Page 9 of Forever Yours
Chapter Eleven
I know that I can’t be truly hers, but God I wish I could be.-Liam
Liam
I pace back and forth in the tiny off campus apartment I share with three other guys from the football team. Thank God, they’re all out partying tonight. I had to clean up about a zillion pizza boxes and soda cans just so that I wasn’t ashamed of how the place will look when Sophie gets here. The guys are the definition of messy bachelors and I’m not much better.
I shove my hand through my hair.Fuck, this sucks.Everything within me rejects what I’m about to do. I want Sophie so bad that I ache with it, but she’s not mine to have. I decided that months ago.
Right after the barbecue, I started thinking maybe I have her. Maybe I could be her forever. Maybe I could break the cycle and be the man she needs me to be. But I traveled home to check on my mom one weekend, and I was reminded again of the mire of shit that I come from.
My dad answered the door with a greasy white t-shirt straining against his beer belly and gave me a smirk that made a cold chill spread throughout my body.
“Deb, your kid’s here. Probably stirring up trouble again.” He jerked his thumb behind him. “Come on in, I guess. If you can step foot in here after bein’ in that hoity toity college of yours.”
I was grim as I stepped onto the orange carpet of the trailer living room. I shoved my hands in my pocket. Everything looked the same. The same dirty walls and stained carpet. The same trash scattered everywhere. And the same smell of pot and god knows what else hung in the air. Pot was the mildest thing my parents used. The needles that littered the coffee table told me that whatever else they were using was the big problem. I shook my head.Get in, get out.I would have done my duty.
“My boy’s here! Oh, my goodness, Liam, it’s good to see you!” My mom’s voice warmed my heart for a second until I took in her appearance. Her eyes were glassy and there was a bruise around her left eye. She peered at me from underneath a puffy eyelid and gave me a lop-sided grin like nothing was wrong.
She brought me in for a hug, while I stiffly wrapped my arms around her. She was so thin and gaunt. My mother was once a beautiful woman. I remember her laughing brown eyes and the curly brown hair she used to have. Now, she’s thin as a waif and her eyes are constantly shifting from side to side, as if to check where her next fix is coming from.
Addiction is a painful thing to watch in a person you love. My dad is an addict, but to be honest I’ve never loved him. I was merely an inconvenience to him. My mother, at least the mother I knew before her addiction, was once someone I loved. I no longer know who she is. But I still check on her from time to time because of the person that I used to love, the one who is maybe in there somewhere.
“Did he do this to you, ma?” I whispered roughly. I knew the answer without asking the question, but I felt like I had to do it.
She pulled back with a jerk and the fear in her eyes told me everything her mouth never would. “Of course not, silly. I just fell. Tell me about school. What’s it like?”
She wobbled as she walked over to the couch and sat down. She didn’t bother to wait for me to answer as she started looking through the trash that littered the couch. “James, where’s our stuff? You said you went to get more.”
James, the sperm donor, grunted. “I already took it Deb. You fuckin’ go through the stuff like crazy. I had to before you got to it.”
My mom closed her eyes and her consciousness seemed to waver for a moment. “Fuck,” she said softly.
“Why don’t you ask your big-time son here to fetch you some more or at least give us some money?” James’ voice boomed through the small trailer, and I clenched my fists as he stepped closer to me. “Or are you too good to help your family out now?”
“I’m happy to help mom out, but not to get drugs. If I give her anything, it will be for food. You know that.”
Round and round we go, I thought in my head. Round and round this argument will go. That’s all I was thinking as he stepped forward and poked me in the chest. “Guess if you can’t get us the shit, I’ll just have to get your mom to do something for it.”
Anger roiled in my gut. I knew exactly what he meant. I knew the lengths my folks went to in order to get their drugs.
I grabbed the finger poking into my chest and twisted it. “You’ll do no such thing, old man.” I felt the pop of his finger and heard his scream as if from a distance.
While he cradled his finger, he sank down to his knees and looked up at me. “Look what you fuckin’ did, you asshole! I’ll get you for this! I swear you’ll die!” The hate in his gaze as he looked up at me was nothing new. It had been there every time he looked at me since I was a little kid.
I looked down at him and all I could feel was rage at the man who had beat me senseless more times than I could count. And that feeling made me kick him in the stomach as hard as I could. He wheezed and doubled over.
“Liam, get out! Get out! You can’t hurt your father like that!” My mother’s voice barely registered as I walked to the door. She had her arm around him and sent me a hateful look. “Don’t come back, Liam!”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” I muttered. But I knew I would because like any child of an addict, I would worry about her. And I would continue searching for the mother she used to be.
I thought about that day a lot. And my conclusion always stayed the same. There is violence in me. Violence and an anger so intense that one day it will spill over and like a spewing volcano, it will take out everyone in its path.
I can’t take Sophie down with me. I won’t.
Chapter Twelve
The man I see before me is worthy of everything. But I can’t make him believe it. -Sophie
