The words hit me like a slap, though she spoke quietly. “Of course. Sorry, Mom.”
“It’s okay.” She releases a soft groan as she stands. Her hand cups my cheek. I’ve never seen her face so pale and colorless. The weariness around the corners of her eyes makes my heart hurt. I’m worried her health is declining faster than we’re prepared to handle. I’ve already had to take her to the doctor before school. “Have the pie, okay?”
Working as hard as she does is destroying her, tearing away little pieces bit by bit. Despite our shitty lot in life, she still manages to find a warm smile for me.
“Yeah,” I rasp. “Get some rest, Mom.”
She hums and tucks a stray piece of limp brown hair behind her ear. I flick my nails together, a terrible nervous habit that I know she hates. I stop and lace my fingers together before I upset her.
My stomach tenses as I watch her slow retreat into the shadows of the hall. A moment later, her bedroom door clicks shut.
When my shaking knees give out, I collapse into the chair at the bistro table, cradling my head in my hands.
She’s getting worse.
Dad did this to her. First it was stress, but now I’m not so sure. Can stress slowly kill someone, sucking away their life force like a parasite over the span of years? I chew my lip, wishing I could see Dad right now. I’d scream my head off at him for being so irresponsible and selfish. Then I’d punch the bastard.
Men are such untrustworthy worms, the whole rotten lot of them.
I don’t know what to do. The bills are already so much to handle. If she collapses like she did last year, the medical bill from the emergency room is going to destroy us.
I’d quit school and get a job myself, but I’m on scholarship at Silver Lake High School. Attending the school alone is enough to open doors for me I previously believed were jammed shut for life. Graduating from Silver Lake High will be the difference between Mom and I struggling to eke by the rest of our lives and the chance at a full ride to any college I want.
Devlin better not screw me over.
My eyes burn as I flick my watery gaze over to the window, searching for flashing red and blue.
I wait for so long, my body grows stiff. The cops never come.
Seven
Blair
Nothing has happened yet.
I held out through the weekend, classes on Monday, and all of today—nothing.
Waiting for the shoe to drop is giving me an early ulcer. Not even the fresh mountain air can settle my nerves.
Devlin and I share Mr. Coleman’s English class together, but he ignored me while I ended up shooting glances his way two days in a row.
Part of me wishes he would make his move, because Mom and I need money as soon as possible, but another part of me has been walking around the sprawling campus of Silver Lake High School like an attack will come from any corner.
After the last period of the day let out, I went to the athletic fields behind the bleachers and beyond where the soccer team trains. It’s the outer field where the track and field teams like to hold practice.
The track coach blows her whistle and the girls take off for meter dashes. I tug a fistful of grass from the spot where I’m watching from, a far enough distance that they won’t be weirded out.
After all, I’m not on their track team anymore.
The mid-afternoon sun keeps me warm. I lean back on my hands and cross my stretched legs in front of me. The baggy sleeves of my secondhand button-down shirt droops down my arms.
People are always breaking the school’s uniform requirements. They’ll go around in beanies and whatever shoes they want, but while they are expressing themselves, I’m going against regulation because the blazer for the uniform is too damn expensive. I can’t find a used one. I gave up sophomore year and have worn only the white shirt and the skirt ever since. The administrative board thinks the uniforms blur the lines of class differences between the student body, but all it does is set us apart even more in my mind.
With the next shrill of the whistle, another group of girls sprint from their starting position. I lick my lips and release a sigh.
My phone lights up beside me in the grass with a text from Gemma. It’s a used iPhone I bought from a guy with a shopping cart full of devices on the shadier side of Ridgeview’s downtown. The phone isn’t the latest and greatest model, like the spoiled rich kids who get a new phone every time an upgrade releases. This one is at least four generations old. It works, despite the spiderweb of cracks in the screen. Mom and I can barely afford the cheap monthly plan, but it’s for emergencies since we don’t have a landline.
The text is a selfie of Gemma on her college campus with her boyfriend, Lucas, partially visible. She looks so happy compared to this time last year, when we first met. A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. The phone buzzes with another message.