Page 135 of We Are Yours
Forty-Five
Julius
I sat in my car with a bottle of bourbon in my grasp, staring at a house that held so many ghosts.
Sitting.
Waiting.
Fucking numb.
I was powerless, unable to stop myself from witnessing the reality of what our lives had become. Feelings I didn’t know I felt until that very moment.
Sadness.
Confusion.
Abandonment.
Yet again…
The emotions were endless, piling up, heavy and daunting. Taking a deep, reassuring breath, I inhaled through my nose and exhaled out of my mouth, trying to shake off the bullshit they evoked.
My life had turned into one big slow motion. The past twenty-four hours were a blur of torment, shame, regret…
After the confirmation that she overdosed on heroin and that she would be cremated by the state since we didn’t have the funds for a funeral, I felt even guiltier. I had the money to bury her, but I couldn’t bring myself to offer. She’d already taken so much from us. It was our funds.
We needed it more than she did.
One thought led to the next, making me sick to my stomach. The longer I sat there, the further my resentment and anger grew.
I didn’t move.
I didn’t speak.
Nothing.
I was empty.
A shell of who I was before all this.
She was dead.
Gone.
Did she go to hell? Where do moms go when they give up on their families?
“Mom…” I muttered, hearing it out loud for the first time in what felt like forever.
Seconds, minutes, hours could have flown by, and not once did I look away, openly showing my agony and dismay at the house Isla turned into a home, only for it to turn into hell.
Instead of getting answers, I locked up my emotions like they never existed to begin with. Getting out of my car, I wanted to get lost and not found. My mind was a jumbled mess of what the fucks. My head was pounding so hard I could barely see straight. It felt like a hammer was beating into my skull.
A hammer she was still holding.
I drove around aimlessly for a few hours, drinking away my sorrows before I snapped out of whatever stupor I was in. The last thing I needed was to get a DUI, and I’d only just bought this car. It was past midnight when I walked through the door.
The whiskey was long gone, and all I had left was my misery.
