1
EDEN
VAUGHN
IF HE WOKE UP, he would beat the hell out of me.
I’m talking beat me within an inch of my life.
No.
That’s not entirely correct.
If he caught me stealing from him, he would probably kill me—choke the life from my body while my stoned mother watched in a daze.
I was confident he would take me out of this world without batting an eye—send me beyond the veil with a few choice words and a whole lot of pain.
He was heartless and as mean as a snake.
The first time Allen, my mom’s boyfriend, hit me, it wasn’t that bad—a simple backhand across the face for talking back. I remember thinking it was better me than my mother. I remember thinking that even though I felt like my cheek would explode, I was younger, and I could take more than she could.
That was the first.
A lot had changed since that first time. The last time he hit me was terrible.
Using muscles I had never used before, I fought back, screaming and growling, but it was pointless. Allen was much stronger than I was and had more experience in fighting.
Ending that night with bruises on my cheek and a bloodied lip, I spent the night trying to get comfortable in my single bed while the smell of mildew lingered in my room from a broken pipe under the bathroom.
My eyes were still open when the sun came up, and after a night of thinking about it, I decided I was done. I was determined the last time he hit me would be just that … the last freaking time.
No more name-calling.
No more putting his hands where they didn’t belong.
No more being uncomfortable in what was supposed to be my home.
After I stepped out the front door, I would leave it all behind. Life as I knew it would cease to exist, but until then, I still needed to be cautious, which was why I was ever so careful when I snuck into my mom’s bedroom and slid his wallet from the dresser.
I had seen him counting the money in his wallet earlier in the living room. It was right after his “friends” stopped by and left with little baggies of what I knew was drugs. Since then, he had blown a good bit of the money on beer and pizza, but I knew he still had some left in his wallet. He had sold a lot, which meant plenty of money should be left.
My mother had never been into drugs—at least not until she met Allen, but now it was the main reason she looked away when he would flip out and put his hands on me. She was too stoned to care, and I was too broken to stay. One more blow and I was sure I would crack and break away.
The floor beneath my feet popped and creaked, the rotten plywood just beneath the stained carpet ready to give, and I froze in fear when Allen turned on his side with a moan. If he woke up now, he would kill me for trying to steal from him.
Their bedroom smelled of stale cigarettes and dirty laundry. My mom had always kept a clean home. It didn’t matter if we lived in an old single-wide in one of the crappiest trailer parks this side of Mesa. It might have been ugly, but it was always clean.
Not anymore.
These days, I kept my bathroom and bedroom clean, but I couldn’t do much about the rest of the rooms. Especially not when Allen would invite his friends over, and they would destroy the place.
Standing next to their bed, I took in the profile of my sleeping mother. We had always been close, growing up together in a lot of ways since she had been a young, single mother. Even after I turned eighteen and passed the age of moving out, I stayed with her.
With beautiful, long blond hair and eyes as transparent as glass, she had a smile that lit up the room, and her confidence burned even brighter. But these days, things were different. She no longer cared about her appearance. Her hair was thin, her eyes were dull, and she rarely smiled unless she was high.
When she started dating Allen, things changed, and once he moved in with us, things took a turn for the worse. He had anger management issues and a serious drug problem. Both things meant I spent a lot of time defending her and stepping in to take the beatings intended for her.
I loved her, and looking down at her while she slept, I could almost see the woman she used to be, but after two years of abuse and trying with all I was to bring that woman back, it was time I admitted the truth.
My mother was long gone, and I needed to let go of the way things used to be and leave.
Closing my eyes, I swallowed my emotions and the nerves threatening to stop me, and when I opened them again and saw the disgust of the room around me and Allen’s naked flesh in my mother’s bed, I knew I was doing the right thing.
His black leather wallet was old, the material cracked and the contents barely hidden in the folds. The twenties tucked inside called to me—promising me a better life—promising me freedom. I had never stolen anything, but since Allen refused to let my mom and me work, I had no money. Not allowing us to work was his way of keeping control—his way of keeping us—and making it impossible for us to leave him.
I had different plans, though, and with them both passed out after an all-night binge, I knew it was now or never.
Plucking the wallet from the dresser, I slid it into my back pocket without taking my eyes off Allen or my mother. I held my breath, waiting for him to open his eyes and catch me stealing from him, but he remained asleep, his monstrous snores filling the silence of the room and seemingly shaking the paper-thin walls of our mobile home.
Reaching out once again, I wrapped my fingers around his keys and closed my hand tightly to keep the keys from making any noise. A keychain, one with a jagged edge, dug into my palm, but I held my fist closed, not caring if it pierced my skin.
Allen sucked in a breath, his snoring stopping as he coughed and gasped in his sleep. He flipped onto his side, his loose naked flesh smacking with his movement and filling me with disgust.
I didn’t move.
I didn’t breathe.
My legs were stiff as I waited for him to either wake up and catch me or fall back into a deep sleep. I shook, the fear within so pungent it sent my nerves on a downslide.
Finally, when I was sure he would wake up and catch me, he exhaled, and his body relaxed.
I didn’t hang around any longer. I backed away from their bed on shaky knees, looking behind me so I didn’t run into something or knock anything over, and once I cleared their bedroom door and made it into the hallway, I released the breath I was holding to stop my lungs from aching.
The hallway floor popped and squeaked beneath my feet again, but I didn’t pause this time. Instead, I kept moving, snatching the bag I had packed and hidden four months before. It had been ready and waiting for my time to escape.
That time was now.
I pushed the front door open, and the hinges groaned loudly, begging to be oiled, filling the quiet of our trailer as I stepped into the hot Arizona air. I didn’t worry that the creaking of the door would wake them because I no longer cared. All that mattered was making it to the car. As long as I could make it inside the car and lock the doors, I was good.
We only had one car, which meant I would have a decent head start before Allen managed to get one of his friends over at four in the morning to give him a ride. He couldn’t chase me until he had a ride, and knowing his stoner friends, they would take forever to get to our place.
I didn’t even shut the front door as I moved down the wobbly metal stairs and stepped onto the rough dead grass of our measly front yard. Then I ran all the way to Allen’s rusted Oldsmobile, the white rocks of what was supposed to be a driveway crunching beneath my feet when I reached the driver’s side door.
The faded gray of the car was covered in earth from an earlier dust storm. Everything was smothered in desert dust and debris, making the different colored single-wides of our trailer park a matching beige. I unlocked the door and opened it. The sandy door handle felt gritty against my fingers when I popped the door open, and when I pulled my hand away, a perfect set of my fingerprints was left behind in the dust.
My bag clunked against the passenger’s seat when I tossed it inside before I fell into the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed. I locked the doors behind me immediately even though I didn’t see anyone at the door coming after me yet. Shoving the key into the ignition, the engine roared to life, and I sighed in relief that it cranked on the first turn.
Allen’s car was a piece of shit, and I could only pray it would take me as far as Vegas, where my aunt lived, but at that point, I no longer cared if it got me a mile down the road. Getting away from that trailer and the man inside who couldn’t keep his hands off me—whether it was secret touches behind my mother’s back or his fist slamming against my body in anger—was all that mattered.
I had to get away.
Leaving my mother behind was hard, but I knew I would never survive another year of Allen, so I had to go.
I backed out of the yard and onto the gravel road of the trailer park, knowing I was doing the right thing. I had just turned twenty-one, and it was time I made my own way. Sure, I had to steal from Allen to get away, but I deserved compensation and a ride for dealing with him for the past two years of my life.
When I finally pulled out of the trailer park and onto the main road, the weight of two long and painful years lifted from my chest. And once I was an hour away from Mesa and entering the never-ending length of desert that led to Vegas, I knew I had made it.
I was finally free.