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After she’d died, my dad had done the bare minimum. He’d fed me, clothed me, and ignored me.

Only if I was sick enough to need medical attention did he take me to the doctor.

I hadn’t had one single well checkup since my grandmother had passed away.

Even now that I was well over the age of eighteen, I still didn’t go to the doctor much.

So when Anleigh woke up with the sniffles this morning and had a slight fever, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would be getting sick soon.

Then my father would berate me for being sick, when I had no control over getting that way.

Even worse, I was stuck at home on Christmas Eve when my father’s mood had always been the darkest.

I heard the clink of a beer bottle being set down on the coffee table.

I closed my eyes and tried not to freak out.

It was only eight-thirty in the morning.

And likely, he was already on his third or fourth one.

I looked at Anleigh, who really needed the ibuprofen that was in the kitchen.

Normally, I kept everything in my cabinet, but when I’d gotten up to get her some a few minutes ago, it’d been gone.

My dad often took stuff out of my room without asking, and obviously he’d had some reason to be in need of baby-strength medication.

The asshole.

I just hoped he hadn’t wasted it all like last time.

I turned to the corner where I saw the pile of clothes in the basket in my room.

I really needed to do some laundry.

Today I was in my oldest pair of jeans—ones that hadn’t really fit since I’d had Anleigh.

Taking one last glance at Anleigh, who was lying on my bed miserably watching cartoons, I steeled my spine and opened my bedroom door.

I was unsurprised to see my father sitting in his recliner—yet another relic that hadn’t changed since I’d been born.

I kept my head down and headed straight for the kitchen, my goal the middle cabinet to see if he’d put the medication in there with the rest of it.

I found the medication all right, completely drained except for a small amount that collected at the bottom of the bottle.

My heart sank.

I reached for the adult ibuprofen, and shook it in horror when I found it empty, too.

What. The. Fuck.

“It’s out.”

I jumped and startled, turning to face my dad, who’d always moved like a cat. “What?”

He smiled at me disarmingly.

I wouldn’t fall for the bait, though.