Convenient.
Mom sits at a small round table in the corner. Two bottles of whiskey and a shot glass sit beside her. She rubs her cheek, then pulls her hand away. Inside of me, anger erupts.
He hit her. Again. Her cheek is red. Blotchy.
The skin underneath the eye already swelling.
This is the reason why I can’t move in with Noah and Isaiah. The reason I can’t leave. I need to be two blocks from Mom.
“Elisabeth.” Mom slurs the s and drunkenly waves me over. She picks up a whiskey bottle and tips it over the general area of the shot glass, but nothing comes out. Which is good because she’d miss the glass by an inch.
I go to her, take the bottle, and set it on the table beside us. “It’s empty.”
“Oh.” She blinks her hollow blue eyes. “Be a good girl and go get me another.”
“I’m seventeen.”
“Then get you something too.”
“Let’s go, Mom.”
Mom smoothes her blond hair with a shaky hand and glances around as if she just woke from a dream. “He hit me.”
“I know.”
“I hit him back.”
Don’t doubt she hit him first. “We’ve gotta go.”
“I don’t blame you.”
That statement hits me in ways a man can’t.
I release a long breath and search for a way to ease the sting of her words, but I fail. I pick up the other bottle, grateful for the pitiful amount remaining, pour a shot, and swig it down. Then pour another, pushing it toward her. “Yes, you do.”
Mom stares at the drink before letting her middle-aged fingers trace the rim of the shot glass. Her nails are bitten to the quick. The cuticles grown over. The skin surrounding the nails is dry and cracked. I wonder if my mom was ever pretty.
She throws her head back as she drinks.
“You’re right. I do. Your father would never have left if it wasn’t for you.”
“I know.” The burn from the whiskey suppresses the pain of the memory. “Let’s go.”
“He loved me.”
“I know.”
“What you did…it forced him to leave.”
“I know.”
“You ruined my life.”
“I know.”
She begins to cry. It’s the drunk cry. The type where it all comes out—the tears, the snot, the spit, the horrible truth you should never tell another soul. “I hate you.”
I flinch. Swallow. And remind myself to inhale. “I know.”
Mom grabs my hand. I don’t pull away. I don’t grab her in return. I let her do what she must. We’ve been down this road several times.
“I’m sorry, baby.” Mom wipes her nose with the bare skin of her forearm. “I didn’t mean it.
I love you. You know I do. Don’t leave me alone. Okay?”
“Okay.” What else can I say? She’s my mom. My mom.
Her fingers draw circles on the back of my hand and she refuses eye contact. “Stay with me tonight?”
This is where Isaiah drew the line. Actually, he drew the line further back, forcing me to promise I’d stay away from her altogether after her boyfriend beat the shit out of me. I’ve kind of kept the promise by moving in with my aunt. But someone has to take care of my mom—make sure she eats, has food, pays her bills. It is, after all, my fault Dad left.
“Let’s get you home.”
Mom smiles, not noticing I haven’t answered. Sometimes, at night, I dream of her smiling. She was happy when Dad lived with us. Then I ruined her happiness.
Her knees wobble when she stands, but Mom can walk. It’s a good night.
“Where are you going?” I ask when she steps in the direction of the bar.
“To pay my tab.”
Impressive. She has money. “I’ll do it. Stay right here and I’ll walk you home.”
Instead of handing me cash, Mom leans against the back door. Great. Now I’m left with the tab. At least Taco Bell Boy bought me food and I have something to give Denny.
I push people in my quest to reach the bar, and Denny grimaces when he spots me. “Get her out, kid.”
“She’s out. What’s her tab?”
“Already paid.”
Ice runs in my veins. “When?”
“Just now.”
No. “By who?”
He won’t meet my eyes. “Who do you think?”
Shit. I’m falling over myself, stumbling over people, yanking them out of my way. He hit her once. He’ll do it again. I run full force out the back door into the alley and see nothing.
Nothing in the dark shadows. Nothing in the streetlights. Crickets chirp in surround sound.
“Mom?”
Glass breaks. Glass breaks again. Horrible shrieks echo from the front of Mom’s apartment complex. God, he’s killing her. I know it.
My heart pounds against my rib cage, making it difficult to breathe. Everything shakes—my hands, my legs. The vision of what I’ll see when I reach the parking lot eats at my soul: Mom in a bloody pulp and her ass**le boyfriend standing over her. Tears burn my eyes and I trip as I round the corner of the building, scraping my palms on the blacktop. I don’t care. I need to find her. My mom…
My mom swings a baseball bat and shatters the back window of a shitty El Camino.
“What…what are you doing?” And where did she score a baseball bat?
“He.” She swings the bat and breaks more glass. “Cheated.”