Rock Bottom (Tristan & Danika #2)(9)

“It’s going to be tough to give this up for five days a week,” he mused, his voice sleepy.

That made me stiffen. I’d nearly forgotten about the record deal. Maybe my mind had blocked it out. The entire thing terrified me. I knew it wouldn’t be good for us. Good for Tristan, maybe. At least I hoped so. But certainly not good for the two of us together.

His hand tightened on my hip, and I realized that I’d been spacing out while he’d been asking me a question. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? If you don’t like it, I won’t do it. I don’t want to be gone that much anyway.”

I patted his hand, shutting my eyes tight. He was hugging my back, and didn’t see the tears slipping past my lids. “Of course I’m okay with it. You can’t pass up this chance, Tristan, and we’ll still see each other on weekends.”

“God, that sounds awful. Five days a week is ridiculous. I’ll see if I can’t change their minds about the schedule.”

In the end, they stuck to the schedule. Five days away, two days home, week after week. It began to take its toll on us almost right away; Tristan coming home more tired each time, more strung out. I felt him inching further away from me every time he left, and the absences started to stretch into longer lengths of time, days turning into weeks.

We were drifting apart. I felt helpless to stop the pattern, but still, I held onto him for dear life.

CHAPTER FOUR

MONTHS LATER

DANIKA

The neighborhood was scary, even by trailer park standards. It was just the sort of place I’d pictured her living for all these years apart. In my mind, it had always been either a dump like this or her not living at all. She just led that kind of a life.

I knocked on the door, waited a solid minute, then knocked again. I could hear the TV on inside and there was an old, beat-up Nissan Sentra in the carport. This was the place, and somebody was home. I wasn’t leaving until that somebody answered the door.

After a solid five minutes of this, I tried the door. It wasn’t locked, and with more than a little trepidation, I opened it.

The inside of the trailer was even smaller than it appeared outside, and I could make out most of the inside of the place with just a glance.

My mother, rail thin and haggard, sat slumped on a sofa that looked like it had been through hell. Knowing her, and remembering my childhood, it probably had. The woman was a bundle of apathetic chaos.

She was aimed at a TV that was running an episode of some reality show, but I didn’t think she was actually watching it. She was zoning out, and even at the entrance of a daughter she hadn’t seen in years, her gaze barely shifted, and her face didn’t so much as twitch.

The bedroom didn’t have its own wall to separate it from the living quarters, and so I saw some man’s feet sticking out of the bottom of the bed across the room. I hadn’t expected anything different. Even ravaged by her addiction, I could see the beauty in my mother’s face. That, paired with the fact that she wasn’t at all picky, meant that she’d never had a second’s trouble finding a man.

Keeping one around for long, well now, that was another story.

“Hi,” I said to her quietly, mindful of the strange man just a few feet away.

“Hey,” she said tonelessly. Nothing else.

I wasn’t certain it had ever been said aloud, but I’d always had the acute sense that my sister and I had been nothing but a burden to my mother. I was grown now and hadn’t seen her in years, and still, I saw the same look in her eyes that I always had.

I wasn’t wanted here.

I never had been.

I grabbed a short stool near the door, carrying it with me to sit down eye level to her. I made sure not to block her view of the TV. I wasn’t here to rile her.

“The man and woman that came to see you a few years ago, Jerry and Bev,” I began, having rehearsed the words like a nervous child, “they are very good people. They’ve been wonderful to me. They’re very dependable employers and close friends of mine. They take care of me, provide a good home for me.”

There was no change in her expression, no recognition in her eyes that I’d said anything that should affect her.

“I’m doing well. I’m a full-time student, and I work part-time during the semester.”

Nothing.

“I’m still taking dance classes. I don’t have a lot of time for dancing, with school and work, but I haven’t given up. When things calm down, I fully plan to pursue that.”

“Do you have any cash?” she asked, as though it was the most reasonable question in the world, and I hadn’t been talking about something entirely different.

I swallowed, stung when I shouldn’t have been, further disillusioned when I had no right to it.

“There’s a man asleep in the other room. If I don’t pay him what I owe him, he’s going to hurt me.”

“Should I call the police?”

“That won’t help me. It’s…complicated. Do you have any cash?”

Even when she talked about him hurting her, there was no expression on her face. She’d been dead inside for a very long time.

I pulled out my wallet, fishing out what little cash I had. I knew I wasn’t really helping her, but being an enabler was deeply ingrained in me, thanks to her, and the thought of the creep in the bedroom hurting her was something I’d prevent, if I could.