“The NFL recruitment camp isn’t until January.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. Let me see it.”
Sitting next to him on my bed, I take his hand in mine. I put my long curls behind my ear with my other hand so that I can examine his injury. His loud gasp startles me.
“What the hell is that?”
My hand drops to my lap while Alek inspects my neck.
“Is this a scratch from him? I’m going to hit this fucking bastard again when he wakes up, but this time…”
His sharp eyes are icy blue. Alek stands up to walk to the unconscious man, but I pull him to me and make him sit down.
“Please don’t. Going to jail is not gonna go well with the recruiters.” I slip on my best smile. “It’s a scrape. Doesn’t hurt.”
But the cut on my heart does. And it runs deep, deep, deep.
“You’re bleeding! Fuck.” He slams his fists on my bed and the mattress shakes with the force. “We need to call the police.” He jumps up the bed.
“No,” I say a bit too eagerly and take a deep breath. “Mom has a lot going on, and implicating her with the police will make things worse.”
Alek stares at me as if I’m a green alien from Mars. His eyes seem to bulge.
“You’re telling me you don’t want that fucker to go to jail because… because you’re protecting our mother?”
He crosses his arms around his chest and starts pacing in my bedroom. But before I can even say anything, Alek storms out of the room.
“Where is she?”
I dash after him. We both loom over the worn-out beige couch in the living room where Mom lies in a fetal position. Her hair—dirty, greasy, black and short—covers her face. The jeans and shirt she has on look like they haven’t seen the inside of the washer… ever. Alek stumbles a step or two back.
“She won’t be up for hours. Usually she takes pills and alcohol together,” I say in a quiet voice.
Every time Alek came to visit us since he moved out, I only invited him when Mom was sober or when she was out. I cleaned the apartment of empty bottles and drugs. And covered almost every inch of the place with heavy-duty Febreze spray in lilac or jasmine or cherry scent.
Alek’s hands fly to his reddened face, and he draws a few deep breaths.
I kneel down and place my hand on Mom’s wrist to check her pulse. A heavy sigh escapes my throat. I rush to her room and bring back her blanket, laying it gently over her fragile body.
“She’ll be okay… this time,” I say.
Mom and I are seeking the same elusive dream—peace and freedom—but we are reaching our visions through very different means. Mom—drugs and alcohol. Me—flight.
“She’s never taken care of you, Twinkle. Even when you were a baby. Why are you nice to her?”
“No matter what, she’s our mother. And she’s not strong enough to get better. We can’t just let her fade away.”
Alek made sure I was fed and had clothes when I was a toddler. Then, during my school years, he made sure I did my homework. He raised me. And it must have been difficult on him too because he was only a child himself.
I suffered for the last three years without him. I desperately wanted to share the shitload with him. I desperately wanted to escape from the shithole, this apartment, this life.
I gently brush Mom’s hair away from her face.
“She’s done so much damage to herself, I’m not sure how much longer she has. Every day I live with the thought that one of those times, she won’t wake up. I’ve accepted it, Alek.”
But he hasn’t because I kept it a secret.
The throbbing pain under my ear travels down to my chest and stays there, turning into a dull heartache.
