Robert ‘Bobby’ Lee, poster boy for the government’s next ‘This is your brain on drugs’ campaign. Tattered flannel shirt, holes burned through the fabric by cigarette embers. Jeans crusted with God-knows-what. Grubby sneakers, one with a hole by the big toe. Hair like oily straw stuck to his skull in sweaty clumps.
The stench of sour beer, unwashed skin, musty clothes hits me as hard as the memories do before a gust of wind whips it away. This was the smell of my childhood home—a dilapidated single-wide in the crummiest part of the trailer park.
The smell of poverty, addiction…of fear.
And beneath it all, the stench of rot—his teeth, his gums, his fuckingsoul.
I can’t breathe.
Can’t move.
Can’t fuckingthink.
Kai positions himself in front of me like a human shield, but it’s too late. I’m already drowning in shame so thick it coats my skin like tar.
Dad sidesteps to keep me in his sight. “Took me two goddamn buses and five miles of walking to find your squirrely ass,princess.”
The sound of his voice—that fuckingnickname—makes my skin crawl. In my head, I’m already back in my car with the doors locked and the engine revving.
But my body is concrete, feet anchored to the ground by panic.
“Back off, Bobby,” Kai warns, squaring his shoulders.
Dad’s bloodshot eyes narrow as he peers up at Kai. “The hell you doing here?” His eyes become slits. “You part of this scam too? Always were thick as thieves.”
“Fuck right off,” Kai snaps.
His gaze slides off Kai and locks onto me with a clarity that makes my stomach turn. For a second—just a split second—I see a flash of the man he used to be.
Before the drugs and cheap liquor gnawed away at his conscience.
Before he started trading me to Uncle Lenny for meth.
“Ain’t going nowhere.” Dad scratches at the patchy stubble on his jaw, dirt-crusted fingernails leaving red marks on his skin. “Some uppity bitch calls me last week?—”
He pauses to cough. I try not to evaporate in utter shame.
Oh my God, Nora.
I’m going tokillyou.
“—bitch says I gotta come down to the school and sign something because my fucking runt of a daughter got herselfenrolled here. Fucking genius, princess, thinking I got money for this kind of shit.”
“Now I’m on the hook for this bullshit?” He throws a hand toward the campus building looming in the distance. “How the fuck did you even get through those doors, huh? You take it up the ass?”
“You’re not on the hook for anything, Da—“ I cut off hurriedly, glancing at the sightseers around me.
Because people are staring. Nothing draws attention like someone else’s misery. I see them whispering, pulling out their phones, craning their heads to get a better look at the piece of Riverside trash polluting their pristine campus.
“This is none of your fucking business,” Kai barks at the onlookers.
One of Kai’s friends comes up to us. “Should I call security?”
Oh God.
Kai waves him away.
Guess it’s a little late to pretend we’re not related, though. Anyone within earshot knows the truth.
