Chapter One
Squinting at the red lights of my alarm clock, I winced when I saw the time.
“How can it be four AM already?” I muttered to myself, then immediately yawned.
I’d been asleep for four hours. I’d arrived home at ten after a six-hour shift at Crow, the bar where I worked, but my mom being my mom, had left the place a sty.
I wouldn’t care for myself or for her, but Scottie lived here too, and I wouldn’t have him living in the filth our mother could subsist in.
Not only had I cleaned the place as much as I could, I’d cleaned him up too. His butt had been bright pink from the diaper she never changed from the last time I had cleaned him, and once again, I’d been tempted to call Child Welfare. Tempted, so badly, to let him go just to make sure he was safe, but this wasn’t a perfect world. I’d spent too many years of my own childhood in Child Welfare, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, certainly not the baby brother I adored.
I had three months left of my last year at college. I had to pray that when the time came, I’d be able to get a semi-decent job and I’d be able to take care of my family better. Hopefully, I would also be able to be around Scottie more and get him away from our hag of a mother.
He was my brother, but he was almost my son. On yet another of her sessions, she’d managed to get knocked up by some lowlife I was half-certain was a regular client of hers, and I’d been graced with a newborn baby brother when I was twenty.
I could never resent him, but her?
Hell yeah, I could.
Especially when every aspect of his care fell to me.
The alarm I’d snoozed began blaring again, and another yawn escaped me until my eyes flared wide.
It was Wednesday.
God, I hated Wednesdays. And Mondays and Fridays.
I had Creative Writing those days, and though I loved that class, I hated the professor. He was a jerk and way too mean to be that hot.
Seriously, the guy looked like he belonged on the book cover of the novel he was making us finish for our final project.
Professor Maclean was the definition of hunky, but he was meaner than a rattlesnake.
Whenever I thought of him, I thought of that old adage, “Those who can’t do, teach.”
It wasn’t a nice phrase, and to be honest, I was belittling myself since I was aiming to be a teacher, but I didn’t care. Maclean deserved it.
With a huff that belied the dread dawning in my stomach at the prospect of a two-hour class with him, I hauled myself out of bed and began to shuffle out of my crappy bedroom and into the hall.
From this angle, I saw my mother slouched on the recliner she slept in, and eyed the disaster she’d made of the room I’d cleaned a few hours before.
For a second, my heart fell and my eyes burned with the futility of trying to keep this place up. Then, even that misery was forgotten when I saw the lit cigarette in her left hand lolling over the armrest, with two empty containers of bottled liver cirrhosis tumbled on the carpet beneath them. Fear immediately flushed through me.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d set fire to something while she was drunk. It had happened twice already, and the sofa and the carpet bore the burns to prove it.
Hustling over, I snatched the cigarette from her hand and stubbed it out in the overflowing ashtray I’d emptied last night.
When she didn’t stir, I shook my head as disgust flowed through me. She’d once been a pretty woman, but my dad’s death had hit her hard. She was sick, I knew that, and tried to repeat it to myself over and over when I came home to Scottie sobbing because he was hungry, when she almost set fire to our damn sofa, and spent half her time lying around in a puddle of her own piss, but it was harder to remember she was sick and not just a noose around my neck.
Sucking in a calming breath, I tried not to think about the woman she’d once been. When her cheeks hadn’t been tunneled in, when her skin hadn’t been like paper, and her eyes didn’t look constantly bruised. Her nose was becoming bulbous and had red broken veins all along the tip.
Was it horrible that I was hoping she’d just drink herself into a coma and die?
I rubbed my eyes, trying to disperse the thought, because, of course, it was horrible, but it didn’t take the hope away. She was my mom, and I didn’t want anything to hurt her, but she lived in a constant state of misery, and that misery diffused itself onto Scottie and me.
Because the hatred spilling through me was enough to make me cry, and twice in one morning was excessive for anyone, I turned on my heel and headed toward the second bedroom.
It was too much to expect that she’d have checked on Scottie before she passed out, so I hustled in and had to smile. His diapered butt was in the air, his face smooshed into the blankie I’d saved up over a month for. Unicorns were his favorite, and though we didn’t have much, I’d wanted him to have something.
Because he was okay for the minute, I didn’t step inside, not wanting to disturb his sleep.
Shuffling into the bathroom, I quickly showered and dressed in the uniform the café, where I worked the early morning shift, insisted I wear.
It wasn’t fresh, and tomorrow I’d need to do laundry, so I sprayed a crap ton of deodorant over myself in the hope it would veil that slightly sour smell that came from clothes that had been worn just a little too long.
Crinkling my nose in disgust, I wished, and not for the first time, that I could afford a second uniform, but my money was better spent elsewhere.
As I tugged my curly brown hair into a messy bun, I didn’t even glance at my face other than to note it was clean, and rushed back into Scottie’s bedroom. I found him awake, peering at me through the bars on his crib as though he were in a jail cell.
I had to admit, he was.
And I hated that for him.
He couldn’t roam around the floors, crawling around to his heart’s content. Couldn’t explore things like regular kids could. He was either stuck in his crib, the car seat Mrs. Linden had given us, or his bouncer seat.
Why?
Because I couldn’t allow him on the carpet.
I’d cleaned the place last night and my mother had already dumped ash onto it. There were bottles there, and I had no way of knowing if there was broken glass hidden within the fibers. Even in here, the carpet wasn’t safe from her unless I vacuumed before I let him go exploring.
I picked him up, laughing when he gurgled at me in delight. Patting his bottom, I pressed a kiss to his hair and smiled. This kid was the only joyful part of my day, even if he was my biggest worry.
If it wasn’t for him, I’d have gone, been out of this dive a long time ago. But almost like she’d known I was close to leaving, Mom had gotten pregnant and she’d needed me. Had promised she’d turn over a new leaf, and she kind of had. I hadn’t seen her drunk once during her pregnancy, she’d smoked though, but despite how often I’d complained, she hadn’t quit. The second Scottie was born, she’d made up for the months of staying sober, and had been worse ever since.
“I love you, baby bro,” I whispered into his hair. “I hope I’m doing right by you.” If I hadn’t experienced Child Welfare myself, I’d say I wasn’t, but I knew the creeps that existed in the foster system, and I didn’t want my innocent baby brother anywhere near it.
Three months.