“Fuck her,” Starr spits out.
“Hey—”
“No. I mean, she’s Mom, so I love her, but fuck her for saying that to you. She knows that’s not fair.”
My eyes go a little hot. I’m not used to people taking my side. “It’s not her fault.”
“She can’t help it now, but she got herself into this mess, and it fucking sucks that we have to sit here and watch you take her abuse because she screwed up.” Starr’s words are the angry, bitter words of a child who didn’t know the mom I once did.
She missed out on ice cream Saturdays and matinee prices at the roller-skating rink. She missed out on going to the drive-in with a bucket of chicken and a mountain of blankets and laughing at old cartoons that played before the feature. She missed out on the mom who knew how to smile without the weight of a shitty husband and a terrible addiction on her shoulders.
She was never perfect, but beforehim, in the few years when it was just me, she was better.
And no amount of rehab or therapy will bring that mom back. I just wish I could give my sisters a few of the memories I had.
“North,” she says very softly.
“Mm?”
“You know you don’t deserve that, right? And that it’s not okay when she talks to you like that?”
“Yeah.”
I know it’s not okay, but I’d rather bear the brunt of it because the fewer scars my sisters take with them into adulthood, the better. I’m already marred beyond recognition. Inside and out.
I don’t want them to know what that’s like.
“Call me if things get bad,” I tell her.
“You know I won’t. But I will call you soon. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
The line goes dead, and I’m left to stare out the window at the road ahead with a mountain-sized to-do list, but for the first time in a while, there’s a huge weight off my shoulders.
EIGHTEEN
LEO
Sometimes I thinkif there is a hell, it’s going to be endless, eternal waiting to get discharged from the hospital after a long stay. The eagerness in my chest has me wanting to jump up and see myself out.
The burns on my feet and my inability to go more than a short distance in the wheelchair before burning out keep me sitting on the bed, staring at the door, waiting for my discharge papers.
My brother’s currently downstairs at the pharmacy, getting everything filled. I’m going home with mild painkillers, burn dressing, ointments to help when the blisters begin to heal, and some albuterol because my lungs are still inflamed from all the smoke.
But as far as terrible accidents go, this one was better than the last, which is probably a screwed-up thing to think, but it’s true.
“Why do you look like someone kicked a puppy?” Easton strolls in a second after I hear his voice. “You should be ecstatic you’re getting the fuck out of here.”
I grimace. “At the very least, I’m thrilled to be able to sleep the whole night without someone waking me up by shoving a needle into my arm.”
Easton flings something at me, and the pain medication makes me too slow to catch it. It smacks me in the chest and slides to my lap. “You’ll be able to open up your own pharmacy with the amount of crap they’re sending you home with.”
I’m not mad about it though. It means I won’t have to burden North by sending him out on a ton of errands for me.
“There’s a shitload of hydrogel in there,” Easton adds, “but if you run out, just call me. We have a ton of it at the station, and I don’t mind stealing for you.”
I lift a brow at him. “You’re going to get fired.”
