Lesson Learned {Student Teacher Romance}

Chapter 20

My mom stares at me as if I spoke in a language she didn't understand. 

"Give me your purse!" I growl so low it scrapes my throat. 

"No!" My mom darts away and I jog after her.

"Give. Me. Your. Purse!" I shout.

"WHY?" She turns to scream spittle in my face.

We're inches from the other, neither of us willing to back down.

"I called Tom," I fold my arms across my chest.

My mom's mouth twists with indignant rage. She knows she's been caught. 

"So I missed a couple of meetings?" She tosses her hands up in exasperation. "I needed a break. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal," I yell at her, "Is that those meetings are keeping you out of jail!"

"Tom doesn't know I lied," she scoffs and turns to stomp away. 

"Stop!" I reach out to grab her elbow and she stops without a fight. "Tom said we need to prove the reason for your absence. What are you going to do when you have to produce a death certificate, Mom?"

Her shoulders hunch and she shrugs out of my grip to take off toward her room as if she can outrun reality.

"Mom!" I shout.

I sprint to catch the corner of her door before she can slam it in my face.

"Mom!" I holler as the door mashes the top of my hand.

"Shh!" She scolds. "The neighbors will hear you!"

"Who cares?" I throw my shoulder into the door to wedge myself inside. "You're going to go to jail, mom. Do you understand me? They are going to test you and you are going to go to jail because you can't stay clean!"

"Stop yelling at me like I'm a child!" She screams.

"Then act like an adult!" I cry.

"You're making a big deal out of nothing," her lower lip starts trembling. 

Only I'm all out of sympathy for her, and she's fresh out of second chances as far as I'm concerned. And my smashed hand is throbbing so bad I can feel it in my skull. 

"How can you say it's nothing, Mom?" I feel like I'm fighting in circles. "Why didn't you come to me? I would have helped you-"

"No, you wouldn't!" My mom's voice is shaking. "You would have judged me like you're doing right now because you've always got something better to do. You're never around anymore Moira! And even when you are here, you're running out the door to go see your friend or to go to school. I'm always alone. You leave me alone!"

"So your relapse is my fault?" 

Icewater floods my veins, dousing my anger to leave me numb.

I'm trying to process my mom's accusation. Ever since I was a kid I've acted like an adult. Like Will said, I grew up fast so that I could care for myself and my mom and our house as best I could. Finally, I was done. 

In a flash, I snatched up my mom's leather purse from the bed. 

Our neighbors definitely heard her ear-piercing screams when I dumped the entire contents of her bag out on her bedspread. 

While fighting off my Mom's screeching attacks, I rifled through the trash, the wadded-up bills, and the random tubes of lip balm until I found it. 

The tiny plastic baggie containing a stash of white pills was hidden in a crumpled-up tissue.