~14 YEARS LATER~
As he finished the final page in his bed, he had to take a good minute to process everything he just read. His hands started shaking, his tears dropping onto the book, smudging the ink on the page. Throughout the week he had been reading his Grandma's diary after putting it off for years. He found the box containing them all when he was moving his belongings out of his old house, ready to be transported to his new home. He was 18 at the time, and discovered the box under his Grandma's bed. Although he did take the box with him to the new house, he could never bring himself to open and read the diaries. They brought back painful memories of the loneliness he felt when she died.
He had to live all by himself for years ever since, looking after her house and garden, selling his plants on the market to make a living, and some nights he had to travel to other worlds to help save them from destruction. He never really had any friends or family close by. The only friends he made lived too far to even contact and he saw them so infrequently that he wasn't able to grow too close with any of them. All of this started to weigh him down emotionally. He was lonely, stressed and silently suffering, all hiding behind a warm smile and a determined look in his eyes.
However in recent years, ever since moving to a new, yet familiar location, he found himself feeling more relaxed and on top of both his physical and mental health. This was partially thanks to his supportive and colourful friend group, who were like a family to him, and his loving wife, whom he had been dating for 8 years at this point, and married to for 4. After re-discovering the box earlier that month, he finally decided to make a start on reading them. He wiped his eyes as more tears ran down his face. Tears of happiness. After reading through every single entry of every single diary she made, all the memories of him and his grandma came flooding back to him. He learnt things about her that he never knew before, he learnt more about what he was like growing up. He remembered all the fun things they did together. Gardening, having picnics, going on walks together. It made him happy that he could now look back on his time with her in a positive light, and no longer feel the cold loneliness he felt before.
As he closed the final diary, he placed the book on the bedside table to his right. He then picked up a framed photograph off the table. It contained a photo of him and his friends when they were younger. He then looked to his left and saw his wife, sleeping peacefully next to him. He gazed at her serene face for a moment, thinking about how lucky he was to meet someone like her, before looking up towards his ceiling.
"I hope I made you proud, Grandma. Thank you for everything."
He then placed the photo back onto the table, next to the diary as well as his wedding ring, as he cuddled up closer to his wife and drifted off to sleep, thinking about the memories of his time with his Grandma with a warm, content smile on his face.
THE END