Things have been rough for Shane since then. He moved in with me and shortly after that, he ended things with his girlfriend because Shane tried to get clean and take care of his mental health and she wouldn’t try to kick her drug habit. She died of an overdose almost two months ago and I think that’s when things went extra-bad with Shane’s state of mind.
Me sticking up for him and trying to play peacemaker with Dad meant my father all but stopped speaking to me, too. Not that Dad and I have ever been close, but he told me not to come to him for help when Shane ruined my life.
My brother wants to be well; I know this. He struggles through phases where things are mostly good but then something goes wrong. He runs out of meds, or he loses them, or he decides to try to go cold turkey to see if he can get by without them.
I know I’m out of my element with his cycle of issues, but how can I give up on my brother? Mom gave up on all of us a long time ago, Dad on him.
When I was small, especially after Mom left, Shane was the one person always there for me. Tucking me in. Chasing away the monsters under the bed. Getting between me and bullies. It’s always been me and Shane against the world. But I hit adulthood and somehow I took on the protector role.
I take a shower and get ready for my shift. As I’m on my way to the door to leave my dated, small one-bedroom apartment where I have the tiny bedroom and Shane sleeps on the couch in the living/kitchen combo, I see he’s zoned out in front of the television.
“Call your doctor, see if she can get you enough samples until we can get you back in.”
She did this last time.
“Yeah,” he says.
He looks almost catatonic.
“Shane?”
“Have a good day,” he says slowly, “Gonna grab a nap.”
“You’ll call her when you wake up?”
“Yep.” He flashes me an empty smile with barely meeting my eyes and then his bloodshot eyes move back to the screen where he’s watching an infomercial about a steam mop.
I trudge with heavy feet and a heavy heart out the door and hold my breath as I descend three flights of stairs quickly, as if I can outrun the smell of that stairwell. A minute later, I’m out on the filthy street, breathing in the equally pungent smell of fast food and garbage. My neighborhood sucks. My apartment is small, with noisy pipes, awful drafts, and shitty water pressure. But it’s cheap and near transit.
Despite how cheap, I can barely afford it. I work temp jobs in between shifts at the coffee cart and do the odd writing gig at night on my laptop for money and extra experience writing.
Writing is what I want to do. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. But I dropped out of college when – after I couldn’t stand living in my dad’s house a minute longer – I took on rent and bills that meant finishing school would have to wait.
I had a sweet housekeeping and personal shopping gig that meant I could spend more time on my passion, and was almost ready to go back to school, but then the job ended because my boss moved to California. Good things seem few and far between for me and the good never seems to last long, but I’ve always tried to be an optimist. I feel like I’m failing at that effort right now, though.
I’m trying to get another server job or something that pays cash tips as well as an hourly wage, but no luck so far despite a few interviews.
The guy I was working for on the personal shopping and cleaning job made it easy. I feel like that spoiled me. He paid me well to clean his apartment and stock his kitchen. Sometimes I’d pick up dry cleaning, or grab him new clothes or do other errands, but mostly it was about cleaning up after him and making sure he had food, cigarettes, and booze at home.
He wanted fresh food to choose from daily, never sure what he might want so I’d keep his kitchen stocked with a couple pre-made meal choices several times a week. He didn’t expect me to cook, only shop, and so I was there often, clearing out leftovers and dropping off new food. A lot of the time, the leftovers were perfectly edible, so I had practically no grocery bill because Aiden Carmichael’s leftovers pretty much fed me and my brother. I was in his apartment a couple hours a week plus errands, and he paid me enough to keep me afloat.
He was messy to clean up after, but he was drop dead gorgeous and paid well.