Page 4 of Don't Love Me
We were going to see my mother. This was the third time seeing her since I’d gone to live with George. She was already in her second round of rehab, having gotten out after the first thirty days, only to succumb a month later. Now she was back inside.
It wasn’t working. The therapy, or whatever they were doing to her inside the facility. She wasn’t getting any better. She was just detoxing, only to start using again as soon as she was released.
I knew what this cycle could do to a heroin addict. I’d read the stories about how they would get clean and their bodies would be free of the drugs, only to cave again. Problem was, they would take the amount they used to take to get high and suddenly it was too strong. Their bodies had lost the tolerance.
My mom was going to die of a heroin overdose, and I wasn’t going to be enough to save her. The worst part was, I didn’t know how much I even cared at this point. She’d made her choice.
I felt Ash’s hand on my shoulder. “You always get really sad when you go see her. I wanted to be with you.”
I shrugged my shoulder to remove her hand. I didn’t want her support. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake her loose either. She was always just there. Always giving me cookies or sandwiches. Always wanting to play even though she wasn’t good at anything athletic.
The last time I came back from visiting my mother, Ash had brought her PlayStation—with a gaming monitor and everything—to the carriage house and set it up in my room.
She’d said she didn’t really use it ever, but then she sat with me and playedCall of Dutyfor hours. The whole time me beating her ass and telling her how much she sucked at it.
Now eventhatwasn’t good enough. Now she wanted to be with me for the car ride.
“You don’t have to do this, Marc,” George said. “I can go check on Marie and let you wait in the car.”
I’d worn my good pants and sweater. I’d even put stuff in my hair to keep it in place. George said if she had a focus, something that could replace the drugs, it could turn her around.
Like a new addiction. Me.
“You know I need to see her. But you need to wait in the car with Ash. I don’t want her to see this place.”
“I don’t mind,” Ash piped up. “I can see it.”
“It’s just a treatment facility. Not a prison,” George pointed out. “Marie will be clean. She’ll be healthier. You’ll see.”
“I don’t want her to see it,” I said firmly.
Ash was a princess who lived in a castle with her father. She didn’t need to see my strung-out mom. Didn’t need to see what heroin did to a woman’s body. Ash didn’t need to bear witness to the fact that I hadn’t been enough for my mom to stay clean.
“I’ll wait in the car,” Ash said. “I’ll just sit here and not hum. I promise.”
Yeah. Like just having her here with me was supposed to make me feel better.
Instead it only made me feel worse.
* * *
Six months later
Ashleigh
I sat on the porch waiting for the car to pull up. Much like I’d done that first time I’d met Marc. George had taken him for another visit with his mom today. This time she was out of the rehab facility and in a halfway house.
Chewing my bottom lip, I thought about what that meant. His mom—I knew her name was Marie Campbell, like George’s last name because she hadn’t married Marc’s dad—had completed the program and her behavior was now being monitored at the halfway house.
She was going to have to get a job and show the court she could support herself and Marc before CPS would even consider letting Marc go live with her. Still, there was a chance, maybe soon, he would leave.
George was pushing for him to stay here no matter what happened with his mom. To, at least, finish out the school year. George thought it best to give his sister as much time as she needed to stand on her own two feet before taking on the challenge of raising her son again.
Both Marc and I had actually laughed at that.
Marc didn’t need anyone to raise him. He knew what he was doing all the time. He had a plan. For everything. Sometimes he told me what his plan was, and sometimes he told me to bug off, except he used the “F” word. Still, I knew he was always thinking about stuff. Like what was going to happen next month and next year.
He didn’t like that I knew that about him. That I saw everything about him. But I was the only one around here watching him that closely. I wanted, so desperately, for him to like me, and there were times I knew he did. Times when I made him laugh, and it was like I took him by surprise. Or, when I would show up with a brownie and he would shove the whole thing in his mouth while I watched and laughed as he did it.
