Exhausted and ready to sleep on a twin mattress instead of a lumpy secondhand sofa, I lock the door and retreat to my room.
My room ismyspace. Smoke free, though some seeps in from the vents and cracks under the door, but for the most part, the smells of the house don’t consume me in here. I run a cheap air purifier I found on Craigslist, though it hums like a snoring roommate, crack the window even in the winter, and burn dollar store candles that smell like fresh linen. It’s all superficial to mask the smell, but it helps.
My phone dings, and I pull it out of my back pocket to see a message from Tristan.
Tristan
Miss you already.
I smile but toss my phone on the nightstand beside the single dandelion in a glass I collected last weekend. Pretty sure it’s an off-brand jelly jar, the label only half peeled off. The water sloshes when the phone lands near it, and I sigh, crawling into the bed.
It isn’t long before the things I need to do torment me on loop. A checklist of laundry, cleaning, and outdoor work races through my mind. I stare at the ceiling. He should be handling this. My job should be college, or an actual job. But he won’t. He never does.
He was never that bad when she was around. He had his moments of relapse, but he loved her too much to let his addiction take hold. When she died, well, that was just too much for him, and he gave in.
His love for me—if there’s any left—is not enough.
My mother, though … she loved blindly. Even when it left her empty. She loved him in a stubborn way, the kind that forgave too much. It would break her heart to see him like this, and that’s the reason I can’t pull away like I should. So much so that it doesn’t matter if I flinch when he slurs my name or that he forgets what day it is. Or how the dishes stack up, the house smells, and I have to grocery shop with whatever cash he didn’t drink. What would she think if she knew I often sit in my car, just trying to find the energy to walk through the door? I’ve stopped trying to make him better and now only hope to survive him.
She was always there for me, putting her home and family first, and even though I’m tired … so,sotired of patching up the damage he causes, I’m still here. Still showing up. Someday, I want to pour into someone, into a family, like she did, but hell if I do so in vain.
Something jolts me awake, and I shoot upright, groggy and tangled in my sheets.What was that?Rubbing my eyes, I glance at my bedroom door.
It’s still shut.
The blanket around my waist slips, and I flail, struggling to get up until—thud, thud, thud. Dull, heavywhackspulse against the front door, like someone is slamming their shoulder into it.
My brain scrambles to catch up as I stumble out of bed and open my bedroom door. I locked the front and side doors. Mymoney, if I had any, is on Phil having lost his key and now that it’s …
I glance back at my nightstand and growl. 3:45 a.m. It never fails.
Four more fist falls sound on the door, and I wince. Please donotwake the neighbors. Wedon’tneed that.
Barefoot and pissed, I drag myself across the gritty tile and follow the bangs to the kitchen side door. I shiver, annoyed that my sleep shorts and oversized T-shirt Tristan made me take to “remember him while I slept,” aren’t doing more to keep me warm. When I pass the thermostat, I stop in my tracks. Sixty-two degrees!? I definitely set that at seventy-five before bed. We cannot afford to keep the house this chilly, and who would want to?
Several more pounds on the door have me ignoring the temperature, and I hurry through the living room.
“What in the Sam Hill is going on?”
I startle, letting out a squealing scream before turning to find Phil stumbling up from the couch.
I tug at my shirt. “You scared me! When did you get home?”
He’s still in his dirty work jeans and grease-smudged white T-shirt. His thinning russet hair is unbrushed, and his patchy beard clings to his jaw, overgrown and neglected. Those pure ice-blue eyes staring wide are also mine, and what once was pride in sharing the feature with him has now fizzled to resentment. He looks rough, face lined with years of heartbreak and hard drinking.
Sometimes, when his eyes clear or if he takes the time to shave, there are hints of the kind of face that might’ve been handsome once. Even in his late fifties, he could’ve lit up a room. Now, he can’t hold himself upright next to the couch.
He blinks rapidly. “I—uh, a few hours ago.” He sniffs. “What are you, uh, doing awake?”Thud, thud, thud.“And who the hell is banging on my door?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was you, Phil!”
“Well, I’m—I’m right here.” He stumbles into the coffee table, and instead of the necessary bottle of water, he takes a swig from a beer bottle that rests, condensing. He’s drunk, but not as bad as he was last weekend.
He tries but fails to wobble toward the door, and I disregard his efforts, turning to march there myself. I peek out the curtain.
Three men in suits stand there, and a baseball-sized knot forms in my throat. Great, what is it this time? Must’ve been good to summon men in suits. What are they? FBI? DEA?
“Fancy suits out there, Phil. At almost four in the morning.” I wince when he glares at me, but then his eyes widen.
