Page 96 of Pretty Black

Fuck the last two years of my expensive education or college. That’s not what people around here did.

“We are getting evicted. I can’t afford all of this by myself.” What she meant was she couldn’t afford her habit and our rent, even if it was only six hundred dollars after the Section-8.

“How much are you short?” I pushed my hands into my hair, thinking about the three hundred and seventy-five dollars in my pocket.

“About two hundred dollars.” Her answer was like a kick to my gut.

How long would it take me to save up this much money again? Another year maybe. “Why isn’thehelping?”

“You’re going to have to grow up eventually. Your stepfather has been picking up the slack for your father most of your life. You can’t expect him to do it forever.”

And for all the slack he picked up, he extracted a pound of flesh in return.

“I have a year and a half of high school left.” I’d expected her to stop coming home since I was a little kid. Expected her to wind up dead or my stepdad to kill her. None of this surprised me.

“It’s time for you to start pulling your own weight. You’ve got to get a job. Grow up.”

I’d been grown up since I started taking Marc to school when I was in second grade because she was passed out. When I had to cook him dinner because she just didn’t come home. When I had to get between him and his father so he wouldn’t end up black and blue.

“I need to finish school.” More like I needed time to practice and record, but that would never happen if I had to work and go to school. My ears started to ring. I pressed my eyes closed. I could see the guitar in the window slipping through my fingers.

It wasn’t like my mom spent most of her nights here. She never had. Not since she could leave us home alone. But it wasn’t alone. Someone else lived here.

“It’s only two hundred. I’m sure you can figure something out if you stop messing around with that rich kid.” Was she suggesting I stop talking to Caspian or that I steal from him?

I should have known she was watching when Cas picked me up. No matter how careful I’d been, people around here talked, and me getting in a brand new car was going to raise brows. Fuck.

“He’s a friend.”

“I don’t care what he is.” She got up from the table and put her hand on my shoulder. “Your stepfather already thinks you’re messing with boys because of that long hair of yours.”

I swallowed hard.

My eyes burned with held back tears as I shrugged her hand off my shoulder. “I will see what I can do.”

“You don’t get to blame me for how hard your life has been. It’s not my fault I was struggling as a single mother.”

I stalked off to my room, not sure what to do. What would Marc do if he had to sleep alone? If he had to deal with Grandma night and day? Mom didn’t hold him through his night terrors. She didn’t even wake up. It had always been my job to keep him quiet so he didn’t wake up his dad.

“Don’t you dare lock that door. I wasn’t done talking to you.”

“If you want me to be an adult, you sure as fuck better start treating me like one,” I yelled through the door. I don’t know what came over me, and I was sure to catch a beating for speaking to her that way.

“You may think it’s okay to be disrespectful, but I will always be your mother. Steve told me you’d act like this. Ungrateful child.”

I closed my eyes and sank to a seat on my bed, pressing my eyes closed. I wouldn’t cry. There was no way I’d let myself cry. Cas would be here soon. My walk from the train line had burned into a lot of the time it would take him to drive over here. I didn’t want him to see any of this. I didn’t want him to worry. I’d just have to make something up about the guitar. Or try to scrape together more cash. Maybe a venue would hire me to help with sound or something. If I did it part time, I might still have time for practice. But I couldn’t bring myself to really consider it. The prospect of losing practice time to make fourteen-fifty an hour was soul crushing. We were so close to finishing this EP. I couldn’t keep playing Caspian’s guitar. We needed both rhythm and lead to put a song out.

We were so close. We were going to start recording this weekend. Cas had ordered everything we needed to record in his parents’ basement. I needed an electric. The shitty acoustic wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I picked up the closest thing I could find and threw it against the wall.

I heard the engine of Caspian’s car coming down the street. I didn’t have a phone, and I’d learned to listen for him so he didn’t have to knock. I glanced around for anything of value. I had nothing. Even my clothes were all from the thrift store. Nothing I could hawk to get the guitar. Not a god damn thing other the money in my pocket.

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