Finally making it to the top of the longest staircase imaginable, I catch my breath and ran my hand over my dress, then quickly bringing my hand to my hair. With everything in place I knock on the door.

“Yes.”

“Hi, is Tom here?” I asked the older lady in front of me. “He asked me to meet him here.” The older lady stared at me strangely for all of a few seconds before she even responded to what I said.

“No, he’s not, but you can come in and wait for him.”

I followed the little old lady Tom called granny into her home. She lead me to her living room where we sat in silence as we waited on her grandson. It was twenty minutes into our wait before we began talking.

“So, who are you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Tom’s girlfriend.”  Toms Granny turned her head to the side and stared at me for a while. Almost like she was shocked that he was in a relationship. That should have been alarming, but for whatever reason it wasn't.

“Tommy, never told me he had a new girlfriend.”

“We just started dating last night.” Part of me was offended that he didn’t tell her about me prior to inviting me over. It sort of made me feel insecure, like he didn’t actually see a future with me.

“Oh, well that’s probably why he didn’t tell me.”

“Probably….”  My voice trailed off into an awkward silence as my eyes gazed around her living room, that looked, well like someone’s grandma lived there or like a thrift store threw up in it.

“You have a nice home- from what I see of it.”

“Thank you.” Her house was the ugliest thing I had ever seen, but it had a lot of potential. I started to imagine all the things I would do to it if I were to decorate her house.

“So tell me about Tom as a kid.”

“Tommy was a very- obsessive and he had a temper like no other.” You could tell she was trying to choose her words carefully, just by the way she hesitated before she called him obsessive.

“What do you mean- obsessive?”

“When Tommy likes something, it consumes him, it’s all he talks about, it’s all he thinks about, he wants to know everything about it, and until then he can’t sleep, he can’t eat, he can’t function.”

“Well- good thing he outgrew it.”

Tom’s Granny tucked her lips in and lifted both her eyebrows as if she were saying he didn’t outgrow any of it, not the temper nor the obsessiveness. But yet I still waited for her to say he did.

Looking up I noticed a picture on one of the side table. At the time I assumed it was another one of her grandchildren, it wasn't.

"Oh, no, that's Mia, Tom's ex."

"Oh- that's nice of you to still have a picture of her." It really wasn't it was almost weird, especially because it was a picture of her alone, it wasn't like it was an old picture of her and Tom. It was just her, just sitting there smiling all happy and stuff. I know I know, its weird to be jealous of a dead girl but I couldn't help it.

"It's really sad what happened to her, I know Tommy still feels bad about what happened."

I didn't want to let on that I didn't know what happened, if I did she definitely would have shut that conversation down real quick. So I quietly nodded my head hoping that would encourage her to continue with the story with as many details as possible. She looked like she could go on and on, especially about someone elses business unless they specifically told her not to.

"He was so angry, but he didn't mean for it to happen."

"I know that's what he told me." He didn't tell me shit, but I had to make her believe I already knew, you know to keep the conversation going, so that maybe she would continue to tell me details. I knew I was probably crossing a line by not stopping her, but honestly I didn't care, I'm nosey as hell and I wanted to know.

"It was storming outside and they had got into one of their arguments.."

"Mia said she was done and she jumped into her car, Tommy jumped into his car and followed her..."

"He tailgated her all the way down Maine street..."

"She made a sudden stop at a red light, and because it was raining so hard his car wasn't able to stop and he crashed into her sending her into on going traffic, she died on the scene..."

"That really messed Tommy up, he never meant for her to get hurt, he loved her" 

But he did, and it was literally all his fault, if it weren't for him she would still be alive, something that I'm sure haunts his dreams  every day, I know It would for me, killing someone whether intentional or not is traumatizing.

Thing got real awkward real quick, and I didn't know what to say so when my phone vibrated I looked down and noticed it was Olivia, as in my boss Olivia she wanted to meet for coffee. “I'm sorry,  I have somewhere to be, if Tom shows up can you tell him I stopped by?" 

“Yeah, okay, I'm just sorry you came all this way for him to not even come.”

“No it’s fine, I enjoyed our talk.” And with that being said, I made a turn on the balls of my feet and made my way to the place I agreed to meet Olivia.