It was difficult for me to process what had happened.
I watched as Young Evangeline's eyes watered, and I knew it was not just because I wanted to cry but because of how much it had hurt. The right side of my face became so red and swollen I could only open my eye halfway.
"Why do you have a B in Math?!" Granma bellowed into my face.
I didn't know what she was talking about until I realized her other hand clutched onto my report card. It was crumpled in her fists, and the rest of her body was shaking.
"Well?!" Granma shouted. "Don't you have anything to say for yourself?"
"I'm–"
Granma didn't even let me explain. She slammed her hand against the dining table, rattling the plates and utensils, and further crumpling my report card.
"Because of you—" she jabbed her pointing finger at my chest, "I am forced to raise you all by myself!"
Granma's nostrils flared as she took another step forward. "Do you know how old I am?! I should be taking it easy and waiting for my death in the next five years! But alas! My son went ahead of me!"
I shrunk back. Her eyes were tinted gray with cataracts, but they didn't soften her glare. And though she was a couple of inches shorter than Mom, I found her robust figure intimidating.
The next words she said rang inside my head for the rest of my life, confirming everything I feared the day Dad died.
"If only you stopped your father from going out, he would still be alive!"
"Bullshit!" Death swore from the sidelines as if the "actors" of the "show" could hear us.
"The thing is," I whispered, unsure if Death could hear me, "I believed her."
My younger self tried to reason with her, but she slapped me again. On the other cheek this time.
"The gall of this child to talk back at me!" Granma's face turned red in anger, and I didn't know how to handle it.
I wasn't used to seeing people get angry like that. When Mom and Dad were still together, they were both calm individuals who never let anger get the best of them. They didn't scream or hit, they just talked it out.
"Is that how you're going to treat the one that feeds you and provides a roof over your head?!" Granma grabbed the plate on the table and threw it directly at my face. I instinctively covered my face, so the plate hit my hand instead.
It fell, of course, and shattered.
A long silence followed. Even Death and I could feel the tension at the sidelines, as younger me stood there motionless while Granma seemed to be trying to calm herself down. At least, that's what I had thought.
"Now look at what you've done!" Granma screeched again, still hysterical.
"What the fuck is this old lady saying?!" Death shook his head in annoyance. "She was the one who threw the plate at you!"
"You'll get used to it," I said with a shrug.
"Clean this mess and go to your room!" Granma continued.
"But the food–"
"You won't eat until you learn some manners! Now, get to it! "
The memory ended and slowly faded to black. We were back in the In-Between. Death shook angrily, his hand balled into a fist.
"If I were her Death, I would've made sure she suffered the most painful death!" He gritted his teeth.
I smiled at him. "Thanks, Death. Too bad you weren't."
This calmed him down.
"That was just her first outburst," I explained. "A lot more followed after that, and it happened so often it was practically routine."
I shook my head, chuckling mirthlessly. "She would cut my allowance whenever something in her house broke. She would hit me, and then she'd send me to my room without dinner if she found out that I got anything less than an A in class.
"Anytime I try to explain, she'd punish me even more for 'talking back.' One time, when I got home late after her curfew because I was doing a group project, she confiscated my phone for a week."
"Huh? Don't you inform her about these school projects?" Death frowned.
"I did," I defended. "I knew I did. She must have just forgotten, given her advanced age. But when I tried to remind her…"
"More slaps, more screams, and no dinner?" Death finished for me.
"Yeah." I laughed. "Granma was rather predictable, wasn't she?"
But Death didn't laugh with me. "Did you wish you could go back in time and go with your mother instead?"
"At first, I did," I replied. "But after a while, I figured it's better this way. She's still family. Even if she visibly hated me, I still prefer not to lose anyone else. I want the chance to be with Granma and take care of her. And do a better job at it compared to what I did with Dad."
"I don't know if you're an idiot, a martyr, or both."
"Anyway," I said in a sing-song voice as if we hadn't just witnessed my younger self being physically abused. "I wanted Granma to be proud of me. To say that she didn't regret taking me in. So I did what the usual people-pleasing kid would do: I studied hard, did sports, and joined as many extracurricular activities as physically possible."
Death cocked his head at me curiously.
"That put me at the top of my class. I was known as the smart kid, and though some people admired me for my wits, some hated me for the same reason. I was also active in sports competitions, and brought home a medal from every single one. I graduated with honors, and got an extra award for being active in all of the clubs."
"You took people-pleasing to the extreme," Death commented, half-impressed and half-pitying me.
I couldn't help but snort. "That's one way to summarize my middle school life."
"But were you happy with what you were doing?"
I grew silent.
"I never am," I answered after a while. "Never was."
"Never will," Death added.