by Tara West
“I’m sure she just needs a ride.” I do my best to sound upbeat, even though I feel this sinking feeling in my gut. Karri has to be back on drugs. “Do you want me to go get her?”
I instantly regret my offer. The last thing I want to do is go to Karri’s apartment, but I feel partially responsible for my friend’s fuckups. Maybe because the last time Karri was doing meth, I did the stupid thing and helped her conceal her addiction, not to protect Karri, but to protect Mrs. Peterson. I knew the poor woman would keel over if she found out. Karri had promised me she’d quit, and like an idiot, I believed her.
“My bridge club will be here in a half hour,” Mrs. Peterson says, and there is no mistaking the desperation in her voice.
“Okay. I’ll come over and get Tyler,” I say. I make no promise to take Ty to his mother. If Karri wants her baby, she can come get him. Besides, if she’s back on meth, I don’t want to leave the baby in her care, anyway.
“You wouldn’t mind?” Mrs. Peterson’s tone is a mixture of relief and despair.
“You know I love Ty.” I’m already slipping on a pair of jeans as I scan the room for my flip flops.
“You are such a dear girl,” Mrs. Peterson says through a sigh. “I don’t know what we’d ever do without you.”
And there is the reason I haven’t broken off my friendship with Karri. Because no matter how badly she pisses me off, Ty and Mrs. Peterson depend on me. This, of course, makes me resent Karri even more. In a way, I resent myself, too, for standing by and doing nothing while she makes a mess of everyone’s lives.
Chapter Eight
A half hour later, I pull into my driveway with a strawberry-haired, pudgy-faced infant in the back seat. He’s sleeping, so I decide to let the car idle a while. If I try to move him, he’ll only wake up and proceed to throw a tantrum. My mom would freak if she saw how his car seat digs into the pristine leather of my expensive guilt-mobile.
Yes, that’s right, a Lexus RX my dad bought for me for high school graduation. I wasn’t expecting it, not after the money they were shelling out for college, and not after my dad’s secretary embezzled millions and almost bankrupted his company.
But I guess after nearly three years of feeling like shit for raping me, my dad finally caved and bought the Lexus. Maybe he thought I’d forgive him when he came home with the shiny silver SUV. As if a material thing can make up for him violating not only my body, but my mind and spirit.
After the rape, I went through a total transformation. I withdrew, not just physically, but mentally, from the world. I dropped out of my school clubs and stopped hanging out with my friends, preferring solitude to the company of others. In fact, I would have abandoned all of my friends if Karri hadn’t hounded me. She was the one person I let in, and the one I finally confided in.
I just didn’t have the strength to face the world, not after what I went through. I close my eyes and try to shut out painful memories of that night, but the images still plague me, raping my mind, just as my dad had once done to my body. After he’d rolled off me, he slapped me across the face and told me it was my fault for dressing like a whore. I remember scooting against my headboard and crouching in a ball, blood dripping down my thighs and smearing my sheets. I shivered as the fan above me chilled my nude flesh, but I was too terrified to reach for a blanket.
I remember the hurt, confusion, and fear that had welled up inside me. I didn’t know I’d been dressing like a whore. Even though I was a high school sophomore, I still let my mom pick out my clothes. She had insisted, saying she had a better eye for the current fashions.
But my dad had told me I was asking for it by wearing low-rise skinny jeans and tight T-shirts. After he stumbled out of my room and left me sobbing into my pillow, dark thoughts tormented me. I thought maybe he was right, so the following week I opted to wear oversized shirts and heavy jackets. I brushed my hair forward so people wouldn’t see my face. I was afraid if people noticed me, they might see the shame I carried, or worse, they might want to rape me, too.
Every night I double-checked to see I’d locked the door. I even wedged a chair beneath my door handle for good measure. I didn’t want to take any chances of being molested again.
My clothes continued to get bigger, and I barely ate as I withdrew from the world more and more. The change in appearance distressed my mom to no end. As the months dragged on, my dad kept repeating that I was just going through a phase. Never once did he let on what he’d done.
Karri knew the truth. I carried feelings of inadequacy and guilt like a noose around my neck until Karri convinced me to snap out of it. It wasn’t my fault, she kept telling me. Finally, one day, I believed her.
That was the day I decided I’d no longer punish myself for what my dad had done to me—I’d punish him instead. I treated him with cold indifference until he died a year later.
A tap on my window startles me, and I look up to see my mom standing outside my door, hands on hips, giving me the death stare. I hear a soft whimper behind me before it turns into a loud wail.
No doubt the Wicked Witch frightens Tyler, too.
After I unstrap Tyler’s seat from the car, Mom gives me the once over and turns her gaze to the baby in my arms, scowling at Ty like he’s a case of the plague.
From day one, Mom has made it perfectly clear she doesn’t like Karri’s baby. She refused to go to Karri’s baby shower. All the times I’ve babysat Ty, she wouldn’t come within ten feet of him.
“It’s not the baby I despise,” she once told me. “It’s what your stupid friend has done with her life.”
“It’s not Ty’s fault,” I’d told my mom. “You could at least be nice to him.”
“Why should I?” Mom pouted. “And encourage your friend to breed more bastards?”
“News flash, Mom. Karri doesn’t care whether or not you approve of her lifestyle.”
But nothing I said ever worked on my mom. She was determined to hate this poor, defenseless baby, all because he wasn’t conceived by the right parents.
* * *
Tyler and I play upstairs in my bedroom so my mom doesn’t have to be offended by his “obnoxious giggling” and “strange baby odor.”
I keep a little basket of toys in my closet for Tyler’s visits, so he crawls after a windup toy until he becomes bored, and then he giggles at a few hand puppets I made for him in one of my art classes. I have to keep redirecting him because he desperately wants to topple my easel and paints.
We play like this for a half hour until he finally tires us both out and rests on my bed with a bottle. I build a fortress of pillows around him so he doesn’t roll off.
When he finally falls asleep, I get a text from Karri. Mom says you have Tyler?
How do I respond to her message? No, I sold him on eBay.
Cruel, I know, but she deserves it after neglecting her child for an entire day.
Ha, ha! She texts back. Robbie is bringing me to get him.
Every muscle in my body tenses up when I think about that greaseball inside my house. I don’t want him to know where I live.
Oh, please, she responds. I imagine her rolling her eyes through the phone. It’s not like he can’t use Google to find you.
He’s not allowed in my house, I answer back.
Don’t worry. He doesn’t like snakes. By snakes, she’s referring to my mother, AKA The Spitting Cobra, a name Karri pinned on her years ago. Be there in twenty, she adds.
I set down the phone and crawl across my bed to Tyler. His cherubic little mouth has fallen open and the empty bottle lies askew on the pillow. I wipe a drop of milk off his cheek and kiss his forehead. Poor guy. I worry about him going home with Karri. I worry he’ll be neglected if she’s back on meth. A lead weight sinks in my stomach when I realize I must confront her when she gets here. I can’t let her take him home unless I’m sure he’ll be safe.
I lie down beside Ty and gently drape my arm across his little body as I turn my gaze toward the pale pink canopy of my fou
r-poster bed, the bed I begged my mom to buy me after my dad’s death.
I remember seeing it in the department store. My mom told me it reminded her of a princess bed, and I begged her for it, even though all those pink frills were a little too girly. Actually, I thought the bed was hideous, and I still do, but I have never been raped in this bed, and I sink into its cozy, pillow-top mattress.
The billowy comforter envelops little Tyler like a cloud, and I smile as his nose twitches and he lets out a soft sigh. I wish there is some way I can protect him from the monsters outside this room, because I know they’re out there. I lived with one for eighteen years. It terrifies me to think of who could hurt Tyler, too.
Chapter Nine
I hear loud rumbling as a truck pulls into my driveway. Karri’s fuck buddy is here. My mom will be pissed when she sees him. Whatever he’s driving, sounds like it’s missing a muffler. I scoot off my bed and rush to the window.
Oh, God. The truck is even uglier than it sounds. I do a double-take at the paint job, which isn’t a paint job at all, but rusty primer. The monster tires are balding on the sides, and the truck is missing a tailgate and the front fender. Probably the only thing of value is the booming stereo system, which rattles my bedroom windows.
My mom screams my name from the downstairs foyer, and I know she’s seen the truck. She’s probably terrified that big eyesore will lower the value of our home, or worse, that one of her country club friends will see someone of such low class parked in our driveway.
I check one more time on the baby before I rush downstairs. Karri is already at the door, holding her finger on the bell. I swing the door open, exasperated when I see she’s popping bubble gum while fiddling with one of the many studs in her earlobe. Her usually spiked pink hair is wild and uncombed, her makeup is smudged, yet she’s wearing this casual smile on her face as if she just got laid. Either that, or she’s still buzzing from the meth. I decide it’s probably a little bit of both.
“What the hell, Karri?” I snap.
Her eyes widen and she tilts her head, looking at me as if I’m the one who’s on drugs. Finally, she juts a hand on her hip and narrows her eyes. “What’s your problem?”
Un-fucking-believable. The girl has to be smoking some serious shit if she doesn’t see what’s wrong with this scenario.
“What’s my problem?” I growl. “You leave your kid all day. You don’t even bother to call your mom and tell her you’re okay.” I wave toward the hunk of junk defiling my driveway. “Then you show up at my door with that loser?”
She rolls her eyes before pushing past me. “That loser is my only method of transportation right now.” She turns to me with an expectant glare. “Where’s my kid?”
I gape at her. Anger seizes my chest and infuses my skull.
No “sorry.” No “thank you.” She doesn’t even ask how Tyler is doing.
“Your kid is sleeping,” I hiss.
“Good,” she says as she marches up the stairs, her heavy combat boots thudding against the hardwood. “Maybe he’ll sleep through the night.”
Of course, I think to myself. That way you can party without interruptions.
She’s already scooping him off the bed when I get to my room. Ty whimpers as Karri straps him into the carrier. She makes no effort to comfort her child.
Why am I standing here watching this when I should be smacking her upside the head?
As she turns to exit my bedroom, I jump in front of her, blocking her path.
Karri rolls her eyes. “Would you move?” she grumbles. “Robbie is waiting.”
Like I give a rat’s ass about Robbie.
She tries to walk around me, but I step to the side and latch onto her arm. “How can you do this to Ty?”
“What?”
“You’re back on meth, Karri. Don’t lie to me.”
“No, I’m not,” she says.
I don’t like how she averts her gaze when I try to make eye contact.
“Karri, come on,” I plead, hating the note of desperation that slips into my voice. I need to make her understand she’s not just placing her life in danger, but Ty’s, too.
Karri smacks loudly on her chewing gum while giving me a glare. “Oh, you’re the meth expert now? A girl wants to have a little fun, so she must be on drugs?”
“Karri, listen to me,” I say, not buying the bullshit that she’s just having “a little fun.” “You can’t be a mom and a meth head.”
“No shit.” Her voice rises, and Tyler squirms and fusses in his carrier. “I’m not a fucking user. Robbie and I had too many beers last night. I was hung over.”
Oh, I think to myself. That makes it all better. “Getting wasted on beer is bad enough, but I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t give a shit what you believe,” she snaps as she uses the carrier to knock me out of the way.
I tumble to the side, but grasp the wall for support and spin around. She’s already marching down the stairs. Fear and rage fuel my movements as I chase after her. “Why didn’t you have the money to get the oil changed in your car?” I call at her back.
She reaches the center landing with a thud, rattling the carrier in her grip. She turns on me, as I stumble toward the landing. “Um, maybe it’s because I’m a single mom paying for all of Ty’s shit by myself.”
“Your mom buys his diapers and clothes.” My voice rises along with my ire. “The welfare department gives you formula.”
Her smile thins as she narrows her eyes. “I pay for his daycare.”
I look down at Ty, who is fully awake now. His eyes are wide and watery and he whimpers while sucking his thumb.
My head feels like a pressure cooker, ready to explode in a fit of rage. My vision tunnels on Karri. “What is it for an oil change, like thirty bucks?”
Karri averts her gaze as her shoulders fall. “Okay, so I fucked up. What do you want me to say?” she asks in the most pitiful voice ever, as if she’s been victimized by her own stupidity.
I shake my head. Even though I should feel vindication that she finally admits to screwing up, the disgust I feel for her leaves a sour taste in my mouth. “I should have told your mom a long time ago.”
Karri’s eyes widen. “Don’t you dare. What kind of friend are you?”
I clench my fists in a lame attempt to hold back my anger, but I’ve had enough of Karri’s bullshit. The pressure cooker inside my brain explodes, and I unleash a verbal assault. “This isn’t about us, you dumbass. This is about what’s best for Ty!”
Karri doesn’t even blink. She looks at me with derision in her eyes, as if she knows this isn’t the real Christina yelling. This is that other Christina who’s still learning how to assert herself. That other Christina will lose her momentum and the real Christina will resurface, eager to please everyone and put up with being treated like a doormat.
“You know what?” she says as her condescending glare travels the length of my body. “I’ve had enough of your bullshit.” She turns and clutches Ty’s carrier to her chest before marching down the rest of the stairs.
Panic seizes my limbs, and I find myself rooted to the spot, unable to stop her as she reaches the bottom step. “Where are you going?”
“Out of here,” she calls over her shoulder.
I don’t know where I find the strength to move, but I sprint after her. “Leave Ty with me. You’re in no condition to take care of him.” I follow her through the foyer, determined to stop her.
When she reaches the door, her shoulders and neck are rigid as she grips the handle with whitened knuckles. “You’re not his mom, I am,” she speaks on a low growl, not even bothering to turn around and face me.
I vehemently shake my head as tears well up in my eyes. “You’re not a mom. You’re a user.”
Karri slowly turns toward me. She plasters on a smile that doesn’t mask the hatred in her eyes. “Fuck off, Christina.”
She jerks open the front door. The big greaseball is standing on the threshold. He�
��s got this dark look in his eyes, like he’s a bull waiting to charge. And just like that I lose my nerve because the guy terrifies me.
Karri shoots me this smug look, and then saunters up to the greaseball and hands him the carrier. She stretches out a thin, bruised arm and shoots me the bird before sauntering off.
When they settle the baby seat in the center of the truck, not even bothering to strap him in, my heart sinks to my stomach. I realize that my friendship with Karri is over. For some reason, that doesn’t upset me as much as it should. But when I think of losing Ty, a blade twists inside my heart. I clutch my chest with one hand while watching them drive off.
How could Karri do this? How could I let her do this?
Chapter Ten
My mom is standing at the bottom of the stairs, hands on hips, looking ten degrees of pissed off when I brush past her. “What the hell was that about?”
“Nothing.” I heave a sigh as I turn toward her. I know she is still angry with me for dumping Jackson, and Karri’s intrusion is all she needs to rip me a new one.
Her lips pinch together, and she slowly unscrews her face. I know it takes all of her effort to force a smile. “Jackson called me. He said you’re not answering his text messages,” she says in a haughty tone before looking at me as if I’m Prince, her little Shih Tzu, and I’ve just crapped on the carpet.
“So?” I say, feigning indifference as I check for imaginary grime beneath my cherry candy-colored manicure. “We broke up, remember?”
Mom’s lips twist again, the rage simmering beneath her plastic veneer. “Call him, Christina. It’s not too late to fix this.”
I roll my eyes to the ceiling. “What if I don’t want to fix this?”
Mom wags a finger at me like I’m an errant child. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Look at what Jackson is offering you. A lifetime of security and comfort. Do you want to end up like that tramp friend of yours? I saw the lowlife in that hideous truck.”
“Just because I don’t want to marry that asshole does not mean I’m going to end up like Karri.” Sure, I haven’t had the best taste in men (Jackson is a case in point) but I’m not a total idiot like Karri.