Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I don’t know what the fuck it is, but it convinced me that I’ll never try to achieve over my academic ability.
An overworked brain is worse than an undercooked one.
My parents are living proof of that.
As my father shows McKayla the way to the bathroom, I shift my focus to the leech who sucked him so dry, the house his parents left him when they died is the only thing of value he has left. “How much do you need this time?”
My mother stops picking at the varnish on her over-glossed yet still chipped nails to lock her glassy eyes with me. “It isn’t what you’re thinking. The lawyer needs—”
“How much do you need?”
“Twelve hundred.” She straightens her spine to portray she isn’t shaking in the aftermath of alcohol withdrawals before adding, “Fifteen, if you have it.” She scratches at her arm, making me worried alcohol isn’t her only crutch these days. If I cared more, I’d ask. Since I don’t, I remain quiet. She didn’t help my father when he solved one too many puzzles. She abandoned him at the hospital that added to his psychosis. “I’ll pay you back. I just had a handful of bills come in while I was away.”
“You were locked up, Ma. You weren’t at the Ritz.” After making sure my father isn’t within eyesight, I request my mother to spin around before moving for one of the many trinkets lining the top of the cabinets in the kitchen. My mother is either too drunk to scale a step ladder with the hope of finding my secret stash of money, or she can’t remember by the time she’s sober.
More times than not, it is the latter.
I curse a tight preseason training schedule for the lack of funds in the tin when I pry off the lid. If he didn’t get the pension, there would only be enough in here for my father to eat for a couple of weeks at most.
“I can only give you eight hundred.”
“But I need—”
I cut her off with a steely glare. “Eight hundred or nothing. They’re your fucking choices.”
My teeth grit when a deep voice at the side says, “I have two hundred in my wallet.” Trenton rolls into the kitchen before lifting his eyes to the woman responsible for him living his life in a fucking wheelchair. “You can have it if you want.”
“Thanks, Trenty baby.” Mom swoops down to plant a kiss on his cheek before snatching the bills out of my hand and hightailing it to Trenton’s room to take every morsel she can get.
When the front door slams shut, a clear sign she’s left, I ask, “How much have you given her this month?”
“Not much—”
“How much, Trenton?”
I work my jaw through a stern grind when he answers, “Twenty-four hundred.”
I inwardly curse before asking, “You know it isn’t going to bills, right?”
He leads with the same excuse he always does. “She’s our mother, Cash—”
“And she fucking did that to you.” I thrust my hand at the nub below his groin, its shake undeniable.
“No,” he denies with a shake of his head. “You did that.”
“To save you.”
“When you should have saved her!” His roar startles our father so much, he shoots his hands up to his ears and rocks back and forth like a child. “I didn’t ask you to save me, Cash. I didn’t ask you to pick me over her. You should have picked her.”
“I should have,” I admit while glaring at him like I don’t know who the fuck he is. Just like our father, he was slated for brilliance, and just like him, he is wasting it away doing nothing. “But I didn’t. I picked you. I chose you. And I have to live with that fucking choice every single day.” I drag my hand across the kitchen table, sending the contents flying onto the floor. “If you want to blame someone for Tiph dying, look in the fucking mirror, Trenton. I told you not to get in the car with her. I offered to drive you home. But you didn’t fucking listen. Yet, that’s my fault, right?”
When I spot McKayla’s slow approach, I steal Trenton’s chance to reply by snatching up McKayla’s hand and charging for the door. “If you don’t want me around, write the fucking riddles down right.”
I swear he replies, “I didn’t give him that riddle.” But I can’t be sure because my stomps to McKayla’s car are too loud to hear anything.
“Where are we going?” McKayla asks after sliding behind the steering wheel.
“Anywhere,” I reply. “Anywhere but here.”
I emerge from the dark and gloomy space in my head when a southern accent similar to McKayla’s but far more twanged greets, “McKayla, honey, it’s been so long.”
A lady with a checkered shirt and a bright smile leans out of the booth of an RV park when McKayla replies, “Hey, Cindy. It has been a while, hasn’t it?” While Cindy replies it’s been far too long for her old head to work out, McKayla pulls open the glove compartment and yanks out a bundle of bills.