“I don’t want her to see it,” I said firmly.
Ash was a princess who lived in a castle with her father. She didn’t need to see my strung-out mom. Didn’t need to see what heroin did to a woman’s body. Ash didn’t need to bear witness to the fact that I hadn’t been enough for my mom to stay clean.
“I’ll wait in the car,” Ash said. “I’ll just sit here and not hum. I promise.”
Yeah. Like just having her here with me was supposed to make me feel better.
Instead it only made me feel worse.
Six months later
Ashleigh
I sat on the porch waiting for the car to pull up. Much like I’d done that first time I’d met Marc. George had taken him for another visit with his mom today. This time she was out of the rehab facility and in a halfway house.
Chewing my bottom lip, I thought about what that meant. His mom—I knew her name was Marie Campbell, like George’s last name because she hadn’t married Marc’s dad—had completed the program and her behavior was now being monitored at the halfway house.
She was going to have to get a job and show the court she could support herself and Marc before CPS would even consider letting Marc go live with her. Still, there was a chance, maybe soon, he would leave.
George was pushing for him to stay here no matter what happened with his mom. To, at least, finish out the school year. George thought it best to give his sister as much time as she needed to stand on her own two feet before taking on the challenge of raising her son again.
Both Marc and I had actually laughed at that.
Marc didn’t need anyone to raise him. He knew what he was doing all the time. He had a plan. For everything. Sometimes he told me what his plan was, and sometimes he told me to bug off, except he used the “F” word. Still, I knew he was always thinking about stuff. Like what was going to happen next month and next year.
He didn’t like that I knew that about him. That I saw everything about him. But I was the only one around here watching him that closely. I wanted, so desperately, for him to like me, and there were times I knew he did. Times when I made him laugh, and it was like I took him by surprise. Or, when I would show up with a brownie and he would shove the whole thing in his mouth while I watched and laughed as he did it.
There were times when he was even nice to me, before he forgot he wasn’t supposed to like me.
So I didn’t want him to leave. I didn’t want him to go back with his mom and forget that he’d ever lived here.
It was selfish, but I didn’t want to be alone again. Even a grumpy Marc was better than no Marc at all.
I heard the rumble of the SUV and stood. George had barely brought the car to a stop when Marc jumped out and slammed the passenger door closed. He stormed by me and growled as he did.
“Do. Not. Follow. Me.”
I whipped around prepared to do exactly that. I knew what was happening. This was angry Marc and I was always really good at calming him down.
Then I felt George’s hand on my shoulder stopping me.
“Let him go, Peanut.”
“But—”
“No,” he cut me off. “He needs time to work it out of his system and I don’t want you around when that happens. He’ll only hurt you, and then later regret he did it.”
“What happened?”
“His mom wasn’t there,” George said, his eyes sad.
“What do you mean? Did she forget he was supposed to be visiting today?”
He shook his head. “No. She left the halfway house a few days ago. No one has seen her since.”
I understood. Maybe too much for my age, but I knew what that meant. She wasn’t allowed to leave the halfway house. She had to stay there while she got a job and stayed clean, so she could prove to the court she could be Marc’s mom again.
Instead she ran away.
I was sad for Marc. I was. But also, I was a little happy inside. Because I knew what this really meant.
Marc was going to stay with us forever.
2
A year later
Marc
“You can’t even hit the ball hard enough to get it back over the net,” I accused her.
“I’m trying!”
It was summer and I was particularly bored, which was the only reason I accepted when Ash asked me to play tennis with her.
This was my second year living with George in the carriage house on the Landen estate. A freaking estate with so much property you couldn’t see the end of it. I’d gone from a shitty apartment that was a step up from the projects, to here. Sometimes I still didn’t understand it. I only knew I didn’t fit in. Not really. So I resented it.
Come fall I would start high school, which was actually ranked as one of the top schools in New Jersey. Because when everyone in town is rich the public school has all the advantages of a private school. I was going to get my own laptop and everything.
I had plans for this year. What I needed to accomplish. I wasn’t any typical kid just starting high school. I needed to be focused on what a fancy school like this could do for me. Because in four more years I wouldn’t be a minor anymore. Four more years and the state couldn’t tell me what to do. My life would be under my control.
This was my second year living near Ashleigh.
Who was always there no matter what I did. Always asking to play or do something. I always said no. Because she was just a kid. Because she was a girl. Because she was annoying in the way she thought we could be best friends, and we couldn’t.
Why couldn’t we be friends?
Because she was a kid, and a girl.
And rich and sheltered and she didn’t know anything about real life. She didn’t even go to school because of her asthma.
“I don’t know why I’m bothering. You can’t even play,” I said, scowling at her.
“One more try,” she said, holding up her finger. “I promise, I’ll get it over the net.”
“I doubt it.”
“You won’t even give me a chance,” she said, stomping her foot in exasperation. Which was actually kind of funny. Ash was always so agreeable to anything when it came to me, right up until she wasn’t.
“Because you suck. You need to get more exercise. It’s bad for you to not be active.”
She stilled then, like she was taking in what I’d told her. I don’t know why I bothered. It wasn’t my business. She could do whatever she wanted. She wasn’t some out-of -shape, fat kid. She was all arms and legs. Nothing but bones and skin, which is why she couldn’t hit a tennis ball hard enough to get it over the net.
“You know why,” she said quietly. I still heard her.
Because of the asthma. It was like her whole life was defined by that one thing. Like she was nothing more than her condition. Or at least her father had convinced her it was true.
“Lots of people have asthma and can still hit a freaking tennis ball.”
That made her mad. She bounced the ball once, twice on the court then swung the racket as hard as she could. The ball almost nailed me in the balls, but I stepped away and delivered a lob back over the net.
She wasn’t fast enough to get to it, and the ball bounced a few times before she picked it up.