Some people spend their whole lives wondering what they missed. I wanted to give my grandma the one night she never got to have. I wanted her to be my prom date and go to prom with me.

But when my stepmom found out, she made sure we’d both remember it for all the wrong reasons. Growing up without a mom changes you in ways most people don’t understand. Mine died when I was seven, and for a while, the world felt like it had stopped making sense.

But then there was Grandma June. She wasn’t just my grandmother. She was everything.

Every scraped knee, every bad day at school, and every moment I needed someone to tell me it would be okay… that was her. Every scraped knee, every bad day at school, and every moment I needed someone… she was there. School pickups became our routine.

Lunches arrived with little notes tucked inside. Grandma taught me how to scramble eggs without burning them and sew a button back on when it popped off my shirt. She became the mom I’d lost, the best friend I needed when loneliness crept in, and the cheerleader who believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself.

When I turned 10, Dad remarried my stepmom, Carla. I remember Grandma trying so hard to make her feel welcome. She baked pies from scratch, the kind that made the whole house smell like cinnamon and butter.

She even gave Carla a quilt she’d spent months making, with these intricate patterns that must’ve taken forever. Carla looked at it like Grandma had handed her a bag of trash. I was young, but I wasn’t blind.

I saw the way Carla’s nose wrinkled whenever Grandma came around. I heard the tight, fake politeness in her voice. And once she moved into our house, everything changed.

Carla was obsessed with appearances. Designer purses that cost more than our monthly groceries. Fake eyelashes that made her look like she was always surprised.

Fresh manicures every single week, each one a different shade of expensive. She’d talk constantly about “leveling up” our family, like we were some kind of video game character she was trying to upgrade. But when it came to me, she was ice cold.

“Your grandma spoils you,” she’d say, her lip curling. “No wonder you’re so soft.”

Or my personal favorite: “If you want to amount to anything, you need to stop spending so much time with her. That house is dragging you down.”

Grandma lived two blocks away… walking distance.

But Carla acted like she was on another planet. When I started high school, it got worse. Carla wanted to be seen as the perfect stepmom.

She’d post pictures of us at family dinners with captions gushing about how blessed she was. But in real life, she barely acknowledged I existed. She loved the image.

But she didn’t love people. “Must be exhausting,” I muttered once, watching her take the same photo of her coffee 30 different times. Dad just sighed.

Senior year rolled around faster than I expected. Suddenly everyone was talking about prom. Who they were asking, what color tux they were renting, and which limo company had the best deals.