Creed was barely around anymore, going on more runs for the club, leaving me behind to take care of what was left of our momma. He was a fucking mess, worse now that his girl was gone. Pops was no help either, he practically moved out, spending most of his time balls-deep in his whore. Not giving a flying fuck about Ma and her mental state. He probably wished she’d just kick the fucking bucket so he’d be free of that burden.
When I walked into my house, it was just as I expected. She was nowhere to be found, and in her place were empty liquor bottles piled on top of each other and scattered around everywhere. The scent of booze and stale cigarettes assaulted my senses the further in I stepped. Stopping in the middle of the living room, I looked around at the messy space that used to always be clean. The stacks of laundry that hadn’t moved in weeks from the couch, the trash sprawled about. I could still hear my momma’s voice, yelling at me to use a coaster under my drink on the coffee table that was now coated in cigarette ashes and who the fuck knows what else.
I shook my head, thinking about how my life had come to this.
Happy birthday to me.
I spent the next few hours cleaning up, praying maybe it would help her not drink. Out of sight, out of mind. To have her back, even if it was just for a few minutes, would have made my time and effort worth it. I missed the times she was so full of life, dancing around the house, making the best of the shitty hand she was dealt. Most of all, I missed talking to her. I hadn’t had a coherent conversation with her since Luke died over two years ago. She was always drunk, it didn’t matter what time or day it was. My momma was always plastered, shitfaced on the regular.
There was nothing left of the woman who raised me because I’d killed her too.
After I was done cleaning up her mess, I went to the clubhouse, desperate to just forget about how shitty our lives really had become. Which was exactly what I did. I rolled a blunt and smoked it to the face with some blonde chick with big tits and no IQ. We smoked and drank and fucked and that was how I celebrated my fourteenth birthday. High and drunk as hell, inside some chick I didn’t give a shit about.
Wishing for a different life.
Hoping for another tomorrow.
It was better than the alternative. I started picking fights, purposely brawling with guys I didn’t know and some that I did. Craving to feel in control with any aspect of my life. Nothing described the feeling of taking my anger out on someone’s face. It made me recognize that maybe my old man and I were more alike than I had ever imagined.
Terrifying me in ways I never thought possible.
“Where you headed, boy?” Pops called out from behind me as I was walking out of the clubhouse.
Pulling me away from my thoughts about my birthday almost a month ago, I stopped and turned to face him. “Home,” I stated.
He snidely scoffed, “For what? They ain’t nothin’ for you there but a fuckin’ drunk.”
“No shit. Gonna go check on her.”
“Why? She don’t give a fuck ’bout you. The only thing she gives a shit ’bout are her liquor bottles. Let her fuckin’ be. I hope she drowns in her fuckin’ puke, save me the money to havta bury her when her liver finally fuckin’ kicks it.”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered under my breath.
“What the fuck you say?”
I shook my head. “Nothin’.” It wasn’t worth arguing with him, and I wasn’t in the mood for a bloody lip or a black eye.
“That’s what I thought. Now get the fuck outta here, and take your bullshit of checkin’ on that waste of fuckin’ air with you. Shoulda’ known better than to make her my old lady, she can’t even suck my dick let alone take care of her family. Go make yourself fuckin’ useful and scratch off the serial numbers on the new gun shipment in the back, you pussy ass momma’s boy. I ain’t raisin’ no lil’ bitch.”
My eyes caught Diesel’s from across the room, giving me a curt nod. Silently, letting me know it was alright to go check on her, he’d take care of the serial numbers for me.
“What dafuq you lookin’ at, boy?”
“Nothin’.” I shrugged, meeting his eyes again. “Just listenin’ to ya.”
“Good. Now go before I change my mind and make you clean the fuckin’ toilets instead.”
I didn’t have to be told twice, I got the hell outta there. Not that where I was headed to was any better. Ma’s car was in the driveway, so at least she wasn’t out drinking and driving again.
“Ma!” I shouted, closing the front door behind me.
There were piles of empty liquor bottles everywhere, it didn’t even look like the same house I had cleaned a few weeks ago. The place was a wreck again, smelling of booze and cigarettes.
“Ma, you here?” I asked, walking around the house. Checking every room until I finally found her. “Fuck,” I breathed out, taking in the sight of her on the dining room floor. I couldn’t tell if she fell off the chair and knocked herself out, or if she just passed out from a liquor-induced coma.
It was hard to decipher, given the half empty bottle she still clutched in her bony hand, while Luke’s baby blanket was firmly grasped in the other. He still used it up until the day he died, it laid on his bed and he’d bitch every time Creed or I hid it from him. Which only made us hide it more. I shook off the memory, glancing at all the open photo albums that were on the table, and then to the Polaroids on the floor surrounding her. They were all photos of Luke, happy, smiling, alive.
And I swear it killed me a little more.
“Ma,” I urged, crouching down beside her. “Come on, Momma, please get up.” I shook her, trying to wake her up but she wasn’t responding. I called out her name a few more times, shook her harder, and when I was just about to reach for the phone to call 911, she finally stirred awake. Babbling some bullshit that made no sense.
I breathed a heavy, deep sigh and closed my eyes. My head suddenly pounding, the walls feeling like they were caving in on me as I fell back to lean against the wall.
“Luke…” she groaned, making me immediately open my eyes. She was sluggishly shaking her head back and forth.
“Ma, can you hear me?”
“Baby…” She lazily opened her bloodshot eyes, and it was the first time, in I don’t know how long, I really took a good look at her.
Staring deep into her drunken, vacant gaze that once showed so much love for me. Desperately searching to find her, needing to see the real woman staring back at me. The mother I still had and wanted in my mind. The same one I prayed still lived inside of her, buried under all the hurt and pain. Hidden behind all the happy memories that had become her worst nightmares.
I cleared my throat and looked away. I had to. Hiding behind the pain in my tears, I blinked those away too. There was nothing left of the woman I remembered and silently hoped I would eventually forget. Knowing I wouldn’t, she’d always be my mother, and at the end of the day I’d take her any way I could.
“Come on, Momma,” I coaxed, picking her up and cradling her frail body in my arms. She was nothing but skin and bones, she weighed nothing. It was like carrying a child. A hollow shell of a human being too far gone.
The second I stood, she threw up all over me and herself. “Ugh…” she groaned. “Sorrrry, baby… I’m just soooo tirrrred.”
I swallowed hard, battling the stench of liquor, puke, and her. “I know, Momma. I know,” I reassured her, walking toward the bathroom. Fighting the urge to vomit, the bile raising in my throat every second it took to get her to her bathroom.
“Baby, haaave you seeeen Luke?” she asked, her head wobbling all over.
“No, Ma, I haven’t seen Luke.”
She did this sometimes, asked me about Luke as if he was still alive. I shouldn’t have encouraged it, but I couldn’t help myself. The guilt was eating me alive. If it made her feel better to think he was still with us, then who was I to take yet another thing away from her.
“Baby, you thinnnk he commmin’ home today?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I
’ll tell him to come see you, okay?”
She lethargically smiled. “Okay, baby… where we goinnn’?” she slurred even worse as I softly set her against the cold tile next to the bathtub, making sure to lean her upright so she wouldn’t fall over and hurt herself. Not that it mattered, but I wasn’t going to let it happen when she was with me.
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere. Gonna draw you a bath, Ma. Get ya nice and cleaned up, alright?”
“Mmm kay, baby.”
I sat up to turn on the tub’s faucet, leaning over her to adjust the temperature. Once it was warm enough, I plugged the drain and grabbed some fruity bubble shit I found under her sink. She used to love taking baths, it must have been left over from before. Grabbing a towel, I threw it beside me and crouched down in front of her again.
“Alright, Momma,” I exclaimed. “Gonna take you out of these dirty clothes, and I’m gonna give ya a bath, yeah?”
“Isss Luke home now?” she asked with great big hopeful eyes. Looking at me like she was the child and I was the parent.
“No.” I shook my head. “But the faster you let me clean you up, the quicker we can go wait for him.”
She drunkenly nodded. “Okkkay, baby.”
I grabbed the bottom of her dress and slid it off her, throwing the ruined fabric in the trash behind me. In normal circumstances this would have been awkward as all hell, me seeing my mother in only her bra and panties, but the only thing I fucking noticed was how skinny she was sitting there in her drunken stupor. She was nothing but skin and bones and liquor.
“God, Momma, I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I’m so sorry I did this to you,” I murmured to myself, feeling like the piece of shit I was.
She was beyond out of it, not paying me any mind as I pried Luke’s blanket out of her hands and carried her willowing body into the bathtub. Turning off the faucet, I grabbed a cup that was sitting on the edge of the tub and slowly began pouring water over her head. Pulling out chunks of god knows what from the puke in her hair. I washed it a few times because who the hell knows when she was going to shower again.
“Hmm,” she groaned when I was massaging her scalp.
“Feel good, yeah?”
“Thannk you, baby.”
She was in and out of consciousness the entire time, babbling incoherent shit or asking about Luke. It was one or the other. It didn’t take me long to get her washed up though, and I dressed her into some fresh, clean clothes. When I was done, I brushed her hair and laid her in bed, trying to get her to drink some water but she refused, clinging on to Luke’s blanket instead.
I waited in the bedside chair until she passed out, lost in my own plaguing thoughts, and just when I thought I was going to lose my shit and start bawling. Falling apart like my mind and body yearned to do, I heard Skyler’s voice.
Singing for me.
“Just thinkin’ about tomorrow. Clears away the sadness, the rain, and the emptiness. ‘Till it’s not there.”
Giving me the push I needed to keep going.
I kissed my momma’s forehead, whispering, “I love you.”
Only to hear her murmur back, “I love you too, Luke.”
I jerked back, hurt and winded. She hadn’t said she loved me since he died, and when she finally does it wasn’t even me she was saying it to. I don’t know what hurt worse, never hearing her say the words or hearing her say it to the son I took away from her.
Taking one last look at her sleeping body, I turned and left. Moving on autopilot, needing to run away.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
I needed some air, some clarity, something.
Anything.
Other than what I was feeling.
Before I knew it, I was riding on the bridge over the river, to the one place that gave me peace. Never in a million years expecting what was happening in front of my eyes. Making me feel like I couldn’t fucking breathe all over again, because another life was being taken away…
From me.
SEVEN
NOAH
“Fuck!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, all the blood suddenly draining from my face and body.
My heart lodging itself in my throat as I flew off my bike toward the bridge railing. Watching her body float face down, being dragged by the rampant current. My eyes frantically searched for a passage, whatever I could find to help her. They landed right on a boulder that was slightly sticking out of the river, a few yards in front of her lifeless body.
“Skyler! Help! Someone help me! Skyler!”
And I didn’t think.
I didn’t hesitate.
I didn’t allow the fear to take over.
It was instinctual.
She was instinctual.
I jumped, feet first and fully clothed.
Soaring through the air off the bridge, plummeting into the dark depths of the freezing water beneath me. As soon as my body went under, I fought with everything inside of me to resurface, not knowing which way was up or down. Already feeling the current sweeping my body away. It was stronger than anything I could have ever imagined.
Pushing…
Pulling…
My way to the top.
My lungs felt like they were going to burst the longer I battled my way to the surface. The longer the water denied me air. Thinking only about Skyler and how I needed to get to her. She was a ticking time bomb in my core, in my mind, in every inch of my body.
Twenty seconds with no air.
Thirty seconds.
Forty-five.
Fifty.
Each second that ticked by was another moment of hell. My adrenaline kicked into overdrive, replacing everything but the need to get to her. Until finally…
I gasped.
Long and deep and hard.
My head above water, fresh air in my lungs, coughing, wheezing, greedy for my next breath. I didn’t have time to catch my breath before I was battling again, this time with the full-fledged current. Being hauled in the same direction her body was being dragged by the treacherous stream. Despite the distance between us and the water propelling my body with so much force as I swam, paddling and kicking as hard as I could along with it, I saw her.
I finally fucking saw her again.
She was a few feet in front of me, being towed just as fast as I was, and she wasn’t even swimming. There was nothing that could compare to the strength of Mother Nature when she was fucking pissed. Nothing compared to that current as I struggled to keep my head above water and my body from giving out on me from the force of her fury and rage. Not to mention the frigid temperature that had my body fighting from going into shock. But the bitch didn’t deter me from what I needed to do, even though I knew I might get fucked. I paddled faster and harder, mirroring her anger and wrath. Trying to shake off the looming feeling in the back of my mind that Skyler might be dead. That I was risking my life to save hers.
It didn’t matter.
Nothing ever did when it came to her.
The boulder came into sight and I only had seconds to reach her, grab her, and ultimately pull this off to hopefully save both our lives. I took a deep, sturdy breath and for the first time in all my life, I peered to the heavens above and prayed.
“Please, please, let me save her. Please…” I internally pleaded, praying to whoever was up there looking down upon me.
And just as I returned my gaze to the water, I realized she was finally within reach and I acted fast. I knew I was out of time, so I forcefully gripped onto the first thing I could. Grabbing her hair by the nape of her neck, yanking her as hard as I could toward me. Instantly spinning my torso around so my chest was to the current, strategically hugging her motionless body against me with all the strength I could muster.
“Skyler! Come on, baby, wake up! I’m here, I’m going to get you out of here,” I reassured with no response from her at all. I held onto her for dear life, there was no way in hell I was letting her go.
Not now, not
ever.
If we weren’t to survive this, at least we’d be together when we took our last breaths. Like Romeo and fucking Juliet or some shit. I shut my eyes and waited, trying to mentally prepare myself for what was yet to come. Bracing myself as best I could for the impact that could possibly take me under.
With or without my consent.
Moments later, my back and head hit the boulder with so much intensity it almost knocked me out cold. My ears began to ring, my head rolled to the side, and I hissed and grunted loudly, my whole body seizing with sudden pain surging through every inch of my frame.
Burning.
Aching.
Throbbing.
Crippling my senses and vision. I repeatedly blinked, seeing only white spots as the current continued to ram my body deeper and firmer into the solid rock with Skyler still held tightly in my arms, against my chest. Feeling her dead weight along with the rapid flow jamming into me made it almost impossible to move. I felt agony in places I didn’t even know possible, burning like hell. I had no time to contemplate how bad I fucked myself up because I needed to get us out of danger before my core completely shut down.
The force of the raging water against the boulder becoming too much, crushing bone by bone in my body. The undertow digging into my ankles, trying to pull me under. More water filling my lungs. I fought, I fought with everything I had left in me to save us. Keep our heads above the surface.
“HELP! Please someone help us!” I let out a gurgled yell, but it was no use.
My ribs ached from the ruthless beating, and my throat felt raw from all the water intake I couldn’t control. With my vision still hazy, I wrestled getting my hand up to Skyler’s chin so I could angle her head against my shoulder. Wanting to get her face out of the water. When I finally did, I breathed out a sigh of relief and satisfaction, feeling like I conquered at least one more task. When all odds were against me.
My defeat didn’t last long because my body rapidly started feeling numb and the staggering pain slowly began subsiding. I knew I didn’t have much time left until my body turned against me, until the current knocked me off this boulder and then there’d truly be no hope for us. I was panting, exhaustion trying to take over.