Ocean (Damage Control 5)

That’s what I want to do. Save her, when she didn’t save me. Like that will somehow make everything right.

She’s sick, I remind myself. Was sick all along. I know that now. Depression. Who knows what else. Now her body is catching up after a lifetime of missed meals and crappy food and chain smoking, after a crappy life. She’s forty, but she looks like she’s sixty.

My chest tightens. I rub my fist over it in circles as I approach the trashy sea of trailers.

Yeah, I can’t understand what brings me here, except she’s my mom, in spite of everything, and I can’t let her die. Especially not all alone in this fucking dump.

Like I told Jesse. We all deserve a second chance.

***

“Hey, Blue!” old Stanford greets me from his perch on the rickety steps of his Spiderman trailer. Well, it mostly looks like something bled all over it, the rust eating up brown patches in the design, but we all know it as the Spiderman trailer.

I salute him and continue on my way, walking past piles of rusty junk and the carcass of a school bus. In all honesty, the place is a junkyard, full of trash people threw away, or trash people living here collected.

But the lot rents are low, and that’s what matters to the residents. Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.

This park used to be my world, once upon a time. I knew every nook and cranny, every hiding spot, every door that didn’t close well so I could steal some money or food, every dumpster where food was likely to be found.

Sometimes it was a fun place to be. No supervision. No rules.

And sometimes it was pure misery, and hunger, and confusion, and the crushing weight of caring for my little brother. The responsibility of feeding him, and clothing him, and keeping him clean and goddamn alive.

Wasn’t easy.

As a matter of fact, it sucked balls, but I fucking made it work. Until the accident, until Raine had a fucking breakdown and my old man had a fit of rage, and it all fell apart.

Stop thinking about that, I tell myself, walking past Crazy Jo’s trailer. She is a crazy old bat and romance addict, living with her three black cats among stacks of dog-eared paperbacks and faded posters of naked guys.

“Woohoo! Pretty Blue!” She blows kisses at me as I go by, pursing her neon-pink lips and patting her big artificial curls. “Come on, Blue, don’t be blue!”

I wave at her and open my stride. It would’ve been funny if she wasn’t old enough to be my grandmother, her boobs sagging over her belly under her white nightie and her face wrinkled like a prune. As it is, it’s kinda depressing.

“Blue!” a man’s voice rings out, and I wince. “Come over here, have a look at this beauty.” Duane gestures at an exposed car engine. “Doesn’t it make you wanna race again?”

“Nope.” I clench my jaw. “Not really.”

“You kept the blue hair. You kept the name.” He clucks his tongue. “Don’t lie to me, boy.”

“Fuck you,” I mutter as I jog away. “I’m done with racing.”

“You’re gonna be begging me one day to take you back!” he yells at my back and spits. “When you need money and nowhere else to get it. You’ll be fucking begging me on your fucking knees.”

A shiver snakes through me.

It’s the cold, I decide, the sharp wind whistling between the trailers. And yet I’m too warm in my jacket. Too jittery with nerves.

And doubts.

About leaving Madison. Leaving Kayla.

Fucking insane. I didn’t have these doubts two weeks ago. Doubts about being able to take Mom and leave, sure. Doubts about having the cash and strength of will to see this mad plan through, absolutely.

But Kayla wasn’t a factor back then. I barely knew her.

You still barely know her, I remind myself. Knowing how her pussy tastes isn’t enough reason to change your plans.

That wasn’t all, though. She made me soup. And woke me up from a nightmare. And kissed me. Touched me. Put her hand on my chest.