I don’t care about anything.
Tristan
I’m curled up on the ground with my arms over my head. With each kick, I become more broken. With each hit, I die a little bit more on the inside. The drugs numb the pain, make it easier to take the beating I knew was coming. And this isn’t even the worst of it.
“If you don’t come up with the money, this is going to be a lot worse,” Trace says with another kick to my gut, knocking the wind out of me. “I mean it, Tristan. Tell me you get it, or else I’m going to have to keep beating your dumb ass.”
“I get it,” I croak, rolling onto my back as blood fills my mouth. I don’t focus on him, but the sky, and it makes it easier to pretend I’m somewhere else. But then his face moves into my line of vision and reality creeps back in.
“You only have a few days left to get me the money you owe.” He leans over me, massaging his raw knuckles that are coated with my blood. “And if I were you, I’d try to clean up your act. You make a shitty druggie, Tristan.”
“I make a shitty everything,” I mutter.
He shakes his head before walking away.
As fear surfaces, I realize the meth I did earlier is wearing off. I start to feel. And I hate feeling.
It takes me forever to get up, and when I do, my legs ache so badly I can scarcely walk. Luckily, I’m close to the apartment that I live in and eventually make it there. I should go up to my place and clean up my act like Trace said, but I am a druggie, and I think with my addiction. It guides me to the bottom floor, to a door where I know I can get a hit.
Cami opens the door after two knocks, looking high as a kite, just how I want to look right now, every day, every second, for the rest of my life.
“I knew you’d take me up on my offer,” she says, not commenting on the fact that I’m bleeding from my mouth and chin.
She’s wearing only a bra and shorts, her skin hanging loosely on her boney body. I’m not attracted to her at all, but then again, I haven’t been attracted to any of the women I’ve slept with. The only one I want is out of my league. Nova. Good, sweet Nova, who never wanted me back.
“I need it first, though,” I say, cringing at what I’m about to do. Cami is a crack whore and sells her body for drugs. I’ve never judged her. I get that sometimes you have to do shameful things to feed the monster living inside you. And now I’m going to fuck Cami, all so I can get a taste of what my mind thinks it needs.
No, I need it.
I really do.
She moves back from the doorway and lets me inside her small apartment that’s littered with garbage, pipes, and a few boxes. I stumble to the tattered sofa and anxiously wait as Cami kneels down in front of me, holding a mirror dotted with white powder. When she hands it to me along with a hollow pen, my nose drinks the toxic crystals up.
Suddenly, I feel nothing. No pain. No worry. No shame that I’m here. It makes it easier when she kisses me and then takes off my clothes because I’ve done this before and it doesn’t really matter. As long as I’m high, nothing matters.
Because I don’t really care.
About anything anymore.
Even being invisible.
Present Day…
Chapter 29
What, oh what, have I gotten myself into?
Avery
“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Mommy, Avery, coolest person ever. Happy birthday to you.” Jax and Mason wake me up with a serenade.
After they sing me the birthday song, I sit up in bed and get comfortable. Then Jax presents a tray with bacon, eggs, and toast, setting it on my lap while Mason plants a tiara on my head.
“For your special day,” Mason says excitedly. He’s cleaned up and dressed, ready to do whatever the two of them have planned for my birthday “And you get to wear it all day.”
“Yay!” I clap my hands, excited that he’s excited.
Jax giggles like a mean schoolgirl under his breath. When Mason turns around, I flip him the middle finger.
“Oh, my God, you look so adorable,” Jax says in a mocking cheerleader voice.
I lean over in the bed and shove him. “Just you wait. I’m going to encourage him to have you wear it on your birthday.”
“Good thing I can pull off the princess look,” he says with a grin as he ruffles his brown hair into place.
“Whatever.” I pick up the fork from the tray. “Thanks for breakfast, though.”
“You deserve it,” he says easily. “And there’s more planned for the day.”
“Like what?”
“It’s a surprise, so eat up and get dressed.”
As he leaves the room, I dive into my breakfast, enjoying my food and the quiet until my phone starts ringing. Then the quietness fills with noise of fires and yelling and shouting.
Even though I think I know who the call is from, I check the screen anyway. And, yep, I’m right—the unknown number. Instead of putting the phone down, I decide to dial the number back, just to see.
It rings three times then someone answers.
“Hello,” a woman answers.
“Who is this?” I ask, setting the tray aside on the nightstand.
“Avery,” she whispers. “Oh, my God, is that really you?”
“Um… yeah…” What the hell? “Tell me who this is.”
“It’s… Taylor.”
“Who?”
She sighs. “Dammit, I was hoping he told you about me. Now this is just going to be really awkward.”
I lean forward in the bed. “Is this Conner’s girlfriend? Because, if it is, I don’t want to talk to you or him.”
She pauses. “Who’s Conner?”
Confusion swirls through my mind. “Okay, you have five seconds to explain to me who you are, or I’m hanging up.”
“I’m Taylor,” she repeats with a weighted exhale. “You’re… um… half-sister... God, I had this planned out so much better. It would have been so much better if I could have finally gone through with my call and told you.”
My fingers on the phone tighten and my stomach burns. “Come again? You’re my… what?”
“My name is Taylor Hensley,” she says with uneasiness. “Your father was… well, my father.”
“What do you mean was?” I ask, struggling to stay calm. She’s my half-sister? God, I never saw this one coming. “Did he ditch you too?”
“No. He, um, died about six months ago,” she says quietly. “On his death bed, he told me about you and how sorry he was that he never really got to know you. And I… Well, I wanted to maybe get to know you for him. I’ve been super nervous over calling you, though, which is why I kept hanging up. I was worried you wouldn’t… react well.”