Page 4 of Silent Verity

Because no matter how shitty she was, I could never bring myself to abandon her, even if she’d abandoned me over and fucking over.

How fucking shitty was that?

Guessed I was just an addict for emotional pain.

3

Jesse

I swiped my thumb across the screen and lifted my phone to my ear, hurrying for my room. I didn’t want anyone overhearing this conversation. Everyone but Dalton had shitty parents, but it still didn’t make this any easier to deal with, especially where others could hear. My mother was a special kind of narcissist, and I was a coward when it came to her every fucking time.

I couldn’t bring myself to abandon her the same way she’d done me over and over again. I couldn’t bring myself to turn my back on her. I couldn’t even bring myself to stand my ground against her—not completely.

“Jesse,” she slurred, her tone sweet and loving. My heart clenched in my chest. It hurt when she did this shit because she wasn’t being sweet and loving due to her love for me. She held none of that emotion when it came to me. No, she wanted something, and my guess was that money had run low again, which meant she didn’t have the funds needed to support her addiction.

So, she was reaching out to me in the hopes of buttering me up enough to send her at least enough to get her by. It was a toxic cycle we had. She’d call, tell me she needed just enough money to get her by and she’d pay me back when she got paid—which I knew would never happen—and I’d fight her on it a little bit. Then, she’d spew hateful words at me and rip my fucking heart out, stomp all over it, and then turn sweet again. And I’d give in just so she wouldn’t say that fucked-up shit to me any longer.

Then, she’d disappear again for a while until she needed my wallet once more.

“Mom,” I greeted, my voice rough. I shut my bedroom door behind me, then flipped the lock for good measure. I didn’t want anyone, most of all Dalton, coming in here and seeing me at my worst. And I would be at my worst. This woman had a way of ripping me to fucking shreds.

“I need help, baby,” she said, her voice still sweet despite how heavily her words were slurred. “My disability check doesn’t hit for a few more days, and I’m out of money.”

I sank onto the edge of my bed and leaned forward, dropping my face into my hand. My other hand tightened around the phone. “Of course, you are,” I muttered. “I’m not sending you money, Mom. You literally only have a phone bill. You don’t even have a rent payment or an electric payment. This is ridiculous.” The home she lived in had been left to her by my grandparents. It was paid off, and I paid the damn taxes on it every year, and the fucking electric bill came out of my checking account, too. The woman didn’t own a car because she didn’t have a license—got that revoked when I was about five years old—so literally all she had was a fucking phone.

She blew through a twelve-hundred-dollar disability check every single month on just liquor and drugs. People liked to say rockstars partied hard, but those people had never met my mother.

“Don’t get snippy with me, boy,” she snapped. And fuck, I hated that name. The only time I had an actual name was when she was trying to soften me up. Otherwise, I was boy, kid, piece of shit, mistake, or something else along those lines.

I sighed, already exhausted from the phone call, and it’d barely even begun. “Mom, I’m not trying to be snippy,” I told her, trying to calm her down. She could get real hateful when she got angry with me. “I’m sorry if it came across that way.” The apology was like acid on my tongue, but I said the words anyway. I wasn’t in the mental space for this phone call to take a negative turn.

“If you’re so sorry, then send me some money, Jesse,” she said, reverting back to using my name. “I’ll forgive you, then.”

I closed my eyes. “Mom?—”

She made a growling noise that had me flinching. It didn’t matter that she was in a completely different part of the city or that she was only on the phone with me. That sound was one she made she was about to knock me on my ass when I was younger. And old habits fucking died hard.

“I should have fucking aborted you,” she snarled, furious now. Her words became increasingly more slurred the angrier she grew. “You always were my biggest fucking mistake, you ungrateful shit. I gave you life. You’re a mother fucking rockstar now because I didn’t get rid of your worthless ass.” My throat was closing up with panic. I dug my nails into my thighs, trying to ground myself. My heart was racing too fucking fast. “You wouldn’t have any of what you have without me!” she screeched, damn near busting my ear drum.

I had to get off this fucking phone.

“Mom, I’ll put money into your account, okay? I’ll do it now.”

Like a fucking switch was flipped, she said, all soft and sweet again, “Thank you, baby.”

I hung up the phone, and with trembling fingers, I transferred money into her bank account. And then, I turned my phone off, tossed it somewhere to the floor, and grabbed a pre-rolled blunt from my stash.

If this kept up, I was going to need something stronger than weed. And even thinking that was terrifying because I’d always vowed to never be like my mother.

But I was fucking breaking. And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could cope.

4

Dalton

Only one person could put that dreaded, terrified look on Jesse’s face, and I fucking hated her. I wasn’t a hateful person by any means, but that fucking woman made me wish she was dead. That was how much I couldn’t fucking stand her.

For as long as I’d known Jesse, that bitch had neglected him, let him starve, and treated him like absolute garbage. The very few times I’d overheard the two of them having a conversation, she’d been hateful, degrading, and just pure disgusting to her son. To her own damn flesh and blood.

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