Ocean (Damage Control 5)

She’s sweet, but now she knows I’m bad news. I doubt I’ll see her much after that.

By now the strange tightening in my chest when I think about her is familiar. I ignore it as best I can and head home.

***

As I enter my apartment, I get a call from the doctor’s office with the costs of the tests, visits and medicine. I listen, gripping the phone until I can’t feel my fingers, as the doctor’s secretary lists the amounts, and then tells me the doctor will be there to examine Mom today, and that I can pay him in person, if I like. It’s unorthodox, but it’d save me going to the medical center to pay.

I thank her and disconnect, wondering if it’s too early in the day to get drunk.

Then I remember Kayla is picking me up in a few hours and groan. Yeah, showing up drunk isn’t such a good idea.

What do you have to lose? a little, snarky voice whispers at the back of my mind as I wander into the kitchen and wash down some codeine with a glass of water, then stagger into my bedroom to retrieve my wad of cash from its hiding place. She already knows. She already thinks you’re a loser and a dangerous one, at that. Might as well face her with some liquid courage.

No fucking way. I sink on my bed, counting the bills. If she comes, I don’t want her last impression of me to be of a goddamn drunkard. My pride was shredded as a kid begging from door to door, and later on the street, but it’s still very much alive. Like me.

I recount my money. It had seemed like a lot last week. After hearing how much I have to pay out, it seems like nothing.

I shove the b

ills into my wallet and grab my phone. I should try Raine again. Tell him about Mom. He hasn’t taken any of my calls and hasn’t replied to my texts. I only wrote Mom is sick, without mentioning what it is. I wanna tell him, preferably face-to-face, but again he doesn’t answer.

Fuck.

I try calling my aunt. We’re not really on speaking terms—she told me, when she came to pick Raine up years ago, never to call her—but she answers my calls occasionally, mainly to complain about Raine.

Like now.

“He’s gone again,” she gripes. “Ran off. God knows where he is. I’ve stopped notifying the police. Betcha the little punk is hanging around those buddies of his again, smoking pot in back alleys. Not that he’s little anymore. He’s eating like a horse and growing like nobody’s business. How can I stop him when he goes out? Next week he’s off my hands, you know.”

Next week. “What?” I can’t remember why she’d be saying this as if I know. “What’s next week?”

“Memory like a sieve, your whole family. His eighteenth birthday. He’ll be an adult. Free to go and do as he pleases.”

Oh shit. “Right.”

“You should be grateful I raised the brat all these years without complaints. He’s on his own from now on. I’m done.”

She disconnects before I think up a response. Aunt Martha likes her dramatic exits.

Funny how she sometimes told me Raine was happy with her and thank God he was with her so he can grow up a responsible young man and other times, like now, decides she was forced into it. I asked her many times if I should take Raine off her hands.

She told me she’d never let me take him from her.

Not that Raine would have agreed to coming to live with me, anyway. Although last time we spoke, one of the few, he’d sounded… off. Kinda bitter. Like I’d abandoned him, when he’s hated even talking to me on the phone, for chrissakes.

Shit, I’m beat. I should eat something, rest. Lying down sounds great. I ease down on the pillows I’ve stacked and breathe shallowly, waiting for the pain to pass. To take my mind off it, I grab my phone again and log online.

First I’m not sure what I’m looking for, browsing through random searches about race cars, and tattoos, and art supplies.

Then I type in Kayla’s name, and it clicks. Yeah, that’s what I want. To know more about her. I’ve wanted it for a while, then thought it too stalkerish—but what’s the harm in it now? She hates me already.

And it shouldn’t feel like a kick to the gut every time I think about it.

Ten minutes later I’m trying not to laugh, because ow, my ribs ache like a motherfucker, but she’s a funny girl. The pics she posts, the videos, the posts… Too damn funny.

Also, she’s obsessed with cat pics. And aliens.

She’s apparently studying fashion design, has a brother and a sister who enjoy making faces at the camera just as much as she is, has a crush on Tom Hiddleston as Loki, and stands for women’s rights. There’s no mention of fortunetelling cards, or palmistry, or any of that shit. There is a mention, though, of not believing in love.