his voice.
"Karen's movie is about to start. I don't have time."
He wrapped his arm around Karen's waist and walked out without looking back.
Sunlight blazed through the open door, but I felt nothing. Only ice, filling me from the inside out.
A few kind strangers helped me carry Grandma to the hospital.
The doctor said it was a sudden cardiac arrest. She needed surgery immediately.
I leaned against the cold hospital wall, panic and fear clawing at my chest.
That was when my phone buzzed.
Drew's name lit up the screen.
I hesitated for a few seconds before pressing accept.
I didn't even know what I was hoping for.
That he felt guilty? That he regretted it?
That he'd say he hadn't been thinking straight back there?
The call connected. No explanation. No apology. Just irritation.
"I heard about your grandma. Look, don't blow this out of proportion."
"Karen's young. Her family spoiled her. She's a little blunt, but she didn't mean anything by it."
"Stop making something out of nothing. Cut the kid some slack. If you've got a problem, take it up with me."
"Karen's clothes got ruined, and you scared her. She's in a terrible mood right now."
"Just apologize to her. If you two can get along like sisters going forward, she won't hold any of this against you."
I listened to him rattle off his accusations as if he were the righteous one, and it was like a bolt of lightning had struck me where I stood. Every muscle in my body locked.
Cut the kid some slack? Won't hold it against me?
Grandma was lying in the emergency room, her life hanging by a thread, and he wanted me to apologize to the person who'd put her there?
Memories flooded back like a rising tide.
Sophomore year. I'd spiked a fever of 103. Drew had carried me on his back, running nearly two miles to the hospital. He'd sat by my bed all night, wiping the sweat from my forehead, holding water to my lips.
His eyes had been red-rimmed when he whispered, "Ina, if anything ever happened to you, I wouldn't want to live either."
Junior year. My internship supervisor had made my life hell, and I'd broken down sobbing. Drew had shown up outside my office building, pulled me into his arms, and said, "Anyone who messes with my girl answers to me."
Back then, he'd been tender. Devoted. He'd held me in his palms like I was something precious that might dissolve at his touch.
He'd told me I was his whole world. The only person he'd ever love.
And now, for another woman, he could trample over my dignity and my grandmother's, tossing out a casual cut her some slack like it cost him nothing.
"Drew."
I drew a long, slow breath. When I spoke, my voice was cold enough to freeze.
"You want me to apologize to the person who hurt her?"
