Is it me?

Time, as usual, was slipping through my fingers.

The clock on the kitchen wall ticked louder than it ever had before, each second landing like an accusation. I moved faster, but it never seemed fast enough. I had always been late. Late for school. Late for birthdays. Late for dinners. It was a quiet flaw that followed me through life like a shadow.

But today I couldn’t be late.

Today demanded more of me.

Today was my grandad’s funeral.

Well… my ex-step-grandad. The word ex felt wrong, too sharp and clinical for someone who had once been my whole world. Titles change. Papers get signed. Families fracture and reform. But love doesn’t always obey those edits.

I had adored him.

When he had custody of me, I was barely a toddler, small enough to be carried on one hip, small enough that my memories come back in flashes instead of full scenes. My dad — my sperm donor, was a drug addict who died of an overdose when I was only three. He was a violent man hit me, he hit my mum, and he left a trail of fear and chaos wherever he went. My mum was only sixteen, still a child herself, forced to navigate life with a toddler and a boyfriend who was an addict and violent, a man whose mates were just as reckless and dangerous as he was. She had to learn how to survive, how to protect us, and how to grow up overnight in a world that offered her nothing but danger and uncertainty.

And then my grandad stepped in. Married to my nannan, he made space in his house for me and in his life.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just steadily. Suddenly there was a different house, a different rhythm to life. His home smelled of toast in the mornings, of soap powder and cleaning products, the house was always spotless, cared for in a way that made it feel safe and steady.

Safe is a simple word. It shouldn’t be rare. But to me, back then, it was everything.

He would sit me beside him on the old brown floral sofa, the kind that was in fashion at the time, all swirls and patterns that made the cushions feel alive, my legs barely long enough to reach the edge. We watched Tom and Jerry together, and I would laugh, real, belly laughter that toddlers give without hesitation. He laughed too, deep and booming, like nothing in the world could touch us while that cartoon chaos unfolded on the screen.

At night, even when I was barely old enough to follow the story properly, he read to me. The Chronicles of Narnia became a soundtrack to that chapter of my life. I didn’t understand every word, but I understood his voice. Calm. Measured. Gentle. Sometimes I would fall asleep halfway through a chapter, my small hand still curled into his jumper. He never minded. He would carry me to bed, tuck me in, and leave the door slightly open so the hallway light spilled softly into the room.

In his care, the world stopped feeling like something that might explode at any moment.

He made his house my home.

He taught me that adults didn’t have to shout to be heard. That hands could comfort instead of harm. That routines, bath time, story time, were not cages, but anchors. That breakfast at the table was full and not scraps that we had to find.

He didn’t just keep me safe.

He helped shape me.

And yet… I hadn’t seen him in a while.

The guilt sat heavy in my chest, a slow, twisting ache that had nothing to do with today’s finality. Life had become complicated in ways I never expected. My nannan cheated on him with my biological grandad. He gave her a choice, stay and fix what was broken or leave and she chose wrong. Just like that, everything shifted.

After the split, my stepdad, my true dad worked security with Grandad and introduced him to a new woman.. Geraldine. She was vile, dad didnt know when he introduced them. A horrible woman who never missed an opportunity to make cutting remarks to me and my sister whenever we visited. Little digs disguised as jokes. Comments about how “busy” he was now. About how we were “grown up” and didn’t need him like we used to.

Her daughter, Darcy, was no better. She once told my sister outright that we shouldn’t visit because he was too busy with his “new” grandchildren. New. As if love operated on a replacement system.

Darcy had four children and constantly leaned on him to care for them, despite him having already suffered a heart attack. They didn’t care. Not really. Geraldine cared about his pension. Darcy saw him as a babysitter.

And I saw it. I saw how tired he was becoming.

The snarky comments, the territorial atmosphere, the feeling of being an inconvenience in a place that once felt like home, it became too much. So we backed off. Not all at once. Slowly. Visit by visit.

I told myself I would go. I thought about it constantly. I’d sit in my flat, keys in hand sometimes, debating whether to drive over. But I never did.

And now there was no more time.

That was the part that hurt the most.

The sudden chirp of my phone cut through the quiet, pulling me out of my memories. My flat felt unusually still, the kind of silence that made me notice every little sound, the hum of the radiator, the distant traffic, the tap dripping in the kitchen that I really needed to get fixed.

I still needed to clean the car before I picked Mum up.

Outside, the sun hit the red Kia Sorento, my dad had let me buy it off him months ago. It was the first day it hadn’t rained in what felt like forever; we’d just had forty-one consecutive days of rain in the UK, and today felt warmer, almost soft, like the sky was giving us a small reprieve. The water glinted on the car’s surface, catching the light, but the sand from his metal-detecting gear still lay in the boot, stubbornly clinging to every corner. I’d kept putting my shopping on top of it all, hoping no grains of sand would sneak onto my food when I ate it.

I pulled the sponge from the bucket and started scrubbing. The water mixed with dirt and sand, forming brown streaks down the paintwork. I could feel the tension in my shoulders slowly ease with every swipe, as if the act of cleaning could somehow organize the chaos around me. Maybe it couldn’t fix the past, but for now, it was something I could control.

Now, I had just enough time to get ready if I hurried. I ran a bath and dried my hair afterward. My hair was the only thing I was truly happy with about my body, long, dark brown, falling all the way to my hips. But lately, more and more grey strands were creeping in. Welcome to your thirties, I thought wryly. I had tried to leave it natural for as long as possible, to embrace whatever came, but now… I really thought it might be time to dye them away.

You always see celebrities filling their lips with filler or going under the knife, but I’d always preferred the ones who embraced getting older gracefully, Helen Mirren, Sarah Jessica Parker, Hilarie Burton. I admired the way they carried themselves, the way age added character instead of erasing it. But now, standing face to face with my own creeping greys and the first hints of aging I couldn’t ignore, I felt like I might have to cave, at least when it came to dyeing my hair.

I’ve never been great with makeup, I still don’t know what half of it is supposed to do. So I slapped on some foundation and a dash of blush like a toddler finger-painting on a canvas. Of course, I stuck to my tried-and-true “number three” method: draw a three from above your eyebrow, swoop it down your cheek, then sweep toward your chin. It had always worked for me, and since I hardly wore makeup, I was still on the same bottle of foundation that I’d bought four years ago, proof that I either have amazing self-restraint or I just didn’t care. I tossed on some brown eye makeup to make my brown eyes pop and finished it off with a swipe of nude lipstick.

Functional, familiar, and just fancy enough to convince anyone I wasn’t about to show up looking like a zombie, though, if it wasn’t for pain from losing my grandad, I’d not only look like one, I’d feel like one too. Tired. So fed up with life constantly knocking me down.

I had wanted to buy a new outfit for today, something that didn’t make me look like I’d just raided a charity shop in a panic. But, as usual, with the cost of living, money went into the bank and then straight back out again, faster than a magician’s coin trick. How, in the twenty-first century, is it this hard to just live? Why does it feel like surviving adulthood is a full-contact sport? And then there’s Two-Tier Keir Starmer, pretending to run the country while clearly having no clue, honestly, I’d have better luck asking my neighbour’s cat for financial advice. So, I went with what I had, practical, familiar, and only slightly depressing, enough to get me through the day without adding another headache.

In the end, I went with plain black trousers, a white top patterned with black leaves, and a black cardigan. Simple, safe, and comfortable, nothing fancy, nothing that screamed “look at me,” but enough to feel like I’d made an effort without bankrupting myself in the process.

I quickly straightened my hair, which is always a struggle thanks to how long it is. Most likely, it would look lumpy at the back, but it would have to do, I didn’t have time to wage war against my own hair. I should have set off ten minutes ago when my phone rang. It was my mum: “Why haven’t you left yet?” Apparently, my usual charm of “I’m on my way!” no longer worked. Thanks to Life360, she now had a live feed of our family’s every move. Great. Just great. I should never have signed up for that, now my flat felt less like home and more like a very judgmental spy hub.

I threw on my shoes, grabbed the car keys, and darted out of the flat onto the staircase, nearly tumbling down the three flights of stairs in my rush to get out and into the car. My flat was right next to Barnsley Football Ground, and today there was a fair in the car park, which meant cars were parked everywhere on our street. Manoeuvring the Sorento through the chaos felt like threading a needle blindfolded.

I turned on the radio, silently willing it not to play anything sad. I didn’t think I could handle it, I just needed to drive and get there in time.

I debated whether to speed or stick to the limit. I’ve never been a speedster. I always think you never know if a car is an undercover cop or if a child might dart into the street. Better to be safe than sorry, Grandad always said.

My younger sister Paige, of course, would have had a field day. She always joked that I drove slow, cautious while she barrelled down the road like the world was on fire and she had a personal emergency to get to.

I finally squeezed the Sorento between the parked cars, careful not to scrape the paint, and eased onto the road. The fair noises, laughter, music, the distant clatter of rides, faded behind me as I focused on the drive. Every traffic light turned red feeling like a test, every car pulling out too quickly. Great! Just great!

I pulled up outside Mum’s house and took a deep breath. She had always been scared of driving, she’d tried numerous times over the years, but it never worked out. Today, as always, she would be relying on me to get us there. The reality of the day, the grief, the memories, the weight of losing Grandad, pressed down on me like a physical force. Outside, a few of the local druggies sat on their deck chairs, leaning back like they owned the street, watching everyone who passed. It was the usual scene, a quiet, uncomfortable reminder that life carried on around me even as mine felt like it was spinning out of control.

Mum walked down the path to the car, coat wrapped tightly around her. She gave me a sideways glance and muttered, half-joking, half-exasperated, “Always late, aren’t you?”

I rolled my eyes, but the corners of my mouth twitched. Some things never change.

She settled into the passenger seat, adjusting her bag on her lap. For a moment, neither of us spoke. The druggies on their deckchairs watched as I pulled away from the curb, like we were part of the day’s entertainment.

We set off toward the crematorium.

The road ahead felt longer than usual. I drove carefully, hands steady on the wheel, even though my chest felt anything but steady. Mum stared out of the window, quiet, her reflection faint in the glass. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was.

That we should have gone more.

That we should have pushed past the comments. Past Geraldine. Past Darcy. Past the tension that made every visit feel like stepping into someone else’s territory.

I swallowed hard.

“I was going to pop round last month,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. It came out quieter than I intended.

Mum didn’t look at me. “I know.”

Silence again. Heavy, but not hostile. Just honest.

Traffic slowed near a set of lights, and I resisted the urge to speed up when they flicked to amber. Better to be safe than sorry. Grandad always said that. The irony didn’t escape me. I could follow his advice on the road, but somehow I hadn’t followed it in life. I hadn’t protected the time we had left.

A car behind me beeped, impatient. I ignored it.

Paige would have overtaken by now, probably muttering about how I drive like Miss Daisy on a Sunday outing. Today, though, even she would have understood why I wasn’t rushing.

You can’t outrun regret.

The closer we got, the tighter my grip on the steering wheel became. I could feel the weight of everything unsaid pressing against me, the visits I postponed, the phone calls I meant to make, the awkwardness I let win.

“I think he knew,” Mum said suddenly, still looking out of the window.

“Knew what?”

“That you loved him.”

My throat tightened. I nodded, even though she wasn’t looking at me.

I hoped she was right.

The crematorium sign appeared ahead, small at first, then unmistakable. My stomach dipped. This was it. No more chances to fix anything. No more “I’ll go next week.”

I slowed the car, indicator ticking loudly in the quiet.

Today wasn’t about Geraldine. Or Darcy. Or who chose who.

Today was about him.

And whether I felt worthy of it or not, I was going to show up.