Page 173 of Poison Aches

“I’m pretty sure the new words I learnt were something likesegue, truculent,costochondritis… words that make me stop and think, not this…” I trail off, feeling like I might burst into tears.

“Ivy…”

“I know whatachemeans, Grammy. I’m not in grade school anymore.”

“No, you’re not,” she says gently. “You’re growing up, which means you need some reminders of what some things are and what they mean.”

I bite back the onslaught of emotion that swells up in my chest.

“Iknowwhat ache means,” I repeat, hoping she drops the topic like she always does, but this time, she doesn’t.

“I’m sure you do, as I think you feel it much sharper than the rest of the world would ever know.”

As if to prove a point, I inhale sharply then look at her with tears welling up in my eyes.

“Pumpkin, maybe?—”

“I’m all right, Grammy. I’m not aching anywhere,” I quickly defend myself, straightening my posture as if that might somehow hide the mess that’s so obvious, even my busy grandmother picked up on it.

I hear her sigh deeply, then she looks at me as if she’s at a loss and doesn’t really know what to say.

“Can you read it again, but out loud this time?” she asks gently. There’s no doubt she’s trying to drive a point home.

I stare down at the jumbled words on the cream-colored page of the dictionary I ‘won’ when I came last in a class spelling bee contest in fifth grade.

For eighteen seconds, I stay silent, my lips pressed firmly together.

But in the next five seconds, I quickly repeat the words without even reading them because once was enough to insert a kind of lasting torture on my soul.

Once was enough to get me here, to a place where my grandmother and brother look at me with pity mixed with that‘snap out of it’glow in their eyes.

“Ache, as a verb, is to suffer from a continuous dull pain,” I mumble, my throat burning with a sob. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“I just want you to tell me one thing,” she says softly.

“What?”

“Do you want to suffer from a continuous dull pain, Pumpkin?”

My heart jumps in my chest.

“Grammy…”

“Do you, Ivy?”

I fall silent, tears now streaming down my face like a river.

“Baby girl, I’ve been watching you and I found something else…” She waves a small familiar-looking purple diary in the air.

My stomach drops.

“Where did you get that?”

I quickly try to make a dive for the sacred little thing that contains all the words I never say out loud.

“Does it matter where I found it?”

“No, but you read it! You invaded my personal space and read my private diary!”

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