Inevitable Detour (Inevitability Book 1)(84)

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.”

I looked up at her in disbelief. This woman who’d given me life tried to smile, but she could not. She knew damn well she was spewing pure bullshit. She just wanted rid of me.

“Just spit it out,” I ground through clenched teeth, my voice far from even.

“Okay, of course, honey.” She looked everywhere but at me. “Uh, so, Gram thinks moving back to Harmony Creek might do you some good, get you out of Vegas, give you a chance to start over, and—”

“Mom, I’m only eighteen. Start over?” I blew out a quick breath. “I haven’t even had a chance to get started here.”

Her expression grew stern. “Chase, don’t act like I don’t know the things you do behind my back.” I tried to protest, but she shushed me. “I know you use drugs. I know you bring girls back when Will’s not around. That shit isn’t going to fly once we move in with Gary. He won’t stand for it, Chase. He has standards—”

I snorted, “The f*ck he does—”

“I’m not going to argue with you about it,” she said, her voice tired and cracking.

When she reached for her pack of cigarettes, I noticed her hands were shaking. “Honey, I just think Grandma Gartner’s is the best place for you right now, okay?”

I picked at a hole in my jeans. “Do I have a choice?” I asked, defeated, and, truthfully, feeling like I’d just been set adrift.

She shook her head no.

I’d known it was coming, but her words still flayed me up the middle and pierced my already damaged heart. I was shocked that my heart could continue beating, since it felt all smashed to hell. But beat it did. In fact, my heart pumped faster and faster, like it was going to burst right out of my f*cking chest. Whether my reaction was from cocaine…or despair…I couldn’t quite figure.

With my heart pounding like a sped-up death knell, I tried to push some words out of my cotton-dry mouth. “Mom…” I croaked, my voice catching.