A strange mixture of ice and heat fights through my veins as I go toe-to-toe with my father. “You haven’t worked hard for it! I have.
This is my life. Not yours. If I want to play baseball, I’ll play. If I want to go to college, I’ll go to college. If I want to talk to my brother, I will. If I want to go after Beth, I am. You are not making my decisions anymore.”
Spit flies out of his mouth as he yells at me, “You’re going to destroy your life over a drug-using waste of life?”
Power surges through me and my fist connects with his face. Adrenaline shakes my body and I watch as my father stumbles back.
“Don’t you ever call her that again.”
I jump into the Jeep, turn on the engine, and push the accelerator. I don’t lose and I’m not losing her.
Beth
I RUB MY HANDS TOGETHER and blow into them for possibly the thirtieth time. Hiding in the alleyway behind the bar, I stare at Mom’s apartment. Trent entered right after I arrived and he’s been in there for three hours. I have no choice but to wait. He’ll kill me if he sees me again.
The door to the apartment opens and the bald asshole finally stumbles out. Fucking fabulous. He’s tweaking, which means he’ll be in a kicking babies mood. I’ll take a heavy heroin user over a tweaker any day.
Resting his weight against his car door, Trent fumbles his keys, drops them, and dips low to pick them back up. Yeah, asshole, you belong behind a wheel. I hope you drive into a wall and die.
His car doesn’t start immediately. The engine whines as he turns it over twice.
Come on. The third time the engine groans to life. The car trembles when he backs it out and eases onto the main road.
I dash across the parking lot and bang on Mom’s door as I try the knob. It doesn’t give, but I hear Mom undoing the chains on the other side. She opens the door and wavers when she spots me. “Elisabeth.”
I push in. “Did you pack?”
“No,” she says. “I’m not sure we should do this.”
God, this guy is a slob. His clothes are everywhere and so are the little empty packets that hold his meth. I grab a garbage bag and head into the bathroom. “What do you need?”
She follows me and rubs her bare arm. I remember Dad doing that. It means she’s craving a hit. Withdrawal with her is going to be a bitch.
“Trent took care of me after I came home from the hospital. He says he’s sorry for how he treats me and he wants to start again.”
“Trent’s full of shit.” I pitch into the bag her toothbrush, hairbrush, then pause when I notice a small brown bag behind Mom’s tampons.
“What’s this?”
“I don’t know.” Her hand moves up and down her arm again. “Shirley put it in there when she brought me home.”
I snatch the bag. “I thought you said Trent took care of you when you came home.”
“I meant to say he came by here this morning.”
Inside the brown bag are a roll of fifties and a prescription bottle of the drug needed to help Mom detox from heroin. Thank you, Shirley. I try not to think about what she sold or what she did for the money. It’s here and I need it and that’s good enough for the moment. I throw everything into the garbage bag and go into her bedroom. The pickings are slim in the clothing department and I toss the less stained and torn clothes into the bag.
“Elisabeth,” Mom says in a whine. “Maybe we should put it off—by a day or two.”
“We are not putting it off by a day or two, we’re leaving. Where are the keys to the car?”
“I…don’t…know.” Which means she does know.
I swing the bag full of stuff and knock her liquor bottles off the bedside table. Glass shatters against the wall. “That’s what Trent’s going to do to your head one of these days. We’re getting out of here!”
Frustrated, I stalk out of the room and quickly glance toward the spare bedroom. The door is open for once and I freeze. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
I rest my head against the door frame—too dizzy with disappointment to stay upright on my own. On an old coffee table I found near a Dumpster a couple of years ago are several bags of white powder. Smaller baggies and balloons lay on the floor. I can barely whisper the words. “You’re selling heroin.”
Mom shoves me out of the way and shuts the door. “No. Trent does. I used to let him keep it here overnight at times, but after the night you busted out his windows the police got nosy with him so he brought it here for good. It was the least I could do.”
My fingers open and close. “You busted out the windows of Trent’s car. I took the fall so they wouldn’t send you to prison.”
“Pretend you didn’t see it, Elisabeth. Trent will be mad you know. He thinks you ratted him out to the police.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shout in her face. “Do you not remember the outcome of our last heroin experience?”
Forming a gun with my fingers, I point it to my forehead. “He was going to kill me, Mom. I was eight years old! He pushed the gun against my head and cocked the damned trigger.”
Mom shakes her head too quickly and won’t stop. “No, he wouldn’t have. Your father said he was just trying to scare me and your dad. Your father said you were safe the whole time. He swore it.”
How can she lie to herself so easily? How can she continue to turn away from the truth again and again? Then Mom rubs her arm. I stumble back and hit the wall. God, I’m no different. All the signs of a heroin user were there, for weeks if not longer, and I ignored every single one.
But I’m not ignoring the truth, not anymore.
I go into the living room and start throwing crap off the kitchen counter to find her keys.
I’ll drag her out by her hair if I have to. The knob on the front door turns and my heart squeezes and drops. I’ve taken too long and Trent is going to kill me.
Ryan
BETH BLINKS RAPIDLY WHEN I WALK IN.
Standing in a tiny kitchen, she holds a garbage bag. I’ve never been so relieved to see anyone in my life. Nor have I ever craved to shake someone so badly.
“Going somewhere?” I focus on remaining calm. Beth doesn’t react well to threats or anger or anyone standing in the way of her doing anything.
Beth turns her back to me and throws papers and trash onto the floor. “Get out.”
“Fine with me. Let’s go. We’ve come into Louisville twice for dinner and we have yet to have that date.”
Beth leaves the kitchen and rummages through a card table. Her hands shake and her face is too pale against her black hair. “I’m not playing, Ryan. Mom and I are leaving today.
That’s been the plan the entire time, remember?”
“It was.” My eyes dart around the confined room trying to pinpoint the threat that has Beth terrified. Adrenaline pours into my bloodstream, preparing me for the unseen attack. “But you changed your mind on Saturday.”
A woman enters the living room. Too thin.
Stringy blond hair. It’s the first time I’ve seen Beth’s mother up close. “Who are you?” she asks.
I force myself to look into her flat eyes.
They’re the same color as Beth’s, but without the shine. “I’m Beth’s boyfriend, Ryan.”
Her lips struggle into a weak smile. “You have a boyfriend, Elisabeth?”
Beth tosses an empty plastic two-liter onto the floor. “Ex-boyfriend. He fucked me and then he told his mommy and daddy he hated me. Where are the damned keys, Mom?”
My calm snaps. “I didn’t do that to you. If you’ll give me a chance I’ll explain about my parents.”
“Mom!” Beth screams and her mother flinches. “Keys. Now!”
“Okay,” she says and shuffles down the hallway.
Beth whirls and her nostrils flare. “Get out, Ryan.”
“Not without you.”
Her fists curl and she smacks her leg with the words. “My. Mom. Is. An. Alcoholic. And a heroin addict. Her boyfriend’s favorite pastime is beating the shit out of me and if I’m not around he has no problem taking his aggressions out on my mother. I have maybe minutes to get her out before he comes back and kills us all.”
An eerie calm courses through me. Nobody hurts my girl. “He hits you?”
“Yes, Ryan. He hits me and kicks me and slaps me. I’m his own personal violent video game. If I don’t get my mom out of here he’s going to kill her and if he doesn’t, then the heroin will.”
Every word Beth says is probably true, but I don’t care about her mother. Beth is my only concern. “What’s going to happen to you if I let you walk out this door with your mother?
Do you honestly think that getting in a car and driving to a different town is going to make anything better?”
Beth
“YES,” I AUTOMATICALLY ANSWER, but a voice in the back of my head screams no. “It has to.”
Looking out of place in his baseball uniform, Ryan takes up almost the entire living room thanks to his large body. “You know what I think?”
“I think you lied to me.” He did and I try desperately to hold on to that.
“I screwed up. I’m not perfect. I lied to my parents about us, but I’ve owned up to dating you. They know I love you.”
It’s the right words, but… “You’re too late.”
“Bullshit!” Anger blazes out of his eyes.
“For months I thought you were the most courageous person I knew. You’ve never apologized for being yourself, but standing here right now, I realize you’re a coward.
You’re so terrified of feeling anything that you’d rather give up everything good in Groveton in order to feel safe.”
My head jerks to the side and my eyes narrow. “Safe? I’m standing here in a fucking drug den trying to save my mother from a boyfriend who will be thrilled to kill me, then torture her. There is nothing safe about this.”
“This is your safe. You’d rather struggle in this life than live in Groveton.” He glances at the squalor of the apartment. “You feel in Groveton. In this life, you don’t have to feel a thing and that makes you a coward.”
I drop the bag in my hand and raise a shaky hand to my forehead. He’s wrong. He has to be. That’s not why I’m running. I need to save my mom because if I don’t, who will?
Ryan closes the gap between us. My heart stutters when he places a hand on my waist. “I wish I could say that I’m the one that drove you away, but I’m not. I don’t have that power.
You’ve been running from the moment I met you and I’d bet you were running before that.
“You’re a lot like that bird in the barn.
You’re so scared you’re going to be caged in forever you can’t see the way out. You smack yourself against the wall again and again and again. The door is open, Beth. Stop running in circles and walk out.”
His other hand brushes the hair from my face and my lower lip begins to tremble. “If I leave her she’ll die.” My gut twists and my eyes burn.