Page 12 of Ballistic

Opening it a crack, I peered into the darkness, listening for any sound, any sign of movement.

Nothing.

Pushing through the door, I entered her room that stood empty, and tiptoed across toward the bathroom.

Alongside the toilet, momma lay curled up on the floor, the bottle of whiskey held to her chest. I dropped to my knees and set my ear to her mouth, feeling the faint warmth of her breath against my skin.

Still alive.

“Momma?” I shook her arm, but she just curled into a tighter ball.

“Lee’me ‘lone.”

“Momma, what’s wrong?”

Reaching over her head, she nabbed the yellow sheet of paper and handed it to me. “’Viction. We’omeless.” Sniffles turned to sobbing and she curled herself around the base of the toilet. “He’s kick’n’ us out.”

“We’re gonna be okay.”

Her body seized with a sniffle, and she shook her head. “We’re not. We’re fucked. God hates me. God hates both of us. We nothin’ but lowly sinners.”

“No.” I lowered to the floor and tucked myself against her back, lying beside her on the cold linoleum. My arms took in the feel of her too-skinny, trembling body. “He can’t kick us out. We’re not going anywhere.”

A barky cough bounced off the walls, and she scrambled out of my grasp, just making it to the toilet in time to expel the sour smelling vomit, before plopping back down onto the floor. “Be so much easier … if it was just me.”

If I’d let her words slice me, I’d be admitting they were stronger than I was, so I swallowed back the tears in my eyes, instead. She wasn’t always that way. I liked to think, sometimes, maybe she’d smiled at me when I was a baby, wrapped up in a blanket in her arms. That maybe there was one moment in my life she’d wanted to be my mother.

Everything inside of me told me to leave and let her cry alone on the bathroom floor. But even if she didn’t think she wanted me, I still loved her. Because I was a stupid kid, and kids loved harder than adults.

We lay there for a while, until she finally passed out. As horrible as it made me to think it, there were times I wished she wouldn’t wake up, because when she slept, there was a vulnerability about her. Our relationship was like a Band-Aid that begged to be ripped off, and yet, there I was with my head pressed into her spine, hands tucked between us, as if I needed her.

“I hate you,” I whispered against her skin, feeling my words bounce against my face in every harsh breath. “I hate you for everything. When you ignore me. When you spend all our food money on your shitty liquor. When you bring disgusting pigs into our house. I hate you for never asking me about school. For never showing up. For embarrassing me. And I hate you right now.”

The more I said aloud, the more I wanted to say, so I clamped my lips shut and screwed my eyes tight, trying to think of anything else. My dad. The house we once lived in. Nothing came to mind.

9464317895338681.

The stupid credit card number of that rich asshole filled up my brain, instead. I opened my eyes.

“I have an idea, Momma.”

* * *

Funny how love could sometimes be a lifeline and a noose. I could’ve laughed at the stupidity of it—the girl who begged to be loved so much she’d up and sold her soul to the devil.

I heaved again, my eyes squinting as the acids shot up into my sinuses.

“’Sokay. Get that shit out of you.” That voice from earlier cut through my thoughts.

At a soothing hand stroking my arm, I opened my eyes on a blurred form sitting alongside me. Through a shield of clear, jelly-like tears, I blinked to focus on it, trying to make out some familiar detail, practically begging for distraction from the slow-building pain spreading through my muscles that promised a world of misery.

The blurry form moved about in my periphery, and I tried to follow its path, but another round of acids rumbled in my stomach. I turned over freely, weakly hoisting myself up on an elbow, while the burn shot up into my sinuses.

My body flew up from the bed, the spinning of the room disorienting me, stirring the nausea in my gut. I tucked in my head, and as the warmth and tickle across my cheek was accompanied by the delicious masculine scent from before, hunger struck my belly with the sudden urge to lick and devour that intoxicating smell, quickly tamped down by cramps radiating down into the pit of my stomach.

I tipped my head back, catching the black markings of his tattooed chest, and lifted my gaze higher, unable to make out the features of his face. “Please.” I needed another dose. Didn’t care if I had to take one every hour for the rest of my life, I just wanted the pain to end.

“I promise I’ll make you feel better. Just sit tight, baby.”