Page 25 of Busted Dreams

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath as I bent to scoop it up.

Nice.

A new crack ran diagonal along the screen protector. Just another nice ending to a shit day.

That idiot girl was going to be the death of me. Didn’t she understand what she was messing with? Our abusive, no good father died, giving her an opportunity to finally be free of his shit and the revolving door of lowlifes. I didn’t even know how many hours of sleep I lost worried if she was okay the nights she didn’t come to my place. Was she okay? Were strange men hitting on her? What was our dickface father saying to her?

Instead of using this as a time to get herself together and enjoy her new life, she was spiraling. And for what?

Metal scraping on metal pulled my attention to the front door. Finally!

I crossed my arms and braced my feet shoulder width apart as I glared at the door, waiting for the minute she appeared. So much anger swirled inside me, I was almost afraid of what I would say when she walked in the door. But I’d been too lenient with her since Dad died. It was time she knew I wasn’t going to let her piss away her life. I loved her too much for that.

She trudged in sullenly, avoiding my gaze altogether as she hung her keys up on a key ring by the door. Dragging her feet, she turned around at the pace of molasses in Alaska, until she literally had nothing else to do except for meet my eyes.

The tension in the room raised the temperature thirty degrees at least. And the little shit didn’t even have the grace to look apologetic. No, there was a stubborn tilt to her chin that told me she thought she had a right to do what she wanted, whether it flushed her future down the drain or not.

“What?” she nearly shouted.

“I’m trying to calm myself down before I say something I’ll regret is what.”

Trinity sneered as she tried to walk past me to go to her room. “Whatever. You can do that out here while I grab some stuff from my room.”

“Don’t even bother.” I caught her elbow. “I flushed everything in that package. I also flushed everything that was in your jewelry box, in your sock drawer, and the nice bottle of OxyContin from the top shelf of your closet.”

She stumbled back from me, her face ghostly pale.

“You didn’t…”

“Oh, I did.”

It was like a little mini-pharmacy of drugs in her room. Now that I had her in front of me, I searched for signs of drug use, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. No bad acne, no bloodshot eyes, and no slowness to her movements or demeanor. What was she doing with all that stuff?

“Didn’t you see how bad drugs messed up Dad’s life? Is that what you want for yourself?” Some of the anger faded away to be replaced with a deep-seated fear for my sister.

She laughed caustically. “Dad was an addict. I’m not. I can stop anytime I want. And I don’t even do this stuff very often. Only every once in a while in a social setting,” she explained, as if that would make me feel better.

All of the lost anger came back with a vengeance, my heat feeling so hot, steam had to be rolling out of my ears. I was a moody guy, it came with the creative territory, but I’d never felt this way, as if my head was about to explode.

“Are you fucking stupid?” I yelled in her face.

She flinched away from me, and I had a moment of regret pass through me. I’d never raised my voice with her. Not really. Then the reminder of what she was doing swept away any guilt.

“Go to your room, Trinity. I can’t even look at you right now.” I let go of her arm and turned away from her.

If this was what parenting teenagers was like, I never wanted to have any.

Her footsteps were so quiet as she retreated, I didn’t even hear them, only the soft snick of her door closing.

Taking several deep breaths, I walked to the fridge and started to pull out a beer, only to shut the door again. I’d already gotten rid of everything. Even if I wanted to have a beer right now, I couldn’t have a discussion with Trinity about drug use while I drank alcohol. It was hypocritical. Anything I said would just go in one ear and out the other.

Not that it wouldn’t already, I thought bitterly.

Needing to center myself, I pulled my easel out of the small hall closet that should have held cleaning supplies or towels or something domestic, but instead held all of my painting supplies.

The smell of oil and turpentine hit me, and immediately, it soothed some of my frayed edges. In front of the couch had the best light because of the big window behind it, but it wasn’t enough. I pushed the couch to the side, moved my easel by the window, and opened the curtains. Only when I had my desired colors squeezed out on an easel did I start to paint.

And paint.

---