by A. R. Breck
She’s dead. She’s really fucking dead.
“Shit, what do I do?” I mumble.
The very last thing that I want to do.
Picking up my phone, I dial my dad and turn my back to my mom. I can’t even look at her. The amount of times that I’ve walked in on her like this, thinking that this is the time that she’s dead. I didn’t do it today, and today’s the day she’s not breathing.
“What?” My dad says as a way of greeting.
“Dad.” I say somberly. I’m a little in shock and don’t really know how I’m feeling yet. Sad? Happy? Angry?
“What is it, Jackson?” He can tell by my tone that something isn’t right. Maybe he can smell the death through the phone.
“It’s Mom.” I choke out.
Silence.
“What about her?” He orders, tone suddenly sharp. Lethally sharp.
“She’s gone, Dad. She’s dead.” I whisper, finally turning around and looking at her. Still slumped over, this time her head is tipped back, and her dead, vacant eyes stare at the ceiling.
I swear I can see relief in those soulless eyes.
“Stay there.” He hangs up the phone, and I drop mine to the ground.
Walking over to my mom, I sit down on the couch next to her and shut her eyelids.
Is there something I could have done differently? Was there any saving her at all? Or was she doomed from the start? Living with Randall isn’t easy, but maybe I could have helped her get away from him? We could have run away, or I could’ve given her money and let her flee, much like Easton’s mom did.
Looking over at her, I trail my eyes along her body, knowing it’s going to be one of the last times I’m ever going to be able to.
“What?” I whisper, seeing a piece of paper crumpled in her palm.
Straightening out the piece of paper, I see her shaky, feminine handwriting scrawled across.
I’m sorry, Wren.
“You spineless bitch, she’s fucking dead! But you’re too fucking drugged out to see that your other kid is still alive!” I roar, smushing the piece of paper and pocketing it. The last thing I need is for my dad to see it.
It wasn’t an accidental overdose.
It was a fucking suicide.
Pure shock slides through me. She really did it. She had years to kill herself, and she chose now.
“You’re about to be a grandmother. Maybe that would have dragged you out of this hole you insisted on being in.” Nah, who the fuck am I kidding? She’s been hanging on the thread of depression and death for years now. It was only a matter of time.
I just can’t believe she did it.
And I feel absolutely sick that a part of me feels relief that she’s gone.
The door slams open, and my head shoots up to find my dad standing in the doorway.
Rage, shock, and sadness make him look like a lunatic as he storms in and over to my mom. He grabs her by the shoulders and lays her on the back of the couch.
“Mary? Mary!” He slaps a hand across my face, and I look at him in utter disgust. Pressing his fingers against her neck, he silent as he listens for a pulse.
“Damnit!” He shouts. “Stupid, stupid, woman.”
He looks up at me, and the rage from my mom transfers over to me. Just like that. Just like always.
Cocking his fist back, he slams it into my cheek before I even have a moment to react. He climbs over my dead mother and gets on top of me, hitting me once, twice, three times. He keeps going, punch after punch into my face. The years of hiding his abuse beneath my clothes has been broken now that my mother is gone. It seems he no longer cares about hiding the man that hides behind these walls.
I would say that he no longer cares about me, but I think its blatantly obvious he never cared in the first place.
He continues to hit me until I can no longer see out of my eyes and the taste of blood fills my mouth. My ears thrum and my face throbs.
Out of breath, he shoves off of me and barks, “Get the fuck out of here, boy. I need to deal with your mother.”
I groan as I roll over, lightheaded and barely conscious.
“I said get out of here, you stupid fuck!” He roars, kicking me in the side.
I fall to my stomach, swallowing down a painful grunt. Sliding my knees underneath me, I use all my strength and limp out of there, slamming the door shut behind me. I hear something crash inside, but I don’t look back.
Where I’d usually go to Easton’s after a bad night, my body is for some reason moving me towards Cara’s house.
When I get to her door, I lean all my weight against her doorframe and knock. I can barely stand on my feet at this point. My eye is completely swollen shut and the ringing in my right ear won’t stop.
I hear her feet pad to the door; the lock unhinges and the door creak open.
“Jackson?” Cara gasps. “Oh, my fucking God, what the hell happened to you?” She grabs onto my arm and pulls me inside. She pokes her head outside before shutting and locking the door behind her.
She grabs onto my arm, pulling me towards her room. “Holy shit, Jackson! Can you hear me?” She shoves me on her bed, assessing me from head to toe.
“Yes, I can hear you.” I’m not going to tell her I can only hear her in one ear.
“What happened? Who did this to you?” She walks out of her room and comes back with an icepack and a towel.
“Jackson? I said who did this to you.” She presses the towel onto my eyebrow, and I wince. It feels like something’s broken.
“My mom’s dead.” I say instead of telling her the truth.
She freezes her movements, moving her eyes down to me and staring. Only staring.
“What did you say?” She whispers.
“My mom’s dead.” I repeat. I’m not going to tell her—or anyone—that she killed herself. That’s something that I’ll take to the grave.
“Oh, my God! When? Where? How?” She cries, falling to her knees between my legs and squeezing my thighs. “I’m so sorry! B-but, what happened to you? Why are you like this? Did she get hurt?”
“She overdosed on heroine.” I’m very aware that I’m becoming numb and spouting these answers like they were rehearsed. Absolutely no emotion or feeling in my answers. It feels like I’m not even here, like I detached myself from my body and watching this scene happening from above.
Maybe my dad killed me.
Cara cries. Big fat tears fall down her face for someone she barely knew. Someone that she maybe spoke to three times over the last number of years, and she’s crying like it was her own mother. But then I wonder, would she even cry like this for her own mother?
“Stop crying.” I lift her under her arms and bring her up on the bed with me. The pain makes my bones groan in agony, but I don’t care. I hate seeing Cara like this. She should never cry this hard. Not for my druggie mother, and certainly not for me.
“P-please, tell me what happened.” She blubbers in my arms.
I take a deep breath and lay back. It’s time to fess up. Come clean with my life and rid myself of my shit childhood. If for some reason I have some kind of a brain bleed, I want to die with my conscious clear. If there’s anyone I want to know what has happened in my life, it’s Cara.
“Come here.” I pat the spot next to me, and she widens her eyes in horror.
“Jackson, you need to go to a hospital or something, not lay in bed and cuddle! Do you want me to call Easton or someone? Anyone?”
“Just fuckin’ come here, would you?” I say with a sharp tone.
She narrows her eyes in confusion but does as she’s told.
Laying in the crook of my arm, I shift to get comfortable and stare at the ceiling. It’s intimidating to know that I’m about to speak on words that have been bottled up for so long. My entire life, really. I’ve always thought this is something that would go to the grave with me. But now with Mom gone, I’ve never wanted to rid myself of the memories as much as I do now.
“I had a sister on
ce.” I say to the ceiling.
Cara gasps, getting up on her elbows and looking down at me. “What? I never knew that!”
I push her back down on the bed. “Shh. Let me talk, okay? Just let me say what I need to say.”
She nods and snuggles back into my side, making me hiss out a breath.
“Shit, are you all right? Am I hurting you?”
“No. Just stop.” I groan.
“Okay, so you had a sister once. Tell me about her.” She sniffles, and I know she’s going to tear in two at this story.
“She was only one, but she was the cutest kid in the world. She would babble nonstop and just started walking. She was going to be a little hellion, I just knew it.”
“What was her name?” She asks softly, laying her hand on my chest.
“Wren.”
“Wren.” Cara whispers, and my heart stops. My little sisters name on her lips does something to me. It heals something and breaks something simultaneously. Cara would’ve treated her like a little sister, and it wrecks me that it’ll never happen.
“My parents went out to the bar one night and made me watch her. I didn’t have a problem with it because I’ve done it enough times. Plus, she was sleeping so I just watched TV and waited for her to cry or my parents to come home.” My chest deflates, and my heart thumps to the same speed my eye throbs. Excruciating pain lances through me, but I carry on.
I should have just fucking checked on her.
“When my parents came home, Wren was still sleeping. My mom went to go check on her and that’s when everything went to hell.”
“What happened?” Cara’s voice fills with panic.
“SIDS. It happens to kids, I guess. Little babies. No one really knows why, but it just does. The day that my sister died is when everything changed. My dad… he uh, locked me in a closet for five days.
“What?” Cara sits up as she roars at me. “Five days? What the fuck, Jackson?”
I stare at her until she calms down. I can’t tell this story if she’s going to get worked up, because it’s only going to work me up in the process. That’s not the point of this. I don’t want to be angry.
I want to be free of this shit.
Cara lays back down, and I continue. “It was horrible. I won’t get into it, but that was the beginning of years of abuse. My dad would leave me in that closet for days at a time. The stench of urine in that room was horrible in the end. I couldn’t leave to eat, drink, go to the bathroom, anything. I lost so much weight, and my mom had to stop bringing me to the doctor so they wouldn’t suspect anything.”
“He started hitting me, too. Just a slap here, a punch there. But it just kept progressing. A month later I was doing the dishes and broke a plate. My dad came over to me with a cigarette and pressed it into my back until the entire cherry went out.”
Cara gasps and lets out a sob. “Your back?” She cries, recalling the hundreds of cigarette indentations on my back.
I nod.
“That became a game to him. He loved to hear me scream out in agony. So, whatever I did wrong, whether it was something big like breaking something, or something stupid like forgetting to turn off the light switch, he started lighting up a cigarette just to put that shit out on my back.”
“What about your mom?”
I shake my head, disgust and disappointment for the woman who couldn’t even raise me. “She became a shell of a human. She didn’t back me up. Too sad and depressed over Wren’s death, she ended up an alcoholic. She wouldn’t stick up to my dad, and he ended up beating on her for random shit, too.”
“That’s terrible.”
I nod. “I thought everything was going to change when we moved to Minnesota. I was hoping things would go back to normal—or as close to it—as we could find. Things didn’t really get better though. My dad ended up getting my mom hooked on some pretty rough shit. She was basically a zombie once we moved here. My dad would still hit her, but I think he preferred when she was just so fucked up he didn’t have to deal with her.”
“What about you? Did he stop hurting you?”
I laugh. It’s bitter and filled with anger. “No. Not really. Maybe less often, sometimes. He just became smarter. Only hitting beneath the clothes. Places that wouldn’t do any serious damage or cause questions. He’s a smart fuck, that’s for sure.”
“I’m so sorry.” Cara cries in my arms, and I wrap my free arm around her and kiss her head.
“I went home tonight, and I saw my mom in her usual spot. Drugs on the table and passed out. Except I noticed when I was cleaning shit up, she wasn’t even breathing. She overdosed. I called my dad, and when he got home, he just lost his shit on me. He hasn’t hit me in the face since I was a little kid.” I shake my head. “When he was done, he told me to get out so he could clean up the mess.” I swallow the lump in my throat and chuckle. “So here I am.”
Cara sniffles, wiping her face even though the tears keep coming. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I mean… I think we all suspected something, but never really knew. Does anyone else know? Easton?”
I shake my head. The thought of everyone knowing my business makes me tense up. “No. Don’t say anything, either. Not even to Rose.”
“I won’t. I wouldn’t do that… not to you.”
I sigh and sit up, groaning when my head starts pounding. “There’s more, though. I wanted to talk to you about earlier, everything we’ve been though… I know shit is hard, Cara. I know having this baby is completely unconventional and probably not the best decision in many aspects. I’m telling you, when you first told me you were pregnant, I was raging mad. I never wanted a child because of what happened to Wren. That, and what if I end up like some kind of a psycho like my dad? I’d fucking kill myself.”
“You wouldn’t. You could never be like him.” She says it with such certainty. So much confidence in me, it makes something heal in me. Something. I don’t know what.
“You don’t know that.” I shake my head. “But when I saw you actually pregnant, something switched in me. Some switch flipped, and suddenly all I could think about was being a father. I get why you want to give the baby up, I do. But this baby is a second chance for me. I don’t want you to give me an answer right now. But can you just think about it? Can you really think about it for a little bit before you make your final answer?”
She stares at me for so long I feel like she’ll say no. Then she surprises me. “Yes.” She leans in, kissing an unbeaten spot on my cheek. “I’ll think about it.”
I grab her hands and pull her towards me. “Something about you, Cara. There’s just something about you.”
She smiles at me. “I’m a pain in your ass?”
“Fuck, among other things. But seriously, maybe it’s the wrong thing to do, but I don’t want to fuck around with this shit anymore. I’m tired of the ups and downs and all the back and forth between us. I miss Logan, and I would give my life up for him to come and be with you. I know that’s the one you want to be with, and I know you guys would’ve been something special. But… I hope that if he wanted you to be with anyone else, it would be me. I want to make my brother proud.”
“So, what’re you saying?” She bites her lip.
“I’m sayin’, I want you to be my fuckin’ girlfriend, Cara.”
She stares at me, eyes wide and in shock. “Are you serious?”
“Are you gonna fuckin’ answer?”
She laughs. “Yes, I’ll be your girlfriend.” She runs a hand down her face. “Holy shit, I’m Jackson Shaw’s girlfriend. Rose is going to freak.”
I shake my head at the girl in front of me. Not in a million years did I think we would ever be together. Even the first night we slept together, and the times after that, did I ever think we would grow into something like this. We have a shit load of stuff to sort through, but maybe we can do it in one piece.
Hopefully
20
Jackson
Age Sixteen
“No, no, no! Fu
ck!” Easton roars, chucking the controller into the couch. It bounces off and rolls to the ground in a pathetic escape.
I take a hit of the blunt we’re passing around and hand it off to Logan.
“That shit was brutal.” Logan chuckles, earning a glare from Easton.
“Fucking Kilimanjaro in Halo and I get sniped. This game fucking sucks.” Easton rips the blunt out of Logan’s offered hand and takes a hit. “I don’t know how you keep talking me into playing this shit.”
“Nothin’ else to do in this shit town.” I mumble, tossing my controller to the side and laying back. The days of riding bikes are over, and the girls are all the same here in The Grove. There’s nothing to do and shit gets boring quick.
I stand up to take a piss when Easton’s phone starts ringing. It seems like every day is blending into the next lately. It’s only the beginning of summer, and it’s already lame. I wish there was something else to do. Somewhere to go, anything, really.
On my way back to the living room, I hear Easton finishing up a call and hang up.
“What was that about?” Logan says.
“My dad wants to see us.” He’s frowning down at his phone like it can answer the million questions he has.
“All of us?” Logan asks.
My face screws up in confusion. What? Why?
“Yeah, I don’t know. He said we need to be there now, though.” He stands up and grabs his keys. “Let’s go.”
We all silently follow Easton out to his new truck. He’s the first of us to get his license. His dad took him through the course right when he turned fifteen and he took his test on his sixteenth birthday. When he got back, his dad gave him a truck.
Logan’s dad is finally taking him through the courses now. His dad won’t give him a vehicle though. He told Logan that he will have to save up and buy his own car.
My dad? I haven’t even asked him. I know he’ll just get pissed at me, probably lay one on me just for asking him in the first place. I’ll just wait, not like it’s needed right now, anyway. I’ll get it figured out eventually.