Prologue
FYFE
Eleven years ago
Ardnoch, Scotland
It wasn’t unusual for me to wake up and find my mum passed out on the kitchen floor. Well … it didn’t happen all the time because she was hardly ever home, but when she was, it usually ended up with her passed out.
I took her in for a second. Face down, limbs sprawled, taking up all the space in our tiny kitchen. Her nose was pressed against the peeling linoleum and loud snores escaped her mouth as it opened and closed in sleep.
Years ago, Mum had been pretty. I’d seen photos. But for as long as I could remember, her skin was dry, wrinkled before her time, and a dull gray. Her hair had also thinned. Brown like mine, but greasy and limply draped across her sharp cheekbone.That’s what more than your fair share of alcohol did. And drugs. Whatever she could get her hands on.
Her slight frame took up so much space in the kitchen because it was a tiny room and she was tall. Her thin top had risen, flashing her bra. Her skirt or jeans or whatever she’d been wearing was gone. She was in nothing but a pair of ratty knickers, and she only had on one of a pair of cheap heels.
Sometimes I felt so fucking weary and old, right down to my bones.
I lifted my glasses off my nose to rub the sleep out of my eyes. When I pushed the frames back into place, I glanced at the clock. If Mum didn’t give me any trouble, I could get her sorted before I had to leave for school. I couldn’t miss school. Not for her, not for anyone. I’d realized a long time ago that I was going to use my brains and education to get me the fuck out of Ardnoch. To get me away from … this.
It was hard to call which way this would go. Sometimes Mum fought like a tiger when you tried to rouse her. In rare moments, she was quiet and pitiful.
Hoping for the latter, I moved into the room and got my arms underneath her. This year I’d started to shoot up in height, so with her slight weight, it was easy enough to haul her into my arms.
My heart started to race when she grumbled under her breath, but she merely reached for me in her sleep and slung her arms around my neck to hold on. I carried her to the bed she rarely slept in.
As I was pulling the covers over her, she spoke. “Thank you.”
I looked up and found her red-rimmed eyes on me. I got everything from my mum. Hair and eye color, height, and though no one would believe it, my intelligence. Mum had gotten into St. Andrews University and was studying to be an engineer when she fell pregnant. She told me bitterly (and often)that it happened on a drunken night out with some random bloke whose name she couldn’t even remember. Her mum had insisted she come home and have me, and that was the worst thing that ever happened to my mother.
My grandmother died when I was three and Mum inherited her house.
She’d been leaving me alone in it ever since, working several jobs at a time in between partying, and she paid some of the bills when she remembered to.
The soft expression on her face told me she was in a self-pitying mood. “It’s all right,” I muttered, pulling back.
She grabbed my wrist, stopping me. “You’re a good boy.”
Then why can’t you stand to be around me?
“Get some sleep.” I yanked my wrist from her weak grasp and walked toward the door.
She whimpered, “I’m sorry I’m such a shit mum.”
I halted, head bowed. My chest burned as a swelling sensation moved into my throat, a familiar choking feeling.
“I stay away so I won’t hurt you,” she admitted on a quiet sob.
I glanced back at her.
Her eyes begged for forgiveness for all the times she’d left me with no food in the house. For the times I’d had to rely on Deirdra, my elderly neighbor, who fed and took care of me whenever she could. For all the times Mum had beaten me black and blue while she was drunk or high and ragin’ at a life she could have changed, if she’d only tried hard enough.
The truth was, I knew that’s why she stayed away. Because some part of her didn’t want to hurt me. “I know.” I gave her a small nod, unable to give her anything more, and walked into the bathroom across the hall to get washed.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror above the sink. The bathroom was clean because I cleaned it. Our small, terraced home had become the place my friends crashed and hung outsince there was no adult supervision. For so long I’d lived in filth as a kid, but as I got older, I learned to keep the house clean. People didn’t need to know how bad my situation was, and a clean house helped pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.
And ultimately, I could take care of myself. I knew how to cook, how to tidy, how to do my own laundry, and now that I was making some money online from game testing and reviewing and play-to-earn games, I could afford to pay the bills Mum forgot about. Deirdra let me use her bank details so I could get paid. She took the money I earned out in cash for me.
“You’re a good boy.”
