Page 14 of His Heart

5

Brooke

January. Age seventeen.

My key rattledin the front door lock. It always stuck a little, but I managed to get it open. A big black garbage bag, full of who knows what, stood in the way. I had to push it aside to get the door open enough to come in.

I’d spent the afternoon doing homework with Liam and Olivia next door. It had been a little less than a year since the first time Liam had kissed me. After that night, I’d officially become his girlfriend. He’d been my first kiss, and he was the first guy I’d ever dated. I was crazy about him.

The air tickled the back of my throat. My house perpetually smelled of cigarettes and weed, the stale pungent scent permeating everything. It was stuffy—warmer inside than out. Phoenix had great weather in January, but our house was always uncomfortably hot.

The worn-out gray couch—which provided the only sense that the living room was, in fact, a living room—was piled with flattened cardboard boxes. More bulbous garbage bags sat on the floor, their contents warping their shapes. What was going on?

“Mom?” I called, pitching my voice to be heard in the kitchen at the back of the house. “Are you home?”

Something crashed in the kitchen, a sharp metallic sound, like pots and pans hitting the floor.

“Fuck!”

“Mom?”

I hurried down the short hallway to the kitchen to find my mom in a black t-shirt and jeans, standing over a pile of pots and pans. Her hair was limp and wet, like she’d recently showered. She put her hands on her hips and for a second, I stared at her bony arms. She was so skinny. Not attractive thin, like she was in good shape. She was sickly, with bones protruding from her pallid skin. Her t-shirt was too big, the neck slanting crooked, almost off one shoulder, and her elbows were sharp and pointy.

“Fuck,” she muttered again.

“Mom, what’s going on?” I asked.

“We’re moving,” she said without looking at me.

I blinked at her, my breath freezing in my lungs. Moving? Again? In my seventeen years on this planet, my mother had moved me no less than twenty-three times. That I knew of. The number might have been higher, since I didn’t know all the places we’d lived before I was three. But by my best guess, this house was number twenty-three.

“What?” I asked. “Moving where?”

“Tucson.” She crouched down, revealing her tramp stamp—a set of wings tattooed on her lower back. I’d never been sure if they were supposed to be angelic, or some kind of bird.

“Why?”

She looked at me for the first time then. Her eyes were always bloodshot, so the red veins standing out against the whites of her eyes were nothing new. Today she had dark circles beneath her eyes and a scab on the corner of her lip. Whether that was a cold sore or a place she’d been hit was anyone’s guess. Paul didn’t usually smack her around, but it happened once in a while if they got really drunk. And she would sometimes leave the house and disappear for a few hours—or days—and return with a bruise or two. I’d never asked what they were from.

“Because we are,” she said, her voice sharp. She went back to stacking the pots. “Because Paul is a fucking prick.”

I took slow steps backward, my stomach tied in a knot. My mouth hung open, but the words I wanted to say died in my throat. I knew it wouldn’t matter how much I protested. Arguing would only get me in trouble. I didn’t want to risk getting slapped, or worse.

I decided to try a different tactic. I kept my voice light and conversational. “Wow, Mom. This is unexpected. When did you decide this?”

“Don’t argue with me,” she said.

“But I was just asking—”

“Goddammit, Brooke,” she said, whirling on me. She was smaller than me, all sinew and bone, but I knew how strong she was. “Don’t fucking start with me. I’m your mother. We’re leaving tonight.”

“Tonight?” I asked, my voice strangled, barely escaping my throat.

“You need to listen,” she said. “You know I hate repeating myself.”

“I know, Mom, but this is really sudden,” I said.

“Yeah, well, life’s a bitch. Paul took off and I got fired. I’m already behind on the rent on this place. We can crash at my friend Leslie’s for a while until I get us back on our feet.” She went over to the counter and grabbed a pack of cigarettes, then smacked the pack against her hand a few times before pulling one out and sticking it between her lips. “Where’s my fucking lighter?”

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