“I did. No surprises for me,” he says proudly.
Leaning back in my seat I finish off one of my pieces of toast.
He shakes the box of cereal, and the sound of weight reminds me I’ll be needing to pick him up another box. “You sure you don’t want some?” He eyes my toast as if the sight of me eating it bothers him.
Taking a bite of the other piece with a smile I wave him off. “You know how I prefer toast.”
Scrunching his nose, he sits his spoon in the rest of his uneaten cereal. “There’s enough for you, sis.”
A tug happens on my heartstrings followed by the familiar ache.
Connor has always been too perceptive for his own good. And I hate lying to him, absolutely so but if I have to eat toast every day for breakfast so he can enjoy his favorite cereal then I’ll do it.
I’ll sacrifice everything for him without ever being sorry.
“I don’t like it.”Lie.“You’ll have enough for another bowl tomorrow morning.” Another bite of toast. This time I don’t even taste it nor admire the crunch.
He pushes his bowl towards me. Half of it still in there. I raise a brow at him. “You can have the rest of mine,” he says.
I know most would consider that disgusting but there has been many of times when we were younger and had to share food. It’s not uncommon for us.
But it’s different now.
We had to when I was younger because we could only eat the food mom could afford. That left us sharing majority of our meals.
Ever since I’ve begun working at sixteen, we have only had to share on rare occasions.
I push the cereal bowl back towards him. “This is good, champ. Really.”
He frowns. “You’re eating cardboard.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Nonsense. It’s bread and butter. It’s filling.”
He folds his arms over his chest. “Sounds no different to me.”
“Well, it is.” I finish off my toast and make a sound of appreciation. Then patting my small stomach because yes, it’s not perfectly flat I say, “See, I’m all full.” Rising from the chair I walk over to him and place the bowl back in front of him. I ruffle his hair. “Now eat the rest of your cereal before we have to leave.”
Picking up the spoon with more berries than Cap’n Crunch he sighs and then begrudgingly eats it.
As he finishes his cereal, I go back in my room to grab my purse, keys and my textbooks for college.
When I return, I find Connor cleaning his bowl. Once he puts it in the drying rack I ask him, “Ready to go?”
“Yes,mom,”he answers teasingly. I ruffle his hair again and he ducks away from me. He sends me a look while he’s fixing his shaggy hair. Except we both know that he secretly loves it. He’ll just never admit to it.
I throw him the keys to my car, and he catches it with one hand. “Start it up and pick your favorite station.” His face lights up like the Fourth of July. He runs out of the trailer but doubles back when he realizes he forgot his backpack.
As I make my last rounds, tidying up and making sure everything is off I take one last look at our mom passed out on the couch.
Her sandy blonde hair framing her face is dry and terribly thin. The same could be said for her as well. The drugs aged her far more than her own age has. She’s sickly thin. Bones pultruding creating a ghastly sight. There’s nothing beautiful about her anymore. The sight of her is haunting.
A metal spoon lays on the cheap coffee table I bought. I guess today she decided to give her heavily bruised arm a break.
Either way she still got what she wanted.
And Connor and I are still suffering the consequences.
Locking the door behind me I close my thoughts of mom and focus on the day ahead of me.
