Hell And Back(50)

He started throwing around the stuff on the table. “Where are they, where are they?” he kept asking.

He was looking for the three pills I found hidden in his pillowcase.

“Adam, I flushed them. Please, we can get you help, we can tak—”

He finally snapped, throwing over the little dinette table. “FUUUUCCCKKKK! I don’t fucking want help,” he yelled so loud, I was surprised the windows in the house didn’t break.

In that minute, my mother walked in the kitchen holding four grocery bags in her hands. “What is going on with you two? I could hear you all the way to the car.” She took in the table that was turned over. She took in the needles that were now all around the room. She took in the burnt spoons and his rubber band along with the empty plastic baggies.

The look of horror crossed over her face. “What is all this, Jackson?” The bags fell out of her hands with a huge thud.

“Oh, this, Mom? This would be what Adam’s been up to with his new friends,” I told her, looking straight into my brother’s green eyes.

She turned to look at Adam, who was looking like he could breathe fire at that point. “Adam, what’s going on here?”

The question loomed in the air, the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife “I get high, Mom, all the fucking time,” he said, laughing at her. “What does anyone care? No one cares!” He threw his hands out to the side. “You”—he pointed to my mother—“are so sick with grief from losing Dad and trying to make everything perfect when it’s not. And you”—he pointed to me—“are too busy burying your cock in a puss—”

I didn’t let him finish his sentence. I punched him right in the mouth. He turned his head to look at me, blood leaking from the side of his mouth.

He bent his head back and laughed again. “Is that all you have, brother?”

“Adam.” My mother stepped to him to try to help him, but he pushed her away.

“No! I don’t need this from the both of you.”

“I don’t give a shit if you want or need it. You aren’t doing this shit here.”

“What about you, Mom? You going to let him kick me out of my home?” He turned and looked at our mother’s grief-stricken face.

“Adam, you can’t do this to yourself. You are better than this. Your father would be—” She tried to talk to him.

“My father is dead, so he can’t be anything.” He smirked at her, a shocked gasp making its way out of her mouth before she covered it with her hand.

“Watch it. You will not talk to her like that. You aren’t happy here? Then take your shit and leave.” I practically dared him, hoping it was the push he needed.

“Fuck this, I’m out.” He turned around and headed to the door with my mother trailing behind him, pleading with him to stay.

I watched the whole thing without saying another word. Watched him jump into a run-down Civic as my mother begged and cried for him to come back inside.

I watched her almost run after the car. But what stuck with me most of all were her eyes when she turned around. Eyes filled with sadness, regret, and sorrow.

“He’ll come back, Mom. Come inside.”

We waited all night, then the next and then the next, and he never came back. The guilt over my part in that whole scene ate at me every single day since.





Chapter Thirty-Three


Bella





The door to the hospital room is open for the first time since I opened my eyes.

I’m always scared that Adam would walk by and see me. But the last nurse who was in here just forgot to close it. In front of my door sits a man who looks like The Hulk with all his muscles.

But I’m not looking at him. I’m looking at the guy sitting in the chair next to him. The guy I kicked out of my room and my life.

He looks worse than me, and I have broken bones. He looks at me, but his eyes are no longer crystal blue. They’re more of a cloudy gray.

I turn away, breaking eye contact, hoping someone else comes in and closes the door so my eyes don’t go there.

It is easier to ignore him when I can’t see him.

I can’t wait until tomorrow when I’m released and don’t have to see him or know he is so close.

Every night I feel him close to me, but when I open my eyes I’m always alone.

“Ackson!” I hear my daughter’s sweet voice calling to him with obvious affection.

Looking over, I see him smile, holding out his arms as she jumps up into them. The flowers she is holding in her hands get squashed between them.

“Look what I got for Momma. Ms. Brenda says they are pretty just like her.”

“No, sweetie, nothing is as pretty as your mom,” he tells her while looking at me.