My dad's aging minivan pulled into the lot, the brakes squealing as he pulled to a stop in the reserved spot. There was always something falling apart on the mustard yellow van, a hose sprung a leak, a tattered fan belt snapping, or the brakes wearing down as they were now. The van had been a permanent fixture in my life, my dad had purchased it for next to nothing a few weeks before I was born. His plan had been that he would end up filling the empty seats over time and that my mother and him would work to save money and eventually fix it up entirely or buy something better, but her leaving had stomped on all of those plans.

The first to hop out of the van was my grandma, Margret, though if you knew her at all, you knew better than to call her that. Grandma Maggie was best described as a tough, old broad who took no nonsense from anyone. If she wasn't laughing and being the life of the party, then she was either sick or pissed off. Ever since going gray, she had been dying her hair all sorts of different colors, usually to match a certain outfit she planned to wear that month, this time it was a cool, ice blue. Dad tried to get out of the van fast enough to get to the bags in the back, but grandma was too quick and shooed him away as she grabbed her own bags. She wanted to be as independent as she could for as long as possible, she was doing pretty well considering she was almost seventy.

Grandpa Harold was the last out of the car, using his cane to lean heavily on as he carefully positioned his feet to stand. He definitely fit more of the stereotypical idea of what a grandparent should look and act like thanks to an accident that forced his retirement. He had been a construction foreman for decades, working on some of the biggest projects in the city and had planned on working until he was at least sixty five. When he was fifty seven, he was inspecting some new work being done on the third floor of a new skyscraper when the scaffolding he was standing on shifted, tumbling him off the side. He had been very lucky to survive the fall, but his right hip had shattered, leading to a handful of surgeries and the necessity to rely on a cane to walk. Being slowed down and dealing with chronic pain seemed to age him much faster, even though he was actually younger than grandma by almost two years, he looked like he had to be at least ten years older.

I had been lucky enough to get home in time to prepare myself for what I had to do. I wanted to be able to control the conversation, not walk into one already going on and having to shift it to a different topic, especially one that was going to bring the mood down. I was pretty sure that grandpa was going to be understanding, he had always been the grandparent to scold me lightly while palming a twenty dollar bill, but grandma and dad probably weren't going to be so easy. Dad had worked too hard for this to happen and grandma was ecstatic to finally have a woman in the family that made it all the way to graduating from college. Both of my aunts had married young and either worked from home or was a stay at home mom and grandma herself had decided to stay home and raise her children, but she wanted one woman in the family to break out and make her own path in life.

"Elsie!" Grandma exclaimed as soon as the apartment door popped open. She tossed her two bags to the side and held her arms out wide for a hug. "I can't believe it's been so long!" Her arms latched onto me tightly and she rocked us side to side while simultaneously testing the strength of my ribs. "How are things going for you? You must be so excited!"

"It's good to see you too grandma," I managed to rasp from within her clutches. "Actually, I have something to tell you about that. See, I-"

My words were cut off by my grandpa tottering through the door.

"Is that my little Elkie?" he said with a wide grin. "Elkie" had been his nickname for me since I was a little girl, though I wouldn't let anyone but him call me it. "You've really grown."

Grandma finally let me go and I gasped in air. With her, affection meant nearly squeezing everyone she loved to death.

"I guess I have," I said, looking down at myself, "I was ten the last time you saw me."

"You were a scrawny, awkward kid then," grandpa mused, "I always hope that you'd grow into those arms of yours."

Embarrassment flashed through my head as my middle school pictures surfaced in my memories. Those had been rough years that I preferred not to think about. My hair was an absolute mess, my skin was always red, and my limbs were too long for my body. It had taken me almost all the way to college to grow out of most of the unfortunate bits. These days I was grateful to be, at least mostly, recovered and proportional.

"Don't remind her of that," grandma chastised, "those are the years no girl wants to remember. I remember in seventh grade my mother made me wear curlers to bed every night. I had red hair! I looked like I wore a Shirly Temple wig for that whole year!" She shuddered at the memory and moved to help grandpa over to the couch. "I will never understand what you saw in me that year, but I think it says a lot that you waited until the next year to make a move on me."

My grandparents had one of those relationships that sounded much too good to be true, meeting in middle school, being high school sweethearts, and being happily married the very week after my grandfather graduated from high school. They probably had their ups and downs like everyone else, but when out in public they were always laughing, joking, and loving being in each other's company It was supposedly the opposite from my mother's parents, though I had never met either of them to confirm. My mom's mom had contacted my dad a few times throughout my childhood, but for reasons he never told me, he had always turned the opportunity down.

Dad stumbled through the door, carrying the rest of the bags and shut the door behind him with a grateful sigh. I could tell that grandma had already brought out all of his childhood stories in the car. Dad had been a goofy child, so she loved to tell all of the stories of his adventures, especially the time he got himself stuck in the bars of the tiger exhibit at the zoo when he was six. She loved to recount how he screamed and cried while the zookeepers freed him, the one of the tigers in the cage licking his arm the whole time. As traumatic to him as he claimed it was, he still couldn't hide the smile on his face every time the subject came up.

Once everyone was settled in and grandpa was comfortably on the couch, I realized that all eyes were on me. It was probably because I kept shaking my head and wringing my hands every time I realized what I was about to say.

"So…" I began, then tapered off.

"So…" Grandma said, leaning towards me with an interested look on her face.

"I kind of have a problem." I laughed a little, I didn't know why, probably the nerves. "I turned in my final for my class and my professor said I don't pass."

There. I had said it. Now the realization could drop like a bomb and rain on the parade this week should have been.

"You don't pass?" My dad repeated, eyes wide. "As in…"

"I have to retake the class in the summer," I sighed. "I tried my very best on the final, but it wasn't good enough for him."

"Oh no," grandma cried, getting up from her seat to wrap me in her arms again. "That's terrible! Do you want me or your father to talk to him?" She glanced back at dad, then back at me. "Maybe it would be best to send me, I can play the whole frail old lady act then spring on him if I need too."

"Maggie," grandpa sighed, "I don't think the poor girl needs you to go and embarrass her further."

My dad had a shocked, but serious look slowly melted across his features. His eyes narrowed slightly, then met mine. I tried to give him my most innocent, sad smile, but I could tell it wasn't going to work.

"Why exactly did he fail you?" dad asked, his voice was heavy, like what he used to use when I got home too late after curfew. "Was your final not written well enough or… something else?"

"Something else?" I asked, trying desperately to play coy. "He just didn't like it."

Grandma had stopped hugging me and was now glancing between my father and I. She knew all too well that I was a little bit too much like her, so there probably was a ridiculous story behind what was going on.

"Yeah, something else," he pressed, crossing his arms in front of him, "don't act like you don't know what I'm getting at."

"I really don't," I lied. "He just said that it wasn't exactly what he was looking for." Jessica's plea for me to come clean and rip off the bandaid rolled around in my head, it just wasn't my style.

All three of them were staring at me, with increasing levels of suspicion. I could see the memories of the teacher meetings and counselor notes home about my obsessive behavior slowly trickling in, the pieces coming together. In my defense, I had managed to stop constantly talking about cryptids and their history long enough to have a mostly normal college career. I sprinkled them in here and there, but college professors care much less about their students mental status and health.

"Let me see what you did." My dad sighed, outstretching his hand for the paper.

"I don't really think-"

"Elsie, stop stalling, the paper," he demanded.

I rose to my feet and pulled the paper out of my backpack. "I just want you to know that I followed all the requirements."

"Then you would have passed," he said bluntly, taking the paper from me.

The seconds felt like minutes as his eyes scanned over my cover page. His eyes went from stern to defeated, he pressed the paper to his face and sighed heavily into it like he didn't know how to exactly proceed. "Centaurs?" he muttered into the paper. "Did you really write a final about another weird cryptid?"

"Well I wouldn't exactly call centaurs weird cryptids," I argued, "they're pretty standard mythical beasts."

"Four years and thousands of dollars." Dad had dropped the paper and was now staring into space in front of him. "I've eaten ramen and hotdogs pretty much exclusively this whole past year to pay for your last tuition payment."

"Oh Greg, she just wanted to express herself."I'm sure she didn't mean it." Grandma gave me an exhausted look. "Sweetie, why did you have to chose your final though? You were so close and it's such a silly topic."

"They are real," I insisted, "there's been sightings and possibly even a corpse found in this French forest. It's fascinating. I read on a forum just last week that perhaps the nipples of the horse bottom half are vestigal or used now exclusively for pheromone production. Just imagine the evolutionary steps that would have to occur for that to happen."

Instead of being reassured, my dad pressed his forehead to his palms and let out a low groan. My grandma sighed and shook her head sadly. Grandpa seemed to want to be anywhere else. I had a feeling that it was going to be a long week.