Page 81 of I Love to Hate You
“Why do you have to do this to me?” I ask, barely able to get the words out through the sobs and shuddered breathing.
“You did it to me!” he barks. “What, you don’t like how it feels? Good. I’m glad to see you hurting, because the pain you’re feeling right now is what I feel every single day. I can’t run from it like you. It stays with me and eats me alive from the inside. All I can do is try to numb it. Here. You try it. Join me in hell, Maya. Feel what I feel.”
My father stumbles over to me and places the bottle of Jack at my feet before taking more wobbly steps back to his bedroom. I keep my eyes on the bottle while I hear him drop the gun on the bed and begin shuffling things around in his bedroom. He comes back with a brand-new bottle of Maker’s Mark whisky, and I watch him open it and guzzle multiple gulps before looking at me again.
“Is she not worth it?” he asks me. His eyes look dead when he stares at me, waiting for me to pick up the Jack. “It’s the ten-year mark, Maya. Take a drink for your mother with me. Trust me, you’ll feel better about what you did to her.”
My tears are uncontrollable, obscuring the Jack Daniels label as I stare at it. The voice in my head repeats that I’m the reason my mother is no longer with us, and it is louder than ever. When I grab the bottle, the voice screams, begging me to give it what it wants by taking a drink, and I realize that the voice isn’t random. It’s not my conscience speaking to me. It’s not my own thoughts blaring in my ears. The voice is my father's. It always has been, and I do as he tells me.
I bring the bottle to my lips and swallow a gulp. It is a lit fuse all the way down and detonates when it hits my belly.
“That’s it,” my father says from the doorway, his own bottle rising to meet his lips. “For Molly.”
I sit down on the floor with my back against the wall as thoughts of my mother cover every nook and cranny of my mind. I miss talking to her. I miss her laughter. I miss the warmth of her body as she hugged me, and I ache for her presence. The pain is intense, and when I glance up at my father, the look on his face tells me I’m doing the right thing by drinking it all away. I should keep going until I feel nothing at all because that’s what I deserve anyway. Nothing.
I let out a shuddered exhale, still sobbing as I prepare to take an even bigger drink this time. “For Molly,” I whisper. Then, I lift the bottle, and I lift it again.
Kendrick
Forty-Eight
~ KENDRICK~
When I pull up to Maya’s house, I find discomfort in the eerie silence of the area when I climb out of my car. There are no neighbors outside, no children in the street, no dogs barking, no horns blaring. There is only the calm breeze flowing through the leaves of the few trees nearby, and the bass of my heartbeat drumming behind my ribs. My nerves are alight with sensitivity as worry turns to fear that something horrible may have happened between Maya and her father—something that has been brewing for far too long, just waiting for the right spark to ignite the whole thing. In one encounter with Jack I could see the tension between them, but there was nothing I could do. As much as I wanted to protect Maya, he is her father, and I was helpless. Now all that’s left is my hope that the world isn’t ending.
I run up the stairs of the porch, pounding on the door the second I reach it with a hammer fist that threatens to damage the dilapidated wood, but I don’t care. If Jack doesn’t get off his ass and open up in the next few seconds, I’ll kick it down and ruin it anyway. I pound ten times in a row non-stop, making my fist ache.
“Maya!” I yell. “Maya, open the door. Jack!”
I stop talking to listen with my ear against the wood, and silence screams back at me, sending terror streaking from my ear to my heart.
“Maya!” I scream one more time, trying to give them time to come to the door if they are in there, but my patience is completely gone, and after another second, I give in to my desire to not give a fuck.
“Screw this,” I say aloud before taking two steps back and launching my foot, hitting the sweet spot right next to the knob. The rickety strike plate bends and the latch pops enough for me to push the door the rest of the way, and I use my shoulder to shove it back. The second I can see inside the dark living room, my breath catches in my throat.
“Oh, my god,” I whisper as I freeze in place. The only part of me that can move are my eyes, and they bounce from object to object, taking it all in.
The house has been destroyed. Every piece of furniture is turned over, dishes are broken and scattered everywhere, picture frames are ruined, the TV is demolished, and there’s a stench in the air reminiscent of stale liquor and trash. The scene is horrid, and I have to beat back the onslaught of panic before it takes over and I become useless. I can’t save Maya if my feet are stuck in quicksand at the front door, so I shake my head to knock off the cobwebs and force my feet to move.
“Maya!” I bellow as I step into the house, immediately kicking a broken family portrait that must have been hurled at the door. The glass crunches beneath my foot as I step on it but I keep going, moving as quickly as I can into the kitchen. I find nothing but more broken dishes and a black trash bag that has been turned inside out, spilling its contents all over the floor. Tons of beer and liquor bottles lay strewn about, spilling sour liquid onto the linoleum, mixed with half-eaten food and plastic silverware. It reeks to high heaven, but at least I know the smell isn’t coming from dead bodies somewhere in the house. At least, I don’t think that’s the case.
I turn away from the kitchen and spin back into the living room, making my way toward the hall. As soon as I turn the corner, I see the door at the end completely open, and a figure lying on a bed. It only takes me a second to recognize that it’s Jack. I run toward him and come to a stop at the threshold, taking in the scene before I decide what move to make next.
First, I search the floor surrounding the bed, and just like the living room and kitchen, there is shit everywhere. Pill bottles sit still like a family of dead bodies on the floor. Clothes are stacked in gross, unwashed piles in three separate locations, and of course there are more liquor bottles here. But the most glaring thing is that Maya is not in the room.
“Fuck,” I bark.
I step into the room, crushing an orange pill bottle before placing a knee on the bed and looking down on Jack, who is clearly passed out. His breathing is strange, coming out in sputters and soft groans with a gurgling in his throat. Each exhale is putrid, but I ignore it as I move to lean over him until my hand knocks against something hard and cold. I step back.
A gun.
My blood pressure spikes as my heart goes insane, beating fast and hard as fear envelopes my mind and beats me down with horrible thoughts of what may have happened here. Why the fuck does Jack have a gun on the bed?
“What did you do?” I whisper, taking steps backwards until I’m out of the room. “Maya!” I scream as I turn and find the door to the basement half open. I nearly fall down the stairs trying to descend them too fast in the dark.
When I reach the bottom, I turn on the light and am rocked by the image of Maya lying on her side in the fetal position on her bed, still in the dress she wore to work yesterday. A bottle of Jack Daniels is completely empty and lying on its side on the floor. Next to Maya’s face is a picture of a beautiful woman who looks just like her, and I immediately know it’s her mother.
“Shit. Maya,” I shout as I jump onto the bed and turn her over. A string of spit and vomit stretches from the pillow to the side of her mouth, and she doesn’t even register that I’ve moved her at all. She is clearly drunker than anyone can safely be, especially someone who doesn’t drink a lot, but before I can get her out of here, I have to make sure Jack didn’t use that gun on her. If he did, I swear I’ll march back up those steps and empty what’s left of the clip right into his fucking face. Prison be damned.
