Page 33 of Incandescence

I couldn’t help but sigh. “It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Give it a rest, Charley,” she chided in a raspy voice. “I’ve already got a stinking headache.”

“Coffee, then?”

“Yeah, sure. Why not.”

Another footfall sounded from the bedroom and my eyes widened at the tattooed little weed who was one of my mother’s drug dealers.

She flipped a graying piece of dark hair behind her shoulder and added coyly, “You’d better make it two coffees.”

My stomach dropped to my toes, my skin crawling with revulsion and my despair all but wiping out any lingering trace of hope that my mother would kick her self-destructive drug habit.

Be thankful you didn’t wake up and hear them fucking.

I stared hard at my mom. “You’re screwing your dealer now to get your drugs? Could you get any lower?”

“Watch your mouth, Charley,” she snapped, her eyes cold with anger.

Yeah, because you’re such a great role model.I bit back my thoughts even as the

dealer—Johnny or Jimmy, I wasn’t sure and didn’t care enough to know his name—grinned at me with leering, bloodshot eyes and rotten teeth.

“You climb into bed with me, little spitfire, and I’ll give your mother all the blow, bud and pingers she’ll want for a month.”

My lip curled even as my mother broke out with a gleeful, “Really?”

My whole world bottomed out, my mother blurring in front of me. “You can’t be fucking serious?”

Her eyes flashed with something between shock and guilt, then her face crumpled. “No! Of course not!” She blinked rapidly, her voice rising. “You know my addiction is an illness.But you must also know I love you more than anything else in the world.”

My throat burned right along with the backs of my eyes. “Yet you seriously considered selling your only daughter to get your fix.”

The dealer stepped in. “You’re of age. What’s the problem here? Lynette is your mother, you should be willing to help her out.”

Tears threatened to spill, but I refused to show any weakness to them. “Yes, she is my mother, you piece of shit, which is why I don’t want you in her life, ruining whatever chance she has of being a real mother.”

My mom pressed a hand to her mouth. “Charley, don’t speak to Jimmy like that. If it wasn’t for him—”

“If it wasn’t for him,” I interjected hoarsely, “you might be clean and not fucking men for drugs!” I swiped at the tears pouring down my face, not even trying to stop them anymore. “I can’t watch you kill yourself like this even a minute longer. I really can’t.”

My mom squeezed her eyes shut, and opened them again with a steely resolve I hadn’t seen for years. “Then leave my house and don’t come back.”

I gaped, inwardly reeling. “You don’t mean that.” But she did mean it. I’d never seen her more determined. I swallowed hard. “Who’s going to look after you?”

Jimmy put a limp arm around her waist. “I’ll be looking after Lynette, don’t you worry about that.”

Bile rose in the back of my throat. The drug dealer would probably move into the house and set up shop for free. The bastard.

I fisted my hands. “You can both go to hell.”

I ran to my room to pack my few clothes and belongings, my mind screaming rejection and curses and everything in between. My mother would die without me, I had no doubt about it. But I also had no doubt she wanted only to join my father in the afterlife, even as she used those same drugs to make her forget about him.

My inner screams rang loud in my ears when hands pressed down on me. I woke with a gasp, the hands on my shoulders gently shaking me awake.

I blinked up at Alexander, my blurry vision making me realize I’d cried in my sleep. What the hell?

“I woke you?” I asked him in a scratchy voice.

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