Scared to touch her.
Not because I’m afraid of confirming she’s dead.
But because I’m afraid of the disappointment I know I’ll feel if she’s not.
Jesus Christ, is that what my life has come to?
“Brynn...” The low groan startles me, and I press a hand to my heart. “Open.” She barely lifts her hand, wiggling the pill bottle ever so slightly. The sound of the loose pills rattling inside hits me like a slap in the face.
Ah, I get it now.
She got drunk as hell and couldn’t open the damn kiddy lock lid on the ibuprofen bottle, so she just passed out on the floor.
“Mom! What the fuck is wrong with you?” I curse, crouching down beside her and snatching it out of her hand, shaking the half empty bottle dramatically. “I thought you were dead!”
And now that I know she’s not, I’m fucking furious.
“Open!” she slurs again, rolling over onto her side. “I goddaaa head ack.”
I look down at the bottle, noting the way someone has scribbled across the printed label with a black pen, crossing out all the details about who it’s been prescribed to. It’s not just ibuprofen. Twisting the lid off, I glance inside, frowning at the handful of pills that are for sure not just painkillers.
“What are these?” I demand, scratching at some of the black marker with my nail in an attempt to see what was written beneath. “Jasmine Jones… Oxycodone? Did you buy oxy off someone?”
These pills cost money.
A lot of money.
Money we don’t have.
“Give me…” she mumbles, reaching out, but I simply step back, out of her grasp. She quickly gives up, slumping again onto the floor, causing the wine bottle to slip from her hand. The last little bit of crimson liquid sloshes out onto the pink shag carpet, and I don’t even try to stop it. The carpet in this apartment is something straight out of the sixties and smells like it hasn’t been cleaned since it was installed.
What’s a little wine?
I instantly regret tempting fate with that thought because a moment later, Mom’s body convulses and she lurches forward, spilling her stomach contents across the carpet like a fountain. The smell hits me instantly, and I leap up and stumble back against the wall, trying to breathe through the pungent odor.
Now there’s a little wine, and a lot of vomit.
All of which she will expect me to clean up because she clearly can’t look after herself.
Angry tears burn my eyes. My breathing becomes heavier and deeper as I fight to keep control of my emotions, but the second a single tear breaks free and drips down onto my cheek, I shake my head.
“No. No fucking way.”
My body moves on its own as if sucked into some magnetic pull I’ve never felt before. I spin on my heel, stomping across the apartment floor, knowing full well Miss Southwell downstairs will be leaving an angry note on the door later.
I don’t give a shit, though.
Because I won’t be here.
I storm down the hall to the bathroom and twist the cap off the bottle of pills in my hand, eyeing how many are inside. Probably ten or twelve. A couple of hundred dollars worth at least, which makes it all the more satisfying as I upend the bottle and empty every last one into the toilet bowl.
Then flush them.
Her grunts and groans fill the hallway as she somehow manages to drag her ass to her feet and follow me. I toss the bottle onto the bathroom floor and make my way to the bedroom Jovie and I share, crouching down and pulling an old Minnie Mouse backpack from under her bed.
“Where did… yewwww put ‘em?”
“I flushed them,” I respond, glancing back at her and trying to ignore that tiny part of my brain wondering how the hell she’s even standing on her own as she looms over me. “I tipped the entire bottle into the toilet, and I flushed them. Maybe if you lick the water, you’ll get a hit?—”
