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“Dad? Why are we running away from Dad? I thought we were just going to visit Aunt Lucy?”
“And we are, baby. We just need to make a little detour first,” Mom lies through her teeth.
Gage’s forehead wrinkles, he’s not buying what our mother is selling. “I don’t want to go to Aunt Lucy’s anymore. I want to go home.”
“See what your big mouth did?” Mom scolds, swerving so carelessly that the seatbelt cuts through my shoulder. I swallow the pain and turn to ease Gage’s reluctance.
“But don’t you want me to get you that bag I promised? I can’t do that if we turn around and go home.”
I see the wheels spinning in his tiny brain, but my optimism takes a nosedive when he starts shaking his head.
“I don’t want it anymore. I want to go home. I need to apologize to Dad for messing with his things. I shouldn’t have gone to the garage in the first place. I know that now. So let’s all just go home so I can tell him I’m sorry!” he yells, shifting closer to Zoey just so he can kick Mom’s seat in his tantrum.
“No one is going home!” Mom yells from the driver’s seat. “Now shut your trap, Gage. It’s all your fault we have to leave anyway. Why you had to mess with his guns is beyond me. How stupid are you? I swear I have idiots for kids. Not a winning one in the bunch.”
I close my eyes and count to five so I don’t lose it on her. I’m used to her being mean to me, but when she loses her temper with the little ones, my protectiveness comes out like a tidal wave.
“Will you just shut up?” I yell. “Can’t you see you’re making things worse for them? They aren’t at fault here. You are, Alice.”
She scoffs. “I’ve had it up to here with you and your mouth too. The minute we get to Lucy’s, I want you out. You’re sixteen. You can take care of yourself. I don’t want you living under my roof anymore. You’re a burden.”
I know she’s bluffing.
She’s been threatening to kick me out since I was twelve and she found Roy copping a feel of my ass.
Yeah, sure, Mom. I’m the one at fault for your lousy life choices.
In the end, though, she never follows through, and that’s because I’m the one who takes care of Zoey and Gage while she parties. I’m about to say as much when I see a stray dog run across the road.
“Watch out!” I scream.
Alice swerves to avoid hitting the animal, but her grip slips on the wheel and she loses control of the car. We veer off the road and ram into a tree. Shards of glass shower over me, leaving little cuts all over my face, chest, and shoulders. My neck hurts like nothing I’ve ever felt before, and my ears ring from the violent crash.
“Gage. Zoey,” I mumble, trying to clear the fog in my head. “Gage. Zoey. Answer me. Are you guys okay?”
“My head hurts,” Zoey says after an excruciating amount of time as I manage to stiffly turn to check on them.
There is an ugly gash on her forehead and blood streaking down her precious face. I unlatch my seatbelt and crawl my way to the backseat to make sure they are okay. Gage rubs his neck, the shock making him speechless for once. I grab another tissue and try to clean Zoey’s wound to see how deep it is.
“You’re going to need some stitches, kiddo.”
“Will that hurt?” she whispers, crying silently.
“No. They put on this miracle cream first, so you won’t feel a thing when they stitch you back up. You’ll be good as new.”
“Ah shit, shit! Look what you’ve done!” my mother shouts, turning her head toward us.
I’m about to tell her she has no one to blame but herself for her shitty driving when her face turns as pale as a ghost.
“Oh fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I turn around to see what she’s staring at, only to be crippled with fear at what I find. Roy’s blue pickup truck slowly pulls to a stop a few feet away from us. He shuts the engine off and waits.
“Okay, Alice, think, think,” my mother repeats to herself. “Okay. We haven’t done anything wrong. We were just going to visit my sister. Nothing wrong with that. I’ll just say I didn’t see him earlier and what a good thing it is that he did and followed us since we’ve just had a terrible car accident and need him to take us back home. Yeah, that’s it.”
As my mother gives herself a pep talk, my stomach twists into knots as to why Roy hasn’t stepped out of his truck yet. Mom pushes her breasts up and smooths her blonde hair away from her face so that her big green eyes are on display.
Say what you will about Alice, but she’s beautiful. She’s a little run-down, but she’s still gorgeous in her own right. When she unbuckles and opens the door, a sick feeling assaults me. On instinct, I reach out and grab her wrist.
