Mom (Wednesday, 12:22 p.m.):If you hadn’t lied, we wouldn’t be here now
Mom (Wednesday, 12:25 p.m.):Pat told me you took a swing at him first. You know he went to jail for months and lost his job because of that! What a shitty thing to do to someone who was always nice to you and just trying to take care of us both!
Mom (6:59 a.m.):Fine. You’re going to ignore me, then maybe I’ll just take the car back too. $500 for it. Due by June 1 or I’ll report it stolen. It’s still in my name. Stop being an entitled little ass
Nico (7:40 a.m.):I get paid next Friday (June 6). I’ll give you the money then. Please don’t report it stolen.
Mom (7:42 a.m.):Fine. Bring the money on or before next Friday and I’ll give you the title. I’ll be off work at 4
I stare at the message for a few minutes, my stomach in knots. Then I hit the power button to turn off the screen on my phone, toss it onto the bed next to me, and cover my face with my hands.
Today couldn’t have started off any worse, and it’s only 7:45 a.m.
How the fucking hell am I supposed to come up with five hundred dollars after only a week of work when I’m making minimum wage? I’m no math genius like Alex, but I’m not an idiot either, and I’m pretty sure after taxes, my first paycheck won’t evenbethat much. And since I only have about forty bucks in my checking account right now, I have no idea how I’ll get enough money. I kinda need that forty bucks anyway. I’ve been washing my only set of work clothes every night so far this week, hoping my boss doesn’t realize I’m wearing the same polo shirt and slacks every day. Plus I need to put gas in my car. And apparently pay my cell phone bill and my car insurance.
But honestly, the financial shit isn’t even the worst part. Theworst part is this complete one eighty she’s doing, treating me like a villain.
Fuck.
Ididn’ttake a swing at him first. I was fucking thirteen years old. And he wasnotalways nice to me. He wasnevernice to me. I’m glad that asshole went to jail and lost his job. He deserved that.
But it’s that—the fact that she’s letting herself believe him, believe his lies and whatever else he’s telling her or she’s making up on her own, turning me into this awful person—that’s what really hurts the most.
I ignored her as long as I could, still pretending. Pretending she wasn’t actually texting me those baseless accusations. Pretending she wasn’t being someone completely different. I still haven’t shown any of those texts to Alex, even.
But I couldn’t ignore her anymore after her message this morning. I can’t let her report my car as stolen. I can’t have it taken away, and I don’t want any trouble with the police.
I roll over onto my stomach with a groan and bury my head into the pillow.
And that doesn’t even make me happy because the pillow doesn’t smell like Alex. It’s not his.
Tuesday night, I moved into the downstairs bedroom—the one he cleaned up and prepped for his cousins, who are showing up tomorrow evening. It was dumb, kinda—to have me move down here for just a few days, since I’ll be moving back up into his room tomorrow and staying up there for the weekend. But we got into yet another argument over who would be sleeping in his bed, and I just couldn’t convince him that I’d be okay sleeping on the floor. So rather than make him sleep on the flooragain—which just feels wrong because it’shisroom—I sort of... kicked myself out.
Of course, I haven’t slept well at all the last couple of nights, either, like my body justknowshe’s not nearby. And being tiredcertainly hasn’t helped me deal with all this added stress of my mom’s texts.
I should probably share them with him. He’s smart. Maybe he can help me come up with a way to get the extra money without having to basically hand over my entire paycheck or beg her to give me more time.
I turn over and sit up, intending to get dressed and maybe force myself to eat something before work. Instead, my eyes land on my backpack, which I shoved down to the corner of the bed last night.
Without thinking, I reach down and grab it, yanking it up to the head of the bed with me. Then I unzip the back compartment, pull out my sketchbook and pencils, and flip to one of the few clean pages left in the book.
I’m not an artist. Not really, anyway. And I don’t even want to be one. The thought of ever sharing my drawings with anyone actually makes me feel sick. But sketching does help calm me sometimes, especially when I’m just too in my head and can’t seem to get myself out. I close my eyes, trying to pull up an image of something soothing, like... like Alex’s hand on my back, comforting me when we were together in my car on Monday morning. I can still feel it, and I try to channel that feeling as I start to sketch, first a rough outline and then adding more and more detail.
That freckle he’s got right next to his knuckle on his right hand.
The wrinkles in my shirt as his hand moves slowly, gently across my back.
Thesoftnessof it all.
A tear falls down my cheek, and I hate it. I hate it so much that I reach up and swipe it away, but another comes anyway. Why the hell is this making me cry? And what time is it, anyway? Am I going to be late for work now?
I flip over my cell phone and glance at the screen as the time lights up. 8:03 a.m.
Dammit.
I groan, slamming the sketchbook closed. Then I shove it under the pillow, along with my pencil, drag myself out of bed, grab my rewashed clothes from the laundry basket Alex’s mom is letting me use, and trudge off to the bathroom to get ready for work. All that anxiety I thought I banished with my sketching has returned as this equally uncomfortable, slowly simmering anger, and I’m not even really sure why.
“So,thethingthatmost people probably don’t know about these book drives is that we don’tactuallykeep most of the books.” Sharon pushes a laptop over in front of me and hits the power button. She continues talking while the computer boots up, her hands much too animated for my liking, though I manage not to flinch away. “There will be a ton of duplicates, a bunch of books in poor condition or with pages ripped out or writing inside. Then a bunch of books we just don’t expect will ever get checked out.”
