Connected (65 page)

When I was a kid, that bread would have lasted me at least a week. When my dad left us, my mom stopped trying to take care of me. I taught myself to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for my main meal of the day and wash my own clothes in the bathtub. Sometimes, it was days before I could eat because she went on a drug spending spree. Now sitting here in the fridge was a loaf a bread, just fucking rotting away.

Out of anger and pure disgust, I slammed the door shut, causing the fridge to rattle and bang into the wall behind it. I stalked my way to my mom's room and turned the doorknob, but it was locked. I banged on the door with my closed fist and yelled for her, but no one answered . . . no sounds…no movement. I tried again . . . nothing.

With my hands clenched in fists I yelled, “I’m gonna break down the god damn door if you don’t answer!”

Nothing.

“
Mom!” I pounded on it again, hoping Skinner or my mom would finally answer.

I hated to cause more damage to this shithole of a place and have Skinner bitch at me for more money that I don’t have…or so I told him. I banged on the door once but no one answered. Grabbing the doorknob, I slammed my body into the door. It gave away fairly easily and I watched as the door fell back into the wall, barely hanging by its broken hinges.

My mom, who was beautiful at one point in her life, was motionless; her body was sprawled out on the bed, in her dirty pink nightgown just barely covering her body. Her eyes were closed as Skinner crouched over her right arm.

Heat blazed my face as I saw the rubber strap wrapped tightly above her elbow. Skinner was drawing a needle out of the vein from the crook of her arm.

He whispered to her, “Sleep now, baby girl,” and then kissed her cheek.

I walked over to her in two short steps and pulled her nightgown down to cover her more modestly. “Damn it, Mom.”

I pulled on her free arm but she didn’t move. I expected her eyes to flutter open, but when she was high like this, she never opened them. I looked up at Skinner, who was now injecting the same crap in his own arm, using his belt and the same damn needle he just injected into my mom’s arm.

Shit!

He inhaled a rush of air and looked up at me. “Now that's some good shit.”

I watched as his eyes rolled into the back of his bald head. He deeply exhaled and opened his eyes to look back over at me. I just wanted to punch him in his stupid fucking face for always doing this to my mom… to us. So what do I do? The answer was simple; I punched him in the face.

He didn’t even see it coming. I reached over my mom, grabbing the front of his white shirt and punched him straight in the nose. Blood sprayed across my gray sweatshirt and onto my mom's pink nightgown. The punch didn’t even faze Skinner because he was so out of it. All he did was smile in my direction, his nose dripping with blood, and it covered his teeth, and for some reason, that pissed me off more. So, I punched him again and he fell backwards on the bed, and then landed onto the floor. My mom stirred and mumbled something, I tried to shake her awake, but nothing happened.

“
Damn it, Mom, every time,” I yelled, hoping she would be her old self and talk back to me for yelling at her.

I heard groans coming from the opposite side of the bed and Skinner stumbled to his feet. He dabbed his face and glared across the bed at me. “Did you hit me?” he asked though clench teeth.

“
No. You’re a clumsy ass who fell off the bed,” I said, turning to leave the room, but Skinner grabbed the hood of my hoodie, tugging me backwards, spinning me in the process, so I would face him directly.

“
You hit me!” he yelled, while spitting blood in my face. I quickly wiped away the splattered blood with my sleeve.

I shoved him hard off me, but he came back swinging, hitting me in the jaw. I heard and felt a pop in my head. Skinner tackled me with a blow of his shoulder, slamming me back through the open door of the room, and into the wall in the hall. The wind burned from my lungs and I could hardly breathe.

“
You fucking hit me, Tucker!”

Now more than ever, I was really angry. I could feel the rage boiling through my veins, my face burned and my heart started to race faster. “You fucking hit me too!”

I shoved at his shoulders to release the hold he had on me. He stumbled back into the room and fell on his ass; his head hitting the metal bed frame as he went unconscious.

I fixed my sweatshirt and made my way towards the front door. I couldn’t stay another damn minute with that jackass; he was a loser. I locked up the apartment and went back down the crappy stairs. I banged on the manager's door and waited for him to answer. Bouncing with rage, I felt like I was going to explode. When he finally answered, he looked at my bloodied hoodie and shook his head.

“
Skinner is causing problems again,” I said through gritted teeth. Then I started explaining what had happened.

He shook his head some more. “Your problem, Tuck,” he told me, then slammed the door in my face.

Shit!

I raked my hands through my long brown hair. Normally, he would call the cops to get Skinner to leave the building; I guess Sam was done helping my deadbeat drug addict mother and me.

Finally leaving the dirty building, I decided to take the subway and two buses to get to Central Park to a little hide out I always hung around. Some of my friends, that I’m not proud of, hung out there with me. I’ll admit, they’re not good people, but it’s where I belong. They felt more like brothers to me. They came from the same out-skirts as I did and always understood my problems with Skinner. Pulling out a fresh pack of cigarettes from my back pocket, I grabbed one and lit it up. Smoking is a bad habit, something I wish I could break, but never could. I sucked the tobacco down in record time and flicked my butt in the street.

Of course, in the main part of the city, close to Central Park, cabbies honked their horns non-stop. So when I crossed the street and a cab honked at me, it was a chain reaction to flip him off. I kept my head down as I walked down the street, the cold air turned warmer with each passing hour, but out of habit, I pulled my hood up and decided to take shortcut through an alleyway and that’s when I saw 
her
.

A car was parked up against the curb, with the darkest tinted windows, and a girl like no other. Suddenly, an urge came over me to watch her, to stay still. Everything about her looks screamed innocence as she stepped away from the black Bentley Mulsanne.

My eyes took in her pale skin. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight bun thing that girls do. She wore jeans that clung to her body, with black boots that made her legs look twice as long and a black leather jacket. I was too far away to know what color her eyes were, but whatever color they were, I’m sure they were perfect. I could clearly see her smile from the alleyway. It was simple, yet, wonderful. It brightened up her pale face.

When she walked toward the moving truck, I felt like I could hear every step her black boots made against the asphalt. One of the moving men met her at the back, while the rest opened up the big lift and handed each other pieces of furniture.

Everything screamed out to me in a rush of words, 
spoiled, rich, snob, brat, daddy's girl, 
but I brushed it off. She was the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen.

What’s a guy like me doing checking out a high class rich girl on the Upper East Side of town? Central Park West no less… I had no idea.

She moved back to the Bentley as a window was rolling down. She was speaking to whoever was inside, and for some reason this bothered me. Whoever was in the car didn’t show much respect to the vision of this beautiful girl I was looking at. They should have walked her to the door of her new place in New York, or at least made sure she had a key or something.

As she stepped away from the car, it sped off. She was alone now with a big purple bag in one hand, just staring at the back of the Bentley’s taillights. She walked over to the three movers and pointed up to an apartment in the building. The man spoke to her and nodded. She looked back up the street to where the Bentley was disappearing around the corner.

Looking up towards the sky in the morning street, she inhaled a deep breath, and began smiling like she didn’t have a care in the world at that very moment. She was too breath takingly beautiful, even for her own good. I couldn’t help but stare.

Turning, she lowered her head; the beauty of her neck stretched gloriously around as she looked down the alleyway. I couldn’t tell if she saw me. Most of my body was behind a dumpster and my gray sweatshirt hood covered my head, but I swear I saw her little innocent smile curve up on the corner of her mouth before she turned back to the movers starting up the stairs to her new apartment.

So Much It Hurts

Each thundering crash of the ocean waves in the distance administered a dose of therapy to my soul. With my towel draped across my lounge chair, I reclined by the water’s edge sipping a Piña Colada from a hurricane glass adorned by a tiny pink umbrella. My life had all but suffocated me the past few months, and I desperately needed a change of scenery.

Lisa’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Come on, Kaitlyn, let’s go inside and get ready to par-tay,” she called from the edge of the pool, overemphasizing her last word.

I suppressed a laugh. Only late twenty-somethings remember when it was cool to pronounce it ‘par-tay’. No need to point out the fact that we were nearly too old to hit the clubs.

Two guys standing at the tiki bar turned to stare at Lisa as she stepped out of the water. She reminded me of a super model as she brushed her long brown hair away from her eyes. I met Lisa soon after she found out she was pregnant with her second son. I thought she was the most beautiful pregnant woman I had ever seen. However, Lisa’s sweet disposition far outweighed her attractiveness. Like the fair-complexioned cartoon princess, I could almost picture the birds singing to her while they helped her fold the laundry at home. Unaware of the caliber of her beauty, she never seemed to notice when other men were checking her out. She had been happily married to her high school sweetheart for almost seven years.

I chuckled under my breath while I watched the two beefcake rubbernecks at the tiki bar gawk at her over their mirrored aviator sunglasses.

“
Ok, let’s go,” I replied before I gulped the rest of my drink.

The other girls were toweling off and grabbing their bags to head upstairs to the condo. I looked around my mini-paradise, content with my surroundings. The palm trees swayed against the warm breeze, while the seagulls flew overhead searching for their next meal. The stark white sand glistened for miles under the hot sun, while the swells of the ocean waves toppled against the shore. For the first time I felt a freedom I had not experienced in a long time.

I left my single life of drinking and dancing behind the day I found out I was pregnant with Eli. Michael and I had no plans of marriage until we saw those two pink lines on that cold November morning. I had set my future of becoming a pediatric psychologist aside while I made arrangements to become a stay-at-home mom. My entire life seemed to have been on hold the last five years. I quickly learned that being a stay-at-home mom was not all picnics and play dates. I felt trapped under the interminable mountain of laundry, amid the infinite overflow of dirty dishes, by the everlasting song of the purple dinosaur, and with the incessant whine of a tired and cranky child. I could not remember the last time I had enjoyed a night out. I was actually looking forward to it.

I assumed Michael and Eli were just sitting down for dinner at Burger Land. Michael, the staunch and successful CPA at a prosperous accounting firm, was much too busy to cook while I was away. He almost balked at the idea of my weekend escape.