Page 34 of Steadfast
That depressing realization sent me to my messy bed, where I curled up, pressing a hand to my stinging cheek.
I have to get out of here. That was abundantly clear. I was three weeks away from graduation, at which time I would probably have no job. When the hospital chose Denny over me for the full-time slot, I’d need a backup plan and a new place to live. I’d stayed in this house too long.
After a while there was a gentle tap on the door. “Sophie?”
For a moment I didn’t answer. What would my mother do if I moved out? Would she even remember to feed herself? “What?”
She opened the door and took two steps inside. Then she closed the door behind her. “Don’t do that,” she whispered.
“What?” I sat up on the bed.
She shook her head, the bags under her eyes standing out like purple moons on her face. “Don’t rile up your father. I can’t take the noise.”
And here I’d thought I couldn’t get more upset. “Don’teven,” I sputtered. “I don’t have to take his bullshit.”Or yours.
“He’s your father.”
Oh, please. “He’s myjailer.” Hell. “Mom, do you know what an enabler is?”
She just looked at me with dull eyes.
“No? Well, look it up. Because I think I’m yours.” I got off the bed. “I’m going to shower. Kindly step aside.”
She didn’t move, and my blood pressure spiked once more. I was justdone. Putting two hands on her shoulders, I nudged her aside. Then I opened my bedroom door and slipped out.
In the shower, my anger burned hotter than the water. Something had to give. But the something was always me.
Chapter Twelve
Jude
Cravings Meter: 4
During the night, all that rain turned to snow. And when it fell onto a surface that wasn’t quite frozen, the roadway would become slick as hell and all the car accidents would happen. Today the cops and tow trucks would be busy with fender benders and irate drivers who didn’t take the weather into consideration when they stepped on the accelerator.
I should talk, though. I’d managed to drive my Porsche into a tree at fifty miles per hour on a clear May evening.
The snow brought business into our garage in spite of the holiday weekend. It wasn’t even ten thirty when some poor woman wearing hair curlers pulled a late-model Volvo into the drive. There was a big dent in the fender and scratches, too.
“I slid into the stone wall that rings our property,” she said. “Can you fix it?”
I ran my hand over the dent. It wasn’t all that bad. “Sure. I can pop it out and fix the paint. But if you want like-new perfection, you’d need to replace the fender. That means ordering parts.”
She wrung her hands. “My husband gets home from visiting his mother tomorrow,” she said. “Is there any way you could do it today?” Her blue eyes begged me to say yes. Either her husband was an evil troll, or she’d made a habit of running expensive cars into stationary objects.
“I’ll do my best,” I hedged. At least the paint was black. I should be able to match it with what we had on hand.
I called her a taxi and then went happily to work on her dent. Someone else’s misfortune was a boon for me. Busy hands were the only thing keeping me sane today. I turned the garage radio up loud and slipped a rod up under the wheel well of the Volvo. The hours rolled by as I tinkered with my repair job.
My father didn’t come into the garage all day. Not once. I took one break for nuked food, but otherwise I worked on that dent until late afternoon. I did a kickass job. When the woman returned for her car, she didn’t even blink at the price for five hours of my labor.
“It looks great,” she gushed. “Thank you so much.”
I put her check in the till then drove through a fast-food place for dinner. Back in my room, the usual itch came back. It wasn’t too bad—maybe a three out of ten. But the holiday weekend stretched out before me, long and empty. And the memory of kissing Sophie last night in my car tortured me.
A bottle of whiskey would take care of that, my asshole brain suggested.
I stretched out on my bed with an old copy of Joseph Conrad’sThe Heart of Darkness. It wasn’t exactly a light read, but I didn’t mind. I was just getting to the creepiest part when I heard the creak of someone’s footsteps climbing the stairs to my room.
