I Stand Before You (Judge Me Not #2)(6)

Mom told me to try harder, give these guys a chance for her sake. I laughed and told Abby her men could blow me. “Chase, don’t be crude,” was her response.

By the end of the summer Mom hooked up with what turned out to be steady boyfriend number three. I was no fool; I immediately sensed my days were numbered. I would’ve had to have been blind not to see the writing on the wall, a wall I didn’t realize I was hurtling toward. But it wasn’t just Abby’s lame new boyfriend disliking me that was a problem. There was something else, something she’d never admit to. There was no escaping it though, not really.

I saw Abby’s problem every day when I looked in the mirror.

Standing in a cramped and steam-filled bathroom, hot water running, can of shave cream poised in hand, I couldn’t deny the truth in front of me. I’d swipe at the misted mirror with my free hand, leaving it streaky, but mostly clear. And it wasn’t me I saw in the reflection, it was my father. That’s how much I looked like Jack Gartner, even at eighteen. And that was my mother’s real problem.

Shit. Even thinking about it now—two years later—f*cks with my head.

I glance over at Tate. He’s quiet, taking long pulls from the bottle. I shift in my seat and wind up the window the rest of the way. Time to assess my bleary reflection, time to compare it to what it was, time to compare it to the man who made me…I sometimes do this just to f*ck with myself.

When I take in my reflection, I laugh. Hell, the resemblance is still uncanny. And just like when I used to stare at the steamed-up mirror in the bathroom, it’s my dad’s eyes staring back at me now. But these pale blues are all mine. Yeah, his whites were never shot with red like mine.

Still, even with the bloodshot eyes, similarities far outweigh differences. Though it’s not short and tidy—like Grandma Gartner would like it to be—my hair is the exact same shade as her son’s once was, light brown. Jack also blessed me with his straight nose, his square jaw, and his defined cheekbones. Everyone used to say my dad was good-looking, I guess I am too. Girls seem to think so, that’s for sure. And my mother sure was smitten with my dad.

Abby used to lean across the front seat of the sporty car my dad bought for himself during the good times. Will and I would be in the back, rolling our eyes at each other. My mom would kiss my dad, making him swerve a little as he drove. She’d tell him he was gorgeous, and that she loved him. Dad would laugh and tell Abby he loved her even more. He’d say his love for her burned hotter than the Vegas sun above us. My mom loved that shit. Will and I, however, would groan in disgust and make gagging noises.

Shit, I feel like gagging now. Not because of the memory, but at how closely I still resemble my dead father. I turn away from my reflection. I can’t bear to endure this self-inflicted torture any longer. No wonder I was f*cking sent away. Too bad I couldn’t disappear completely just as easily right now. Guess, in a way, that’s why I live my life the way I do, filling it with drugs…sex…violence.

Back then my very presence in my mom’s life must have been a constant reminder of all she had lost. When you’re striving to move on, you don’t need an anchor to the past. She could move forward with Will, he was just a kid. Besides, he looked like her, not like my father. But I was eighteen, an adult, and far too much my father’s son for everyone’s comfort. I guess it was just too difficult for Mom to look at me—see him—and be reminded of all she’d once had.

So the day steady boyfriend number three, a guy named Gary, told her she could move in with him, I kind of f*cking knew the invitation wouldn’t be extended to me.

Sure enough, on a blistering hot afternoon, my mom sent Will out to ride his bike and told me we had to talk. She sat me down on the ratty couch in our shitty apartment. I felt like a condemned man waiting to hear his fate, and all the while the noisy air conditioning unit in the window behind me kept blowing gusts of lukewarm air across the back of my neck.

Not that it mattered. I barely noticed. I was mostly numb. In preparation for this “talk,” I’d done a couple of lines of coke in my room. Of course, I hadn’t brought that shit out until after Will had left. One thing I stuck to was that I never let my little brother see me taking part in any of my newfound vices.

Anyway, that day in the living room, I couldn’t sit still. Fidgeting, fidgeting, tapping my foot. Mom took no notice, she was almost as bad. Pacing back and forth in front of me, smoking a cigarette, a new habit she’d just acquired. Gary smoked, so she’d picked up the habit too. Pathetic, I remember thinking.

My mother appeared so edgy and wired I almost asked her if she was dabbling in drugs, like me, or if what she had to say was really just that f*cking bad. She started speaking before I ever got the chance.

“You’re not a kid anymore, Chase,” she began, still pacing, ashes peppering the olive-green carpeting.

She took a drag, crinkled her brow, and leaned over to stub her cigarette out in a plastic ashtray on a low table.

“You have to get started on doing something, somewhere, kid,” she said as she spun to face me.

She stood right in front of me, and though my head was down I watched her every move. She blew out a breath and I watched her dark blonde bangs lift up off her forehead. A few strands stuck to her skin. Mom was starting to sweat.

“So, Grandma Gartner called the other day,” she continued, her words deliberate, pointed, like a knife. “She said she’s got lots of room in that old farmhouse back in Ohio. And she sure could use some company.”