Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
“Hey, Sammy. It’s Larry. We got your mama here. She’s gonna need your help getting home.”
My stomach twisted, the heaviness in my shoulders radiating down to my chest, suffocating me. “Thanks. I’ll be right down.”
Molly began to climb out of bed, but I shook my head.
“Let me go with you,” she said.
“No, I’m good.”
“Sammy…”
“I got it, Molly. It’s fine. No sense in you losin’ any sleep. It’s not a big deal.”
She didn’t argue with me, likely because she knew I would stand my ground. I was sleeping in basketball shorts, so I just tugged on a tee. My socks and shoes were in the living room.
Molly hugged me and kissed my cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you too. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
My body felt like dead weight, as if there was no life left in it as I drove to the bar. Larry owned it, but he wasn’t the only one there who knew my mom and my phone number. They all did, and they’d all used it at some point or another.
It pissed me off that they served her, that they let her do this to herself, but then, it wasn’t their responsibility. Even if it were, how could I expect them to stop her if I didn’t?
I parked out front, and when I went inside, Larry gave me a nod, his pity for me clear on his wrinkled face. He motioned toward the back room, and I went with him. Mama was sitting on the couch there, crying. “She was like this when she got here. I wouldn’t have let her get this drunk. You know that.”
“I do.” So yeah, there was that. Even if they weren’t the ones to give her a drink, she would always find it. “Thanks. I appreciate ya calling me.”
Larry clapped me on the shoulder, then walked away. There was a back door I could take her out so I didn’t have to walk her through the bar, but it was locked from the inside, so I couldn’t have come in this way.
I went to her, knelt beside the sofa. “You okay?” I asked softly.
“I’m so sorry, Sammy,” she said, and cried harder.
“I know. Let’s get you home.” A loud sob pulled out of her then, one that vibrated through me. Still, she let me help her to her feet. I wrapped an arm around her, and she just kept crying while I walked her outside and around the building to my truck.
Cried when I put her inside and latched her seat belt.
Cried the whole drive home, but it did slow some. She was quiet, almost comatose when I got her out of the vehicle. She wasn’t helping me walk her as much as she was before, and I damn near had to carry her inside.
She curled into a ball on her bed, her body that same dead weight I’d felt like I was earlier. She didn’t help as I took her shoes off, then her socks.
I got the puke can from her closet and set it beside the bed. I turned the lights off but kept the hallway one on so it wouldn’t be completely dark. I’d just sat in the armchair in her room to keep watch when she whispered, “You deserve better than this. You should get out of here and leave me behind.”
“This is my home.” Like I told Molly, I didn’t know how to be anywhere else.
“I’m gonna do better this time, Sammy. I promise. I’m really gonna quit. I’m going back to meetings and getting my shit together to be the kinda mom you deserve.”
“I know,” I said, the lie nearly choking me, the way I worried vomit would choke her if I didn’t watch her while she slept.
She only puked once that night, missing the can, so I had to clean it and her as well.
The next day we pretended nothing happened.
Emerson still didn’t have any deliveries.
That night, when I recorded a video, right there in the bathroom at Iris’s, I hoped I’d get caught. That they’d find my channel and run me out of town, taking away my choice.
And when I uploaded it, I added the caption: Any men in the Charlotte area looking to film together? Getting a little boring just jerking off. Hit me up if you wanna take things to the next level with me.
I just needed something, and that was the only thing I could think of to help fill the void inside me.
CHAPTER FIVE
Emerson
Sam wanted to film with someone.
For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why that was any of my business, why I cared about it at all, but for whatever reason, I did.
Something had been different about Sam’s video last night. All he did was jack off for the camera like always, but the muscles in his abs had been tighter. There was a tension in him I could see in the jerky movements, the strokes coming off angry and sad, which was absolutely ridiculous to think about. How could masturbating be sad? How could I feel the heaviness of his body through my computer screen?