I look out the window, focusing on the tourists rather than the man in the front seat who I’ve handed over what feels like a lifetime of money to.
Ten thousand dollars.
That’d buy me a brand-new car.
It’d give me a deposit on a place of my own and furniture.
It’s enough to start an education at the community college on the outskirts of Chatham Hills.
So much opportunity gone, and for what?
For someone I have no control over.
Maybe it’s the money that keeps him at bay and from pushing me harder, but I take his seemingly decent attitude and offer the same back, counting the seconds until the car reaches the end of the strip where I’ll be able to hop out.
I make sure the compartments of my bookbag are closed and prepare for my departure. Once I get out of this car, I’m never getting back inside of it. Not unless Finn knocks me out and takes me unwillingly.
“You really think she’s going to stay clean?” Finn finally asks. “Janie has shit self-control. She’ll kill herself if she keeps running around.”
For a split second—the shortest ever recorded—there’s compassion in his voice.
I don’t know the specifics of the deal they had. Only that they gave her product to move, and she failed to do so. It’s irrational and crazy. Like putting candy in front of a kid and telling them not to touch it. Because theyalwaystouch it.
I have an inkling she shared it with the people she knows from the streets because it’d be impossible for her to blow through it all on her own.
“Isn’t it a little late for that?” I volley back. He gives me a questioning look over his shoulder. “For you to care about where she ends up?”
“I’m not saying it for me,” he sucks down a quarter of his cigarette, exhaling a donut-shaped cloud of smoke. “Everybody knows the only reason she’s gotten this far is because of you. She burns down a building and you drag her out. You gonna be able to sit there and watch while she disintegrates to ash?”
Isn’t that what I’ve done all this time?
Yeah, she’s alive but that doesn’t mean shit when she’s her own enemy. Not when I’ve watched substances like the ones she takes shape her into a new person. Physically, she doesn’t look the same as when I was a kid. Mentally, she’s not as coherent or sharp. Emotionally? Fuck, the only emotions she has are directly related to keeping up with the disease running rampant in her body.
Feeling the car slow, I prepare to pull the door lever so I can get out. I glance at Finn one last time. “What do you think I’ve been doing my entire life?”
THIRTY-SEVEN
COLSON
I’mon cloud nine as I make it back to Spring Meadows, parking in my usual spot near the entrance. Until I see Aunt Bess’s SUV parked next to it. I wasn’t aware she was visiting today.
I check the tinted windows, noticing no one inside, not even her driver. She must’ve come without him this time, which is unlike her. Uncle Thad has the means to pay someone to cart her just about anywhere she wants. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen her drive herself, which prompts me to turn and look up at the ten-story apartment building.
This funny feeling washes over my arms under my windbreaker. Why do I get the feeling that something is up? That something isn’t right? A knot forms in the back of my throat like it did the night I took Violet home to Harrison Heights. I try to push it away as I make it into the building and take the elevator up to my floor.
I’m wound as tight as a jack-in-the-box when I step inside the apartment, the door softly clicking behind me. I slip my shoes off and pad into the living room, finding my aunt sitting on the edge of the same chair I saw Violet in weeks and weeks ago, looking down at her phone.
Her gaze lifts when she hears me clear my throat. “Aunt Bess?”
A smile appears on her face but it’s nothing like the one I’m used to. It’s her reserved one, and because I’ve spent years around her, I immediately know that whatever brought her here…isn’t good news.
I just can’t pinpoint exactly what it is.
We saw each other on Thanksgiving and everything was fine. She and Uncle Thad were happy as usual.
“I was hoping you’d show up soon.”
That knot in my throat? Yeah, it only gets bigger, affecting my ability to swallow. But with the way she stands, tucking her phone into the front pocket of her designer jacket, my chance to dip into the kitchen for water passes.
