Chapter Eighteen
Iris
I sighed in aggravation when another car in front of me slammed on the brakes to fishtail slightly. Maybe leaving Noah’s house had been a mistake – at least this early with the roads completely slick and snowy.
I eased off the accelerator to give the car in front of me plenty of time to correct itself. There were only a few cars on the highway, but I still had to keep my eyes peeled for inexperienced drivers.
Staying meant being in the same room with Noah again. It also meant temptation to feel his hands on my body again, coaxing out delicious sensations.
I hadn’t known what to think at first. None of Bailey’s grand stories about earth-shattering sex had been accurate. It honestly hurt like a bitch the first time, despite the pleasure that had lingered in the background.
And, I had a feeling that the next time would be even better.
I curled my fingers around the steering wheel to keep myself from turning onto the last exit that would take me back to Noah’s house. We had already broken so many rules. I’d watched students get expelled because of what I did. I watched teachers get booted without any questions.
I was so close to graduating. I couldn’t afford to get distracted by Noah. I just needed to keep myself focused for the next couple of months. Even if it killed me.
The curtains of my mother’s living room were drawn still despite it being morning. To my relief, the car was also still parked with snow packed on it. My stomach curled in dread when I parked on the street before cutting the engine. This was the last place I wanted to be, but I had no other choice. I couldn’t afford a hotel, and I needed the internet to finish my homework.
Finding the snow shovel in the garage, I exerted what energy I had left to shovel the snow. Months ago, the neighbors had stopped trying to keep my mother’s house maintained. They knew just as well as I did that their efforts to help went unnoticed. I think they figured the same thing I did: at least the snow kept her from trying to drive drunk. And, that’s exactly what it had done before she passed out in the front yard looking for the car keys beneath the snow.
Panting heavily from shoveling, I grabbed my bags and headed up the freshly shoveled driveway to the front door. I pushed the front door open and the smell of rotten fruit filled my nose. I controlled the urge to gag as I dumped my bags on the bottom step of the stairs.
“Iris?”
My mother appeared at the top of the stairs. Her clothes were wrinkled from being slept in, but at least this time her pretty hair didn’t have vomit in it. One hand sliding down the wall, she hobbled dangerously down the stairs to where I waited uneasily. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the afternoon in the hospital because she fell down the stairs.
I caught sight of a bottle of what appeared to vodka in her right hand.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, peering down at me in confusion. “I didn’t think you graduated until May. What month is it?”
“Beginning of April, almost,” I replied and stepped away from her when she attempted to hug me. “It’s spring break. Mom, this house is a disaster again. Why can’t you keep it clean?”
I scanned the dirty floors that needed vacuuming desperately. Bottles and cans were littered everywhere. I didn’t even want to think about how bad the kitchen and bathrooms looked.
“I’m tired,” she complained, stumbling slightly before she caught herself. “I can’t keep up with all this cleaning.”
“You can’t keep up because you’re drunk all the time,” I said. “Come on.” I took her arm and helped her hobble back over to the couch. “Let’s sit down and talk a little bit about everything.”
“Okay.” She sat down without protest. I took away the bottle dangling from her fingers and tucked it behind me out of sight.
“How is school?” she asked before I could even breach the subject we needed to talk about.
I rolled my eyes at the deflection. Whenever my mother sensed a conversation revolving around alcohol, she tried to think of something else to talk about.
“Fine,” I said. “Mom-”
She stared at me blearily with a small smile. “No boyfriend yet, Iris? You need to find a good man to take care of you.”
Noah popped into my mind. For a moment, the words burned on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to tell her. I wanted to ask her for advice, but I couldn’t trust anything with my mother – even my deepest secrets and fears.
“No,” I said, tightly. “No boyfriend. Mom-”
“Don’t ask me for advice though,” she continued bitterly. “Look at me. I had my heart trampled on by your father. Look at what heartbreak has done to me.”
“Right. Let’s talk about that,” I said, grabbing her hand. “Don’t you think you’re letting him win by being like this?”
She blinked at me in confusion. “How am I letting him win? I got the house. I got half of everything.”
And spent all of it on alcohol.
“You’re stuck in this house all the time. You don’t ever go out besides to walk down to the liquor store. You-”
“I go to the grocery store too. It’s right next to the liquor store.”
“Mom.” A headache pounded in my temples. I could feel it was going to be one of those visits, and out of desperation, I tried to talk her out of it. “Dad’s a prick. He treated you like shit. He treated me like shit. Why are you so heartbroken over him walking out?”
“It’s not that easy,” she replied with surprising clarity. “You get married to someone that you think is your soulmate. You’re married for twenty-something years, and then find out that they had cheated on you the entire time. Wait.” She held up a finger when I opened my mouth. “And then find out that the reason why he is walking out on you is because his latest mistress is pregnant with his child.”
Tears filled her eyes. None of that surprised me. My father didn’t care about anyone besides himself. Still, my heart ached thinking about him loving another child the way he never bothered to treat us.
“I didn’t know that,” I said, softly. I squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, Mom. He never told me he was having another kid.”
“Of course not,” she replied darkly. “Why would he tell you? He’s desperate to get you to turn against me. He doesn’t want to be viewed as the bad guy. His ego is that big.”
“He won’t win me over. I don’t even feel love for him.”
“Good. Don’t waste your time on loving someone who doesn’t love you.”
That was why I always returned back to my mom whenever things went south. I loved her, despite the alcohol. I still saw shadows of her old self hiding behind those bloodshot eyes.
“Do you like feeling this way?” I asked, motioning to the bottles around us. “I mean, think about it. Do you feel like this a good way to live?”
She didn’t bother looking around her. “No,” she said, shortly. “I hate feeling this way. No matter how much I drink anymore, the feeling gets worse.”
“That’s because your body is used to it. You drink more because your tolerance is high now.”
“I wake up craving it,” she told me, grimacing. “If I don’t, I shake badly. That’s not a good thing.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not good, Mom. Maybe we should look at getting you some help.”
She made a face at the suggestion. “Like a rehab?”
“Exactly like a rehab.”
“I don’t have the money to go,” she pointed out, shrugging her shoulders. “I might as well just keep drinking.”
She reached behind a pillow to pull out a bottle of what smelt like rum. I watched with a grimace as she took a shot right of the bottle without even blinking.
“We’ll figure something out, Mom,” I said. “I promise that everything will be okay.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the house and doing laundry, as usual. By the time I finished around 10:00 p.m., I was bone tired. I checked my phone to see if I had any missed messages. None, and I didn’t expect any, even though a part of me hoped for it.
Plugging my phone in to charge, I changed into sleeping shirt, and crawled into the freshly laundered sheets still warm from the dryer.
I stared up at the shadows on the ceiling while my ears strained to hear what my mother was doing in the next room over. I had managed to convince her to stay in her room versus stumbling around the house. I didn’t want to fall asleep knowing she was wandering around the house.
The swish followed by the clink of ice alerted me what she was doing. I pulled the blanket up over my head. After a night like I had with Noah, I wished she was sober enough to give me some desperately needed advice about the army of emotions I felt.
It was too late to go back to Noah’s now, even though I wanted to. I needed to stay put.