Page 12 of Broken

Music anchored me, especially music that reminded me of Aine, my light in the darkness. I could do this. I could settle all this and leave this life behind, for her.

Noah broke the deafening silence in the room. "Yeah. A lot has changed."

"Obviously. Who came in and cleaned this place?" I rolled my eyes at him.

"Your mother. She changed too." Mia interjected, looking down at the shiny wood of the flooring. "She got sober after you left. She got a

job. She started taking care of herself, and the house."

"Well, fan-fucking-tastic for her?" I didn't bother to hide my disdain.

"Honestly, I think she thought if she did all this, you'd come back." Noah inserted. "Kai would come home for the summer, and volunteer at the hospital. She would stop by and ask him if he heard from you.

She asked him to tell you how great she was doing."

"Well, she's twenty-nine years too late for the mother of the year award." Mia snorted. "I'm so fucking glad she never bothered to talk to me. I think she approached my mom."

I remembered the time Mia's mom confronted my mother. It did not go over well. My mother hated them. The irony was Daisy attempted to talk to my mother once. I went to Daisy for all the important things growing up, not Layla. Daisy thought if my mother was aware, she might try to be a better mother.

I can only imagine what a grown-up Mia would say to my mother if she tried to talk to her. "Probably the smartest thing she had done." I laughed.

We walked through the small house together. The floor plan hadn't changed over the years, but a lot of little things had. Fresh paint coated the walls and cabinets. The stained and cracked linoleum in the bathrooms had been replaced with vinyl tiles, and the same carpets covered the floors in the two bedrooms, but they had been shampooed and vacuumed regularly.

The more I saw of the house, the angrier I got. Why the fuck couldn't I have this growing up? Why did she wait until I left home to get sober and become a functioning adult?

My heart punched through my ribs desperate to escape these walls. I slammed the keys I didn't realize Noah handed them to me on the kitchen counter and ran out the front door.

Even with all the changes and the facelift, the darkness stayed. It reached out to me from every corner of the house. They waited for me to let my guard down. Phantom hands tried to slap and pull my hair at every turn, and my mother's shrill voice echoed through the silence. Bile rose up from my stomach as my father's haunting caress brushed against my flesh. I hit my breaking point. Some ghosts were better off left in the shadows.

I sat on the top step and took a deep breath. My head rested in my hands, I let the tears fall, and once I let them out, they didn't stop coming. I didn't hear anyone approach, and I was too consumed by emotion to notice when a heavy, six-foot-two-inch shadow settled next to me. Strong, warm arms enveloped me in his warmth, and I was home and safe again.

six

Sinclair

Thetearsburnedbehindmy eyelids. I refused to let her see me cry. I didn't hear her coming up behind me. Normally, I would be prepared for whatever punishment my mother had for me, but my headphones were over my ears with Holes Doll Parts playing from my busted Walkman drowning out the shit life in the background.

The slap on my face she gave me from behind sent my taped-together headphones flying to the side. If not for the wire catching around my neck, they would have flown into the sink.

"You little bitch, who do you think you are stealing from me?" My mother's hate-filled tone filled my ears as her putrid breath invaded my nostrils. What was she thinking? I never smoked before. I'm fourteen years old for God's sake.

Staring into the soapy water, I cleared my throat to say something, anything.

"Sorry mama, but I swear, I didn't take anything. I would never steal from you. I swear." I lowered my head and focused on the shiny little bubbles covering the dishes. Maybe if I focused on my chore, those treacherous tears wouldn't escape. I had to wash the dishes and I'd be free from the house, from her, until dark.

"Aghhh!" Her nails scraped my scalp as she fisted my hair and yanked my

face right into her line of sight. Her rotting breath burned my nostrils and her fist clenching my hair forced the floodgate broke and my tears started to roll down my tender cheek. She was pissed off today.

I had no idea what I did to be in her crosshairs this time. It never took much. One time, I sneezed while she was on the phone with my father, and she

set the phone on the table and busted my lip for 'interrupting her phone call.'

I sucked my lower lip between my teeth as the painful memory came to mind. I tasted the saltiness from the tears that settled between my trembling lips. Anything else I said would only make things worse at this point.

"You worthless little liar. Your tears say everything. I am sick of your bullshit and lies." The closer to me she stood, the more her vile spittle sprayed my face, it took everything in me not to dry heave over the rotten stench of her breath. She was high again. I've come to know meth breath well in the past two years. At the beginning of high mom was the most violent. "Go to your

room after you're done with the dishes. I don't feed ungrateful little liars."

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