Page 178 of Pay for Your Lies

She leans over and grabs my hand, squeezing it hard. “I’m happy for you, baby. You deserve all the good things in the world.”

???

After lunch, I head over to my mom’s Hyde Park apartment, finally ready to face her.

She lives in the bottom unit of a completely run down four flat apartment building. I don’t think any major renovations have been done to it since it was built in the eighties, and I think at this point it’d be safer to demolish and rebuild it rather than try to fix the dozens of major problems there are.

Not that my mother cares or is sober enough to notice. So long as she has a roof over her head, she’s happy.

I try the handle and find the door unlocked. It’s not unusual but it’s exasperating. I’ve told her hundreds of times to lock the doors, especially in this neighborhood.

There’s nothing to steal here, but theft isn’t the only crime that happens in this area.

“Mom?” I call, walking in and closing the door behind me.

The apartment is in total disarray.

It was never spotless even when I lived here, but Nolan and I at least tried to keep it tidy. In the months since we both moved out, it’s turned into a real addict’s nest. There are empty bottles, used pipes and syringes, old food wrappers and leftover crusts everywhere, not to mention extremely suspicious looking stains on the carpet with equally suspicious smells.

The hair raises on the back of my neck as I take in the scene. Nolan had warned me Mom wasn’t taking care of the place, but that’s an understatement. This place is unlivable and it makes me sick to my stomach to think that she lives here.

“Mom?” I call again, louder this time.

No answer.

I walk past the living room and peek into the old bedroom I shared with Nolan and onto Mom’s room. Both are empty, both are completely disgusting. From what I can tell, she’s been sleeping on the floor, the mattresses missing from the bed frames. She must have pawned them for a dime bag.

I swallow around the emotion clogging my throat and continue past the bathroom and into the kitchen. It’s also unimaginably dirty but more importantly, it’s empty.

Where is my mom?

I pull my phone out to text Nolan when I hear a noise coming from the front of the apartment. Before I can turn around, I’m shoved face first into the wall.

It happens so quickly that I can't even process it. There's a two second delay in my reaction that might prove to be fatal as a hand presses my face against the wall, keeping me trapped.

A large body molds itself against mine and I’m immediately assaulted by the smell of beer, weed, and piss.

Fear slams into me and I scream at the top of my lungs, fighting desperately against whoever is holding me.

“I’ve waited a long time to get you on your own.” A terrifying voice grunts against my ear and my fear turns to dread as ice slithers in my veins.

All of a sudden, I'm eleven again and hiding from the screaming and fighting in my bedroom closet.

It’s Mitch, my mom’s on and off boyfriend of the last three years. I started staying more frequently at Bellamy’s once he came into my mom’s life. He’s not the most violent of the boyfriends she’s had, but I’ve always thought he might be the most dangerous anyway. He’s always looked at me in a way that made my skin crawl, and I never felt safe around him.

He never crossed a line before, but that’s only because I never gave him the opportunity to. If he was here, I was far away until he was gone.

Looks like my instincts were right.

I battle against the paralyzing fear that threatens to freeze me in place and scream again, my vocal cords straining as I push them to the limit while I thrash and struggle against his hold.

“Shut up, bitch.”

He fists my hair and uses his hold to slam my face against the wall. Stars explode behind my eyes and temporarily render me motionless as I fight against a wave of unconsciousness. I know that if I pass out now, I probably won’t survive this and if I do, I’ll never be the same again.

He uses my momentary daze to flip me around so I face him. He’s as ugly and disgusting as I remember him, time and drug abuse having done nothing to help his already scarred face.

“I’m going to have fun with you.” He says with a horrifying smile. A few of his teeth are missing and the rest are rotted, and that combined with his suggestive words makes for something scarier than what I’ve seen in horror movies.

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