Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“Hey, Tom Tom,” I said to my favorite nephew ever. “How are you?”
Tom Tom was fourteen and thought he knew better than anyone right now. So when he said what he said next, I wasn’t really surprised.
“Grounded,” he grumbled. “I’m only allowed to answer the house phone now because she took away my cell phone. It’s even corded. It has one of those really long telephone cords that are spirals. She says, ‘in my day, all of our long-distance calls took place in common areas. Get used to it.’”
I couldn’t help the snickering that slipped past my lips. “Tom Tom, I hate to break it to you, but she was right. Our family didn’t believe in cell phones. So we had a house phone and nothing else. Dad said if it was important enough, we’d take the call regardless of who would possibly come into the kitchen. And he was right. I’d lie there on the bathroom floor because the cord could stretch there from the kitchen. Sara and I used to get into so much trouble in that very position, talking about all the things we were going to do the next day.”
Sara was already chuckling.
“You sound like Mom,” he grumbled. “How have you been?”
“Good,” I lied. “Went to the gym today.”
Or, maybe, I’d gotten my heart rate up at least.
Close enough to going to the gym, right?
“Did you actually go into the gym?” he asked. “Like went inside and used the facilities? And the hot tub or the sauna in the gym doesn’t count.”
I rolled my eyes. “My body rolled past the gym on the way to a coffee shop.”
He started laughing.
I heard my sister in the room with him, then suddenly the laughter faded and Tiana could be heard.
“Hey, he’s not allowed to laugh,” she said. “That’s having too much fun.”
“What did he do?” I asked.
“He thought it would be great to test a theory on how late is too late to stay out past your curfew. And he found out.” She paused. “What is wrong?”
How did she always know?
“Have you heard from Mom?” I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“No,” she grumbled. “But she did show up looking to ‘make amends.’ I told her not to come into my house and definitely never talk to my kid again.”
I growled. “I got a voice mail yesterday about my car being traded in at a lot in North Carolina. So I guess I have to go there and get it. They wouldn’t buy it and actually did me a solid and called the cops instead of giving her any money for it. The cops called me and told me of the location.”
“Fuckin’ jerk,” she groaned.
My sister, Tiana, is eleven years older than me. She also was moved out and dating her ex-husband around the same time that our dad passed away. So, she wasn’t as affected by our dad’s passing away or our mother’s subsequent downward spiral, as much as I was.
When Mom decided to start fucking us over instead of treating us like her daughters, Tiana was the first one to give up on her. Though, it helped her write her off because Mom borrowed ten thousand dollars from her, then disappeared only to blow it in four days and try to ask for more. When Tiana wouldn’t give it to her, Mom told her she was dead to her, and that is how the last fifteen years had gone for us.
Which led to now. Me driving hours to pick my car up in a used car lot in North Carolina.
“Agreed,” I sighed. “I just wanted to warn you, I guess. Because she didn’t get what she wanted from me, you’d be next. But guess I made it too late.”
Sometimes I made it. Sometimes I didn’t.
Sometimes, my mom hit Tiana up first, though that was very rare. Tiana was a last-ditch effort.
“Okay,” she sighed. “Now I have to go deal with this kid of mine. He’s smiling. We can’t have him smiling when he’s grounded. I might go make him power wash the driveway.”
Then she was gone, and I was hanging up the phone.
“Let’s go to North Carolina first.”
• • •
“You’ll be okay?” Sara asked, looking at the state of my car.
So when I got home, I’d definitely be getting the damn car from the shop. Mostly because the one I was in was totaled. It may look okay from the outside, but on the inside, it was completely gutted.
She’d even taken all the seats but the driver’s seat. The radio was gone. The floor mats. If it was stealable, she stole it.
“I’ll be fine.” I felt my eyelid twitch with the lie. “I’m just frustrated.”
“Hmm.” She caught my lie but didn’t say a word.
And neither did I.
The next ten hours were spent talking myself down from first-degree murder.