Connected (Connections, #1)(114)

A little warmer now that I was inside, I pulled my hood down as I reached the top of the dirty stairs. I paused a moment as I heard loud bass music coming from the end of the hall where my apartment was.

Groaning, I knew when that type of music was playing, it meant Skinner was with my mom. I made my way down the hallway to my apartment and reached above the doorframe for the little copper key. When I stepped into the apartment, all the lights were off. The music pounded away as if the speakers were ready to blow and my eyes scanned around the room, looking around for evidence of Skinner.

Inside the apartment was shittier than the building itself. Garbage was everywhere, fur stuck to the carpet from my mom’s three cats, and the crappy furniture looked even trashier since she never vacuumed. Dishes flooded the sink with old food stuck to them. Newspaper was crumbled up all over the counter and table. I stomped my foot hard at one of the cats, making it hiss and skitter away fast as lightning.

God, I hated cats.

I turned down the stereo in the living room and walked into the kitchen to the fridge for a beer. When I opened the fridge door, it smelled as if something had died in there because of all the rotting food. Mold contaminated a full loaf of bread; I don’t know which revolted me more, the rotting food smell or the loaf of bread that had just gone to waste.

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 f*cking 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 f*cking 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 f*cking 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 f*cking hit me too!”