Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Uncle Rob looks uncomfortable as he runs his hand through his thinning hair and sighs.
“Why can’t I just come live with you?” I practically beg him. I would give anything to get away from them. I would do anything. “You at least cared that Dad died.”
“It’s not that she didn’t care.” He doesn’t say anything after that. I wait for more. For some sort of explanation that would make any of this all right, but nothing comes.
“She was happy he was going to die. All they did was fight.” Although it hurts to admit the truth, there’s relief in saying it out loud. Even more so because Uncle Rob doesn’t deny it.
“Look, Dean, different people cope with things differently. It’s hard when someone’s dying and you have to handle everything.”
“It was so hard that she went on smiling every day,” I tell him. I don’t want pretty little lies. I’m tired of living this fake-ass life my mother created. “Why can’t I just live with you?” I ask him again. He’s all I have. If not him, then I have no one.
“You just can’t,” he says like that’s final and my blood chills. A sense of unease rocks through me, followed by hopelessness.
“All right then,” I say and open the door to the truck, sick of arguing over pointless shit.
“It’s life, kid,” Uncle Rob calls after me.
“Life can go fuck itself,” I tell him as I get out, making the truck rock forward and then I slam the shiny red door shut.
A sickness churns in my stomach with each step I take closer to the house.
Day in and day out. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be reminded every day of how easily someone else replaced Pops. That asshole my mother cheated on my dad with expects me to listen to him? No fucking way.
I push the door open and then slam it shut from pure adrenaline, but I regret it the second the loud bang reverberates through the house.
Do I regret what I said in school? Yeah, I do. I say stupid shit, I pick fights. Maybe I am angry. Maybe I’m filled with hate.
But when I get in here, it changes.
I’m just fucking sad. I’m sad that this is my life.
The kitchen is in the center of the house and my mother’s right there on a barstool, a glass of wine in her hand and the half-empty bottle on the granite countertop.
“Mom,” is all I say to greet her then slip my bookbag off my shoulder, leaving it by the door. I grit my teeth when she looks up at me with daggers. She’s quick to change her expression. Like she wants to hide how she really feels about me. She doesn’t have to, though. I know I ruined her chance at a perfect life with Richard. The son who was an accident, forcing her to marry my father. If only I’d died with him. Then we’d all be happier.
“I can’t believe you,” my mother says with tears in her eyes. Or maybe they’re just glossy because she’s drunk. Her lips look even thinner with her mouth like that, set in a straight line.
I don’t say anything; I can hear Rick getting up from the recliner in the living room.
“There you are,” he says as if I’m at fault for not being here on time.
“They wouldn’t let me leave till someone picked me up,” I answer him with my words drenched in spite, looking him square in the eye as he storms over to me. My body tenses with the need to run or at least hold up my arms in defense.
“Is that what you got to say?” he yells at me. Rick’s a former marine and he acts like it. Only angrier and usually drunk. That’s one thing he and my mom have in common. His face turns red as he shouts at the top of his lungs.
The backhand comes quick, but I’m expecting it. The pain rips through my jaw, sending me backward as I hit the front door.
“You want to act like a little punk, I’ll treat you like one,” he spits at me. I can vaguely hear my mother screaming in between Richard’s threats and the ringing in my ears.
I expected the first blow but as I stand up, I don’t expect the next.
Or the one after that.
I really should have. Richard doesn’t stop until I’m crying. It’s not like I’m big enough to fight him, so I don’t know why I try to hold back the tears. I should’ve just come in here looking how I feel, defeated and hopeless. Maybe then it wouldn’t have lasted so long.
Metal is all I can taste when I wake up. My lips are bruised and swollen. My body’s stiff from sleeping in a weird position since it hurt my face to lay on my side.