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Well, almost.
I don’t dwell on the horrible grain of truth in that last part.
It’s not worth risking more wasted breath on this woman.
So I turn and march on, my jaw set, moving even when she shrieks her gibberish threats, telling me she’ll hurt herself, so desperate to make me care one more time.
“Christopher, hey, come back! You don’tgetto walk out... I’ll have you thrown out if you don’t fucking listen. We’ll see how much of a fight you put up when they’re hauling you off to jail!”
I roll my eyes.
It’s the same crap she used to threaten me with before, when I rebelled in my teens.
Before I knew better, the police scared me. Dad left me with a healthy fear of cops and I was too young to understand they’d probably catch on to the one-way abuse.
Then one day when I was sixteen, she did it.
I came home pissed off from the greyhound rescue. Her ex, Greg, was so nice he offered to let me hang around with the dogs as much as I wanted.
But I saw how she wrecked him, and even if he smiled to my face, my presence was one reminder of the rot she’d left in his life.
So I said my goodbyes to Snoot and Blinkey—two hulking fawn-brown dogs with stilts for legs who’d lived with us before Evie kicked Greg out in a shrieking rage. I let them lick my face till it was damn near chapped while I gave them a lifetime of pets.
Then I came home to a house that reeked so strongly of pot and booze I gagged the second I stepped inside.
Ma saw me dragging my ass in, moping, and she knew why.
Of course, she was pissed.
Because she was with Tanner or Tim or whatever the fuck.
“Such a fun guy,” she kept saying. And wasn’t it just the best thing ever that Tanner-Tim wanted to bring us up to the beach house his rich parents owned in Lincoln City, Oregon, for the next weekend?
Never mind that I had work at this lifeguard job I’d just taken.
Never mind that I was still so torn up about leaving those awesome dogs, I shoved Mr. Fun Guy’s overly friendly hand off my shoulder.
So hard he went spinning into the fridge and banged his head.
Ma went ballistic. I retreated to my room and had my headphones on, drowning her out while she flung herself against my door, screaming at her latest boy toy to knock it the fuck down.
“Get the hell out here, you ungrateful little shit!”
Fun Guy was swearing at me, struggling to take the door off its hinges with a screwdriver, but I’d already shoved my bed against it.
When I lifted one headphone off and the pounding and screaming finally stopped, I thought they’d given up and blown without me.
I walked out into the kitchen to make myself an omelet.
Two stone-faced officers were standing at the front door with Ma and dickhead. She told them point-blank I’d threatened her boyfriend after refusing to get in the car with her and the drunken beach bum.
Oh, and that awful marijuana—you can guess who she blamed that on.
The officers were smart, thank fuck. After a thorough search and a quick talk with me, they figured out the truth, or close enough.
The cops damn near hauled her away instead, but Fun Guy took the fall, claiming the entire fat bag of Mary Jane was his. He was hauled away in handcuffs and we never saw him again.
Back in the present, I’m seeing that night like it was yesterday, clear as day.
