Rome's Chance (Reapers MC #6.6)(21)

“It’s my life,” she said. Lexi’s mouth tightened. They’d always butted heads, even when she was a little girl. So had my brothers, actually. I’d always been the family buffer.

But now my brothers and I had our own lives.

You can’t take care of your mom and sister forever, I reminded myself. That’s not your job.

“It’s not fair to me and Kayden, you smoking in here all the time,” Lexi continued, and I heard the anger and resentment in her voice. “You’re gonna give us cancer. He smells like pot sometimes. You do realize this, right?”

This was news to me. “What do you mean, Kayden smells like pot?”

“Sometimes he comes in here when he has bad dreams,” Lexi said, her voice harsh. “And then he stinks in the morning. I smell it when I’m getting him ready for school. She’s smoking it at night and it gets in his hair. She smokes it every night, not just when the pain is bad.”

Mom turned away, another coughing fit racking her body, as I tried to process this new information. Suddenly my bruised face didn’t seem like such a big deal. I’d known things had gotten bad at home, but I hadn’t realized just how bad until this moment.

I studied my mother with new eyes.

She’d gained a lot of weight since she’d moved back to Hallies Falls. I’d always assumed it was because of her bad back, but she’d been using that nebulizer regularly this whole visit. And her inhaler. Not to mention that prednisone prescription I’d picked up earlier.

Steroids put weight on a person fast, and Mom had to be over 200 pounds by now.

“How often do you need your nebulizer?” I asked bluntly.

“Randi, we should be talking about your—”

“She uses it three or four times a day,” Lexi burst out. “And they’ve been giving her more and more prednisone. Last month I had to call 911 because she couldn’t breathe and her lips were blue. She went to the hospital. They put her on oxygen and everything. They said that if she doesn’t stop, she’s gonna die.”

“Fucking doctors don’t know what they’re talking about,” my mother insisted. I saw a familiar flash of anger in her eyes, but for once I didn’t care. All I could think of was Kayden at school, wearing thrift store clothing and smelling like pot.

“This has nothing to do with Randi’s situation,” Mom continued. “We need to talk about last night, and what a mistake she made going out with that biker. The Reapers are a criminal gang. I know all about bad men—remember your dad, Lexi? Think of the hell we went through because of him. He broke my arm, you know. That’s the kind of temper he had, and you’re just like him—”

“Shut up,” I snapped. “Her dad has nothing to do with this.”

“Randi—”

“I told you to shut up!” I repeated, feeling my temper rise. “You don’t get to talk to Lexi like that, okay? You’re treating her like she’s an adult. But she’s not. She’s a kid and you’re supposed to be her mother. You’re supposed to be taking care of her and keeping her out of trouble, but instead she’s the one taking care of you and Kayden. You did the same fucking thing to me, and it’s not fair. Not to any of us. So shut the fuck up, already. I’m throwing this shit away.”

With that, I snatched the glass pipe out of her hand, dropping it into a glass of water on the dresser next to the bed. She squawked, eyes bulging.

“Where’s the rest?” I demanded, spinning toward Lexi. Her eyes had gone wide.

“In her top drawer,” she told me, refusing to look at Mom. “And there’s some in the closet. She keeps all of it in here, except for a little bit she’s got hidden in the kitchen.”

My mom gasped, but I ignored her because I’d lost interest in her excuses. Her disability was real, I knew that. And I also knew that pot helped with the back pain, but this was beyond fuckwitted. Here she was, risking her fucking life smoking it, when she could use oils, or suck on a fucking lollipop. Instead, my brother and sister were stuck dealing with the same kind of irresponsible, self-destructive bullshit that I’d had to deal with as a kid.

Except I hadn’t had to call 911 because my mom couldn’t breathe.

I pulled out the bedside drawer. It was full of baggies and pills and all kinds of shit. Jesus. How much did one woman need? Wrapping my hands around either side, I slid the drawer out of the little dresser and carefully handed the whole thing to Lexi.

“Take that out to the kitchen,” I told. “We’ll go through it together. And send Kayden outside to play. I saw some kids out there.”

“You have no right!” Mom said, but her voice wasn’t strong like usual. It was more of a weakened gasp—guess she didn’t like it when someone else was giving the orders. I targeted the closet, determined to find the rest of it. Behind me, I heard her struggling to get out of bed. More coughing. There it was—tucked away in a big Ziploc on the top shelf. Pulling it loose, I spun around to find Mom collapsed back on the bed fighting another coughing fit, lungs wheezing like a leaky bicycle pump. Her arm flailed, hitting the nebulizer, and I realized that she wasn’t just pissed at me. She couldn’t breathe.

For real.

I dropped the bag and ran to the bed, suddenly terrified. I’d seen her during asthma attacks before, but they hadn’t been this bad. A puff or two of her inhaler and she’d been fine.