“Kellie! Kellie!” Mom called out as I climbed into my car and fired up the engine.
“Look after Cass,” I spat angrily before planting my foot and reversing down the driveway dangerously fast.
Speeding through the streets, I made it three blocks before I pulled over and dropped my head in my hands. My phone rang, and I knew it was Mom without even looking, but right now, she was the last person in the world I wanted to speak to. I can’t believe she’d said that to me. She’d given voice to my greatest fear. What if I wasn’t enough? What if I couldn’t give Cass everything she needed? Deep down in my heart, I already knew the answers, but I didn’t want to acknowledge them. I refused to.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled back onto the road and headed for the local bar. One drink to calm my nerves, then I’d go home, apologize to Mom, and try and sort this shitstorm out. But I needed a little liquid courage first.
The first drink went down easily. Probably too easily.
The second helped calm my nerves and steady my trembling fingers.
By the third, I started to feel a little bit better about myself.
The fourth, I switched to something stronger.
“Are you sure?” Lucy, the woman behind the bar, asked as I ordered another.
“Trust me. If you had the week I was, you’d be drinking too,” I told her before she asked for my car keys.
Lucy was one of Mom’s friends, and I’d known her forever, at least it felt that way, but she looked at me with a face filled with judgment I didn’t want to see. I judged myself hard enough for all of us right now.
Handing over my keys, Lucy slid another vodka tonic across the scarred oak bar and moved down to serve the drunk old guy in the corner.
Digging my phone from my pocket, I scrolled through my photos. I had thousands—almost every single one of them of Cass. I’d documented every moment, every smile, every memory of her life, and through the hazy alcohol fog, I let myself wonder if I’d done that for someone other than me.
Jake was a good man. At least he had been. And I know he hadn’t done what he did to hurt me, but it did. His actions sent my world spinning, and when I felt like I’d found stable ground for the first time since he’d pulled the rug out from under me, he reappeared and upended everything again.
Another drink and I was staring at my phone, looking at a picture of my daughter, but all I could see was her daddy’s deep brown eyes.
Standing up, I wobbled my way into the bathroom, and after taking care of business, I splashed some cold water on my face. I couldn’t escape Jake. I never could. Cass was the spitting image of her father, and with each passing day, I knew time was ticking until I was forced to face the future.
Steeling myself, I strode out of the bathroom and back to the bar, ordering three tequila shots. Tomorrow was going to hurt, but tonight I needed it not to. Tossing back the first, I made a decision I knew would change my life. Downing the second, I called a cab. Finishing the third with a grimace, I stood up, waved to Lucy and told her I’d get my car tomorrow, then swayed on my feet as I made my way out the door and fell into the back seat rattling off an address I remembered all too well.
“Miss! Miss! Miss, wake up!” the annoyed-sounding cabbie called out as I blinked in the harsh overhead light.
“What?” I mumbled.
“We’re here,” he pointed out, and I glanced out the window immediately regretting my decision.
I was sitting in the driveway of a house I thought I’d one day call home. All the lights were off, and the whole place was completely dark. It’d been stupid.
“It’s sixty-two dollars,” he demanded.
“Sixty-two dollars?” I almost squawked as I rifled through my purse, cursing the booze, already regretting my decision.
“Yes, and the meter is still running.”
“Well, turn it off.”
“Not until you get out.”
I might be dumb and drunk right now, but this guy was an asshole.
Climbing out of the car, I threw a fist full of cash through the window at him, not having a clue how much I’d given him.
Behind me, a light flickered, and a wave of nausea hit me like a freight train. Running toward the garden bed, I hunched over and emptied my stomach as I heard the car drive away, leaving me stranded.
Standing up, I wiped my mouth on the back of my arm, everything spinning. Looking up, I saw the stars twinkling overhead. I hadn’t thought about them for so long. Out here, they’d always been brighter. There were no lights to dull them. The inky black sky was littered with millions of stars, and when a shooting star moved across the sky, I made a wish.
