Page 6 of Risking it All

Chapter three

Relic

Next month, rent was rising to over a thousand dollars a month. If anything was criminal, that was. Wouldn’t have been so bad if I had the money to make the original rent, but I didn’t. Wouldn’t be so bad if I actually wanted to go home. Once again, I didn’t.

What was it like for people towantto go home? Did they experience peace when they turned onto their block? Did warm fuzzies hit when they saw light peeking out from behind closed blinds? Did the muscles in their body relax at the idea of opening the door and finding sanctuary? If so, I hated them because I’d never felt that a day in my life.

Anxiety rode me like a cowboy on a bull as I stood in front of my building. The mere idea of walking in made me so damn tense I could probably cut iron with my glare.

I hated this place, and I hated the man behind that door even more. Because of that hatred, I had yet to find the convictionto walk up those rust-eaten metal stairs for my second floor apartment.

The two-story exterior entry “Freedom” apartment complex had that yellow-orange brick of the 1960s. My building was named after the Freedom 7 NASA mission. Maybe someone appreciated this place back in the sixties, but I doubted it. More than likely, it had been built specifically for people like me: people who were born into and would stay in poverty.

The apartment’s kitchenette and living room shared 130 square feet, not much bigger than a small bedroom in a small house. Our microwave shorted two out of three uses, and when I sat on the toilet in the cramped bathroom, my knees hit the wall.

The two bedrooms were barely big enough for a twin bed, and the entire apartment smelled like mold on dry days and garbage on wet. The roof leaked, the windows were useless, and yet the rent was still more than I could barely cover.

Sleeping in our broken-down minivan remained an option, but that apartment belonged to me, and I’d be damned if the man behind its door was going to keep me out.

I forced myself up the stairs and opened the door. The moment I laid eyes on the two men in the room, I knew I had made a mistake. I should have stayed in the van. Fuck, I should have changed my name and tried a new life in another country.

My dad sat on the loveseat that I had salvaged from a Dumpster. The frame of the faded blue plaid couch was cracked, and the fabric had more cigarette burns than I could count, but it worked for sitting and the occasional nap, and I wished he wasn’t on it.

Dad lifted his head, looked at me, and the hope on his face made my fist clench. I couldn’t even compare him to a stray dog because I liked stray dogs. Dad—he was bad news and he wanted me to forgive him every single time he screwed up, which was a daily occurrence. He was either too damn stupid or too damnselfish to stay legit for his family, and I had no patience for him. If it wasn’t for my older sister, Lyra, I would have forced him to live on the streets. But Lyra loved him. I didn’t.

The man leaning against the kitchen counter watching me and Dad as though we were his favorite reality show was Eric—a skinny-assed forty-something-year-old with bleached out blond hair. He looked more like a meth addict than he did the king of the streets, but the king of these streets he was—and, while he controlled some of the trade, Eric didn’t do meth.

“Did you forget your dad was getting out of the halfway house today?” Eric asked in a calm voice that grated on my nerves. The stupid justice system released Dad from prison in January, and he had been ordered to live in the halfway house until today.

“I thought it was tomorrow,” I lied. “Besides, I figured he’d be at the bar celebrating.”

Knowing Dad better than most, Eric tilted his head in a that-could-have-been-true gesture. “He insisted that he come home to see his family. He’s flipping over a new leaf, aren’t you?” Eric turned those steely eyes onto him. “All he’s talked about over the past few years is getting out and being the dad the three of you deserve. You’d know that if you had visited him.”

No part of me believed this. I shut the door behind me and contemplated the best way out of this scenario. If it wasn’t for Eric, I would have walked on by for my bedroom, the smaller of the two rooms since Lyra and Camila shared the bigger room. But Eric was here, so I gave Dad a nod. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Dad greeted with cautious optimism. As if my “hey” was absolution. “It’s been a long time. You look good.”

And Dad didn’t look strung out but give him forty-eight hours and that could easily change. Dad had been Eric’s best dealer until he messed up and used more than he sold. Addiction to meth when selling was an occupational hazard.

Dad grabbed a vape pen out of his pocket, and all sorts of fury wrangled through me. “Don’t. Camila has asthma. We don’t do that shit near her.”

Dad glanced at Eric as if I had slapped him in the face and he wanted a red card called on me. Eric, though, stayed silent as he watched us.

“Sorry,” Dad said. “I forgot.”

Yep, Dad of the Year material right there.

“Where are your sisters?” Dad asked.

“Lyra’s working at Chancey’s, and Camila is staying the night at a friend’s house.” With one of those actual families that gave a damn about their kids, had hot water, and paid their electricity bill on time.

Dad’s head jerked up. “Lyra’s working at the strip joint?”

“She’s a waitress.” That was what she’d told me, and I informed her if she switched positions to not let me know. I didn’t judge her. In fact, I thanked God she helped with bills, but I didn’t need mental images of her and a pole. After Dad went to prison, my sister became my guardian as well as Camila’s, but to be honest, I was the adult in this situation.

“Lyra works nights so I can be here with Camila,” I continued. Because there was no way in hell I’d leave the two of them alone in this complex overnight. “Then she can be here when Camila gets out of school, and I can work after I get out of school.”

Translation: we’re doing fine without you so stay the fuck out of our way.

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