Walking closer to the coffee table, I eye the mound of cigarette butts overflowing from the ashtray and skip the pleasantries. “What did he say when he was here?”
“Why the hell should I tell you when you made me wait all day for your ass to show?”
I grit my teeth, already annoyed. “I don’t need the attitude when I’m the one dealing with it.”
She lifts her head to look at me. “Are you? Are you really dealing with it? If you were, then tell me why the hell he’s threatening to kidnap my ass and do who the hell knows what with it.”
I rub my brow. “Why the hell do you think I’m here?”
Who else would give away ten thousand dollars for an addict who stole the supply?Who?
“Who the fuck knows?” is what she has the audacity to say.
“You think I like having to do this?” I spit at her. I shouldn’t have to spell it out, but I guess I’m going to have to. Irritation licks up my spine and I continue. “I shouldn’t have to pay off your fuckingdealers,Mom. How many times has it been now? How many?”
Too many that I’m sure she’s lost count.
Me? I could never forget about the four times I’ve had to slap cash into Finn’s hand to cover for her.
“Please. Don’t act like I’ve never done a goddamn thing for you. I’m the one who kept this fucking roof over your head all these years.”
Mmm, no.
“Aunt Bess is the one who’s kept this roof over our heads, who’s gone above and beyond to make sure we weren’t living in a box on the streets.”
“You’re a selfish little shit.”
I put my hands on my hips and look up at the ceiling. Un-fucking-believable. I’m the selfish one?
“I think we both know who the selfish one is, and it sure as hell isn’t me.”
“Get the hell out of my house.”
I shift, narrowing my gaze at her. “Is that what you want? Me to leave right the fuck now and let you figure your shit out with Finn?”
Her face pales at my question, her eyes hardening into round hazel saucers. There’s no way in hell she wants me to let her deal with it on her own. If she wanted to do that, she’d have done it already. And we both know, deep down, that she doesn’t have two good feet to stand on. Any promise she’d make them, they wouldn’t believe. She’d lie through her teeth and only make it worse.
She needs me.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
“What the fuck ever.”
“Now,” I blow a breath out. “What else did he say?”
She stabs her cigarette out directly on the coffee table, leaving a smudge on the worn piece of furniture.
“What the hell do you think? He wants his money.”
Yeah, I got that when he put his cigarette out on my damn neck.
It won’t do any good to press her buttons, but I’m agitated, annoyed over the fact that she’s put this all on me. “Do you have anything to put toward it?”
She gives me a dirty look, repeating my question back to me. “Do I have anything to put toward what?You said you had it handled. I wasn’t aware I had to save my goddamn pennies, too.”
“Yeah, I said I’d deal with it, but it’d be nice if you put in a little effort as well. I mean, what the hell did you do with it all?”
My gaze moves to the wall across from the futon when my question falls on deaf ears, on the yellow-tinged floral wallpaper that I’ve seen for years. To the smudges on the bottom of it that have come from her tossing things around when she needed a fix and didn’t have one. To the fist-sized dent under where our television used to be.
