Dear Life(6)

He’s making a man out of me.

That’s what he thinks. When in reality, he’s turning me into a bitter bastard like himself.

I park in my regular spot outside my apartment building, noting Sasha’s car’s not in the parking lot. I unload my bag and take the steps of my apartment two at a time, ready to take the quickest shower of my life.

“Hey, I’m in my place. I’ll be over in ten.”

“Fine,” he huffs. “Hurry the hell up.”

When I enter my sparsely decorated apartment, I flip on the lights and notice a letter on the fold-out table in the makeshift dining area. Taking a quick glance around the space, I note the lack of stupid knickknacks Sasha put around the bleak room and start to realize something is off. Setting my helmet down, I stutter-walk toward the note with trepidation.

It’s in Sasha’s handwriting. She never leaves notes . . .

Not taking my time, I rip it open and read it.

Carter,

I’m sorry. Maybe one day I will be able to repay you.

-S

Repay me? What the hell is she talking about? Is this her way of breaking up with me? Through a fucking note?

This can’t be real.

Confused, I read the note again, not that it’s really long, I just need to make some sort of sense of all this. She’ll repay me. Repay me for what?

Repay me for . . .

My mind races, my stomach starts to churn, a cold sweat drapes over my skin, and a sinking feeling takes root within my soul.

No fucking way . . .

She’s the only one who knows, the only one who has access.

In disbelief, I walk-sprint to my bedroom, tear open the bottom drawer of my dresser, and open the box stuffed in the back.

Completely empty. It’s where I’ve kept all my extra cash from the last few years I’ve won from all my bets. Over ten thousand dollars fucking gone.

Every last bill.

I don’t trust banks, so hadn’t deposited my savings, believing my apartment would be a safer place. Fucking wrong on that one. Shit.

“Fuck!” I shout, throwing the box across the room and gripping my hair. “Fuck. Fuck!”

It’s all gone. My freedom, my way out, the only opportunity I had of releasing myself from my uncle’s iron-clad shackles. The room darkens around me, and all I see is a faint space of red. This is not fucking happening. There is no way Sasha just took everything I’ve ever worked for and left. Left me with nothing but a run-down apartment decorated in nothing but fractured furniture.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I dial her number but it goes straight to voicemail, no surprise there, so I send her a text to call me immediately, knowing deep down in my gut I will never receive that phone call from her.

She did not just wipe me clean of everything.

There is no way she just stripped me of my freedom. Of the fucking freedom I’ve been working for years to achieve.

This can’t be happening.

Please . . . don’t let this be true.

Sitting on my bed, my head in my hands, a dull pulse flickers in my throat. Utterly defeated. There is no other way to describe it.

“Fuck . . .” The word slips off my tongue, hanging in the heavy air. The urge to punch the living shit out of my brick wall is coursing through me, burning up and down my arms. The deep-rooted anger I’ve harbored for years upon years, roaring up inside me with a sullen vengeance.

No. Fucking. Way.

Why? Why the hell would she do that? I thought what we had was good. And now she’s just . . . gone?

As is my freedom—just like that—vanished within a blink of an eye.





Step One: Grieve


HOLLYN


“Three . . . two . . . one . . . HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Blue and silver confetti bursts into the sky as Nivea-sponsored hats and noisemakers bounce around on the screen. Couples kiss, people celebrate, and everyone is having a jolly freaking time as Ryan Seacrest says some emotional bullshit about starting a new year.

“Talk all you want, Ryan, you’re not going to get any taller,” I mumble, a Cheez Doodle hanging out of my mouth, permanently marking the corner of my lips in an orange hue. Sighing, I nibble on the doodle and say, “Happy New Year, Prince William.”

Glancing over, I take in Prince William, my goldfish. Or should I say, my dead goldfish. He went belly up two days ago but I’ve been too lazy to flush him.

“I would kiss you if you weren’t stinking up this entire apartment. Your smell is rather offensive so I’m passing.” Flopping over the arm of my sofa, my Cheez Doodle falling onto my chest, I reach for my can of air freshener, stick the doodle back in my mouth, point the freshener toward the ceiling, and press down on the button.

A mountainy mist sprays into the air filling my apartment with a rugged aerosol smell. Fake, yet refreshing, as if I’m snorting up an aspen tree.

This is the life. It’s now the start of a new year, and I have a coated ring of processed cheese tarnishing my lips, my hair tied into a rather unattractive knot by the chip clip that once held my doodles shut, and my rainbow-striped toe socks from middle school dangling off my feet, giving no definition to my little piggies at all. Yup, living it large.

Spraying my air freshener again, just for the hell of it, I watch the mountain-scented aerosol fill the air as it slowly falls to the floor, coating the once-new carpet with its foresty splendor.