Page 6 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
“No idea what you’re talking about,” I mutter under my breath, picking at the hangnail on my thumb.
The car comes to a lurching halt at a red stoplight, and Fulton elbows me. “Am I sensing some sexual tension?”
Sexual? Ha. I wouldn’t touch her pussy with a ten-foot pole, or if she was the last woman on Earth and I’d taken one of those chocolates that increase your sex drive. Yeah, I’d be a blind idiot not to notice the lack of clothing she was wearing when she confronted me, but no matter how much her large tits jiggled in that pathetic excuse for a bra, I’d never waste my breath being in the same room as her, much less using said breath to kiss her.
“There’s tension, but none of it is sexual.”
“Uh-huh.” Fulton scratches at a tiny scuff on his windshield. “And are you going to press charges? You know, for her pretty much flattening the entire side of your car?”
I wanted to. I really did. That molten anger inside of me blisters with heat to make her pay (literally and figuratively), but the more reasonable, less kill-or-be-killed version of me still has a seat at the table, and he’s telling me to take a Xanax before I ruin someone financially. Insurance covered the damages. I have enough money to buy a completely new car if I wanted, and it wouldn’t make a dent in my bank account. There’s really no reason for me to sue her aside from being a petty bastard.
As charged as I am with Olympian levels of fury, I just can’t bring myself to put her in debt like that, even if I’m not her biggest fan. I saw the crap-show of a car she drove. Even if I did sue her, I probably wouldn’t get much money from her. And what I could get would be more than likely financially devastating on her end. Therefore, I’m retracting my claws and doing the selfless deed by letting her off the hook.
“I don’t want to sue,” I tell Fulton, and the admission douses the last dregs of the fire running rampant inside of me, leaving nothing but coughs of smoke and hissing firewood.
The light turns green, and Fulton resumes his path through the intersection, shock nudging his brows to his hairline. “That’s, uh, really responsible of you.”
My belly does this weird flip, and I don’t think it’s from motion sickness. “Just another thing for me to deal with, honestly. And I don’t have the time or patience for it.”
“That’s understandable. I mean, I’ve never been to court, but it feels like it would take a long time. And it would be super stressful.” Fulton shudders. “Ordering food at a drive-thru is already stressful enough for me.”
A chuckle catches on my lips, and the complementary squeeze in my chest makes me momentarily forget about thehip-related bad news I received today. Maybe this break will help me rethink my whole approach this season. Maybe I just need to step away for a moment and let my thoughts air out.
When we pull into the driveway of the house we share with four other guys, I’m in awe at how different it looks now from how it did in the summer. The gigantic, weathered mansion is now overrun with a medley of autumn leaves, covering the once-green yard in gilded golds and magnificent maroons. The gnarled trees that encircle the house are a testament to the changing seasons, with their barren branches and the few handfuls of foliage that have yet to freckle the ground. And the air is ripe with a crispness that only precedes rain, suffusing the sky like ink on wet paper.
As we get out of the car, Fulton grabs my crutches and helps me find my footing. “You know, I overheard Aeris saying that she’s been going to this dance class downtown. She says it’s great. Maybe you could try there?” he proposes.
“That carves some time off looking, so thanks, man. If it’s Aeris-approved, I’m pretty sure it’ll be a piece of cake.”
Aeris, one of my teammate’s girlfriends, has been a great addition to the group. She’s the only girl who’s been able to tie down our team’s biggest playboy, Hayes. Domesticated the poor guy. She’s super sweet and can cook a mean chicken parmesan, but with all due respect, she has the worst coordination in the world. Like, born-with-two-left-feet bad. So if Aeris can do it, I’ll be a pro at this whole dancing thing. Plus, how hard can it really be?
3
A ONE-WAY ROAD TO FAILURE
CALISTA
I’ve come to the conclusion that even with the help of time-telling devices, the world just loves to see me suffer. My hair is a rat’s nest of tangles and grease, my patience is practically nonexistent, and I’m somehow juggling both Teague’s hockey bag and my mother’s medication.
My mother, Ingrid, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in her early forties, around the time I was seventeen. And now I’m her primary caretaker. She’s pretty much bedridden, and the disease has resulted in muscle weakness, a lack of coordination, and chronic fatigue. My mother started to get bad around my junior year of high school, but her flare-ups spiked my sophomore year of college. After finding out how sick she’d gotten, I dropped out to take care of her. And due to her being indisposed, I became Teague’s guardian when he was only in kindergarten.
It breaks my heart to see her wasting away in bed, constantly fighting pain, never knowing when she’ll succumb to the sickness. There are days where I’m out of the house for extended periods of time, and I get this terrible feeling that I’ll comehome to find her dead. Or worse—Teague will find her before I do.
Not only do I feel responsible for my mother because she’s, well, my mom, but she wasmyprimary caretaker when we were struggling in an impoverished household. My father disappeared around my junior year of high school—when my mother’s condition became too much for him to deal with—and I haven’t seen him since. I don’t know where he ran off to or if he’s even still alive. Not that I care. He stopped being my dad the day he walked out on us.
My father was a good-for-nothing lowlife who leeched off this family and contributed nothing to our finances. So to remedy a single-income household, my mom sacrificed her entire life for me and Teague to have a somewhat normal upbringing. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment with an open-layout kitchen, a small bathroom, and barely enough square footage to constitute a living room.
Since my mother worked back-to-back shifts at the diner, she never had any time to clean the apartment. It was a mess: peeling carpet, roach carapaces melded to glue traps, traces of mold discoloring the walls of the bathroom, dirty dishes piled high in the sink, and toys and bills alike cluttered on every flat surface. My mother barely made enough money for weekly groceries, much less rent and utility bills. We were always behind on payments, and I began to realize how much money insecurity affected us when I got my first job my sophomore year of high school.
It was full-time at a local fast-food restaurant, which wasn’t terrible for my first work experience but definitely interfered with the quality of my education. I went from an A student to a C student within a semester. But it’s not like I could spend extra time studying and doing schoolwork when I had to assist mymother. So I traded school for the relief of carrying some of my mother’s stress and providing for my family.
I forfeited my dreams of finishing college and becoming a professional dancer. I forfeited my social life and love life. I forfeited…everything. There are some days I wish my life hadn’t turned out the way it did, but if I had to choose between my dreams and my family, my family would always come first—even at the expense of my happiness. It doesn’t feel like much of a loss, though, when my life had barely begun. And maybe it’s better this way: to kill something before it has the chance to grow.
Now I’ve become a permanent provider, leaving behind the typical twenty-something’s world of carefree living.
“Teague, you better be ready in the next three minutes!” I shout, schlepping his bag by the door as I make a detour to the kitchen. As much as I wish it was for a quick bite, I don’t have time.
I grab a glass from the cabinet, fill it with water, then bring my mother her beta interferons to help reduce inflammation. Thankfully, we don’t live in that cursed two-bedroom apartment anymore. Teaching ten back-to-back dance classes a day, five days a week, I saved up enough money to help us afford a better apartment. It also helped that disability and social security covered a lot of my mother’s medical expenses.
