Conner peers over his shoulder at me. “Well, at least you got that whole glowing look going for you.”

I frown as I slouch back against the cupboard and wipe the sweat from my forehead. “Gee, thanks.” I sigh tiredly and shut my eyes, wishing I could just go to sleep.

“So, what do you think?” Conner asks and I hear him shut a cupboard. “Is this place the one?”

I force my eyes open and glance around at the distressed kitchen counters, the chipped tile floor, and the blinding yellow countertops that match the trimming of the entire apartment. “It’s kind of old and rundown, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but it’s only temporary until I get promoted, which should happen soon.” He crouches down in front of me, all smiles and happiness. I don’t know how the hell he does it—how he manages to be so happy when everything around us is spinning in chaos and uncertainty. Just under seventeen years old and I’m having a baby. In just over six months, I’ll be responsible for another human being yet I won’t even be at legal drinking age.

“Maybe you could sell one of your cars,” I suggest. I’ve always dreamed of living in a nice house with walls that weren’t stained with the residue of meth, and the rooms untainted with dark memories. I’ve dreamed of having a house that has a roof that doesn’t leak, a place that I could call my own.

But I’ve also dreamed of going to college when I turned eighteen. Getting a career. Finally being on my own. And that dream is looking pretty bleak right now.

“I can’t do that. Those cars mean a lot to me, Avery,” he says, his smile fading for the briefest moment, but it happens so quickly I can barely register it, let alone process the meaning behind it.

“I thought I meant everything to you.” I blame my weakness on my hormones but really part of it stems from the fear of being alone, pregnant, and living in that God-awful house with my mother.

He sighs. “Look, I promise things will get better just as soon as I get promoted. And if they don’t, the cars will go.”

“Okay, but”—I slowly inhale as another bout of nausea hits me—“what about Jax? I can’t just leave him.”

Conner’s happiness falters. “Av, as much as I love Jax, I don’t think we can have him live with us.” When I frown, he cups my face in his hands. “At least not until we get on our own feet. Maybe after the baby comes and we get the balance of being parents.”

I’m on the verge of bawling. “But what if I can’t?”

“What if you can’t what?”

“Find a balance.” Hot tears downpour from my eyes. “I mean, I’ve never had an actual mother to observe and what if… I suck. You’re lucky. You have a mom who showed you how the whole parenting thing works.”

“You won’t suck,” he promises as he sits cross-legged on the floor in front of me. “This is all going to work out. Things will be perfect. You’ll see.”

Sometimes I wonder if he really sees though. Ever since the day I told him I was pregnant, he’s been nothing except positive and happy about it to the point where I question if he really understands what’s going on, if he can see the bigger picture. That everything is going to change—that the days of having fun and staying out all night are gone.

That our dreamer days are over.

Gone.

“Yeah, okay.” Vomit burns at the back of my throat seconds later. I spring to my feet, shoving him out of the way as I rush for the bathroom. I’ve been this way for the last month and I’m getting sick of it. I did some searching online and found out that it could keep going on like this for the entire first trimester.

I puke my guts out for the next couple of minutes then lie down on the floor and press my overheated cheek to the cool linoleum. I’m not sure how long I stay that way, but it’s long enough that I expect Conner to come in and check on me. But after a lot of time drifts by and he doesn’t, I finally drag my ass back to the kitchen where he’s sitting on the cupboard, texting.

“Hey, are you doing okay?” he asks, preoccupied by his phone.

I nod as I cross the kitchen to him. “Yeah, but I can’t wait until this whole morning sickness thing wears off.”

He punches a few more buttons then puts the away and hops off the counter. “Me too,” he agrees, taking my hand. “I have an idea though, that might get your mind off it.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask with interest. “And what’s that?”

“There’s a party going on at the college that I got invited to. We should go.”

I frown and slip my hand out of his. “Conner, I don’t want to go to a party. The smell of alcohol alone will make me puke even when I’m not pregnant.”

Now he’s frowning.

Over the last two months, Conner has made a habit of going to a lot of parties. I try to tell myself that it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m pregnant and that he’s trying to grasp on to what little adolescence he has left.

“Come on, Avery,” he begs. “We always used to have fun at parties while being sober.”

I place my hand on my stomach. “And I used to not be pregnant.”

He’s livid, maybe more than I’ve ever seen him. For a second, the sweet boy that talked me into dating him no longer exists. “You say that like it’s my fault.”

“Well, it does take two people to create a baby.”

“You should have been on birth control,” he snaps.

“And maybe you should have worn a condom,” I retort, backing toward the front door. “Don’t pretend like this is my fault—it’s both of ours.”

“Whatever,” he mutters, turning his back on me. “I’m not even sure if it’s mine.”

I want to shout at him. I should shout at him. Conner is the only guy I’ve ever had sex with and he knows it. He’s acting like a child and it puts even more doubt in my head that we’ll be able to handle this whole parent thing.

“Fuck you,” I manage to get out before I leave the apartment in tears.

I ride the bus home where a full-blown party is going on. I try to rush up the stairs and ignore the noise, but my mother’s still sober enough that she corners me at the stairway.

“Where have you been?” she asks, puffing on a cigarette. She looks twenty years past her age—wrinkly, sagging skin, and a body that’s falling apart—yet she dresses like she’s my age.

“Out with Conner.” I move to step around her, but she sidesteps in front of me and obstructs my path. The bitter scent of tequila flows off her breath and I know I’m in for a world of hurt. As much as I loathe myself for thinking it, I prefer my druggie, passed out mother over the drunk, chatty one.

“That guy friend of yours?” she wonders with a slur to her speech.

“No, my boyfriend for months now.”

“Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts.” She eyeballs my stomach. “After the baby comes.”

I told my mother out of courtesy that I’m pregnant. Her response was to laugh at me and tell me how she’s not surprised and good luck with that. That was it. There was no offer to help. No words of encouragement. No nothing. And I hadn’t expected any more from her. After all, I’ve been taking care of myself for as long as I can recollect. But it did make me painfully aware of how alone I really am without Conner. I hate how vulnerable I feel, but can’t shut off my emotions as well as I used to.

Maybe I overreacted with the party thing.

“Leave me alone.” When I step for the stairs this time, she moves out of my way, but her laughter chases after me as I sprint up the stairway.

Once I lock myself in my bedroom, I try to shake off her words but they linger inside my mind. I decide to send Conner a text before I begin looking for jobs in the newspaper. I already have a job waitressing at Delly’s Good Time Diner, although I’m not sure how long that’s going to last once I start showing and my feet start swelling. My boss is already having issues with my morning sickness.

The jobs are pretty slim around here but I circle a couple that I’ll apply for. It’s getting late so I change into my pajamas and climb into bed then check my phone for messages. I try not to be upset that Conner hasn’t called or texted, but I end up crying my eyes out with the sound of my mother’s stereo tormenting me. It goes on most of the night and somewhere in the late hours, a sleepy Jax wanders into my room and curls up next to me. I should go downstairs and turn off the music—I’m sure everyone’s passed out by now anyway. But I’m afraid. Afraid I’ll see my future staring back at me in the form of my mother. Single, a druggie/alcoholic, who is incapable of being a mother. All alone and bitter.

I end up pathetically begging for Conner to come back to me, sending him text after text. Then I lie in my bed and bawl soundlessly into my pillow until I pass out from exhaustion. By the time I wake up, the sun has risen, the stars are asleep, and Conner is in my room.

“I love you, Avery,” he says as he kneels down beside my bed.

He’s still wearing the shirt and shorts he had on yesterday, but I try not to question too much, try to pretend that everything is as okay as it was the day we first met.

“I’m sorry, okay? But I’m going to take better care of you. Way better than what you have.” He glances around at the patched up walls of my bedroom and the leaking ceiling before he reaches over a sleeping Jax and places a hand on my stomach. “The both of you.”

His reminder of how much I need him makes it easier to ignore the smell of booze and cigarettes on his breath and the fact that I sent him at least ten texts last night, pleading with him to answer me, yet he never did.  It makes it simpler for me to take him back. Or maybe it’s that I don’t want to admit the truth to myself. That I am scared. Not just of being alone or being a mother, but scared of everything ahead of me. That fear blinds me from seeing all the horrible and difficult stuff waiting for me in the future.

My reality.

Not my dreams.
Chapter 13

Welcome to your own personal nightmare.

Tristan

Hit.

After hit.

Drink.

After drink.

Bump.

After bump.

Pain.

And then nothing.

Pain.

Then nothing.

I’m living in my own self-created nightmare. Nothing makes sense anymore, but then again, I’m not sure anything ever did.  I haven’t even graduated from high school yet and I’ve been kicked out of my parents’ house. I’m going to move into a trailer park and live with Dylan, a guy who sells crack for a living. And I’m helping him, something I was ashamed of at first, but now…

Nothing matters anymore.

And part of me likes it.

Likes the silence.

Likes not caring about anything.

I can’t even remember who I am anymore, even when I look in the mirror. And my parents, they’re about as disappointed in me as… well, as much as they’ve ever been. That hasn’t changed. In fact, the only thing that has changed is they’ve banned me from the house. My mother told me the day after Ryder’s funeral.

“I want you gone,” she’d demanded. “I can’t take it anymore.”

Take what, Mom, I’d wondered, me or Ryder being gone?

But I haven’t gone back to the house since then. After I’d said my goodbyes, I just walked around and ended up where the drugs are.

Now a week later, I’ve returned home to get my stuff.

“I told you not to come here anymore,” my mother says as she dithers in the doorway of the room that once used to be mine. I tried to come when she wasn’t home, but she showed up before I could get my shit and go.

“I’m not really here,” I explain to her as I rummage in the dresser for clothes to pack. “Just getting some stuff and moving out like you told me to do.”

“Well, you can’t just show up when no one’s home.” She tentatively enters the room as if she’s scared of me. Then she moves closer and studies my eyes before huffing in frustration. “And you can’t be here when you’re high.”

I stuff a handful of clothes into a duffel bag and narrow my bloodshot eyes at her. “I already told you I’m not really here. Just. Getting. My. Shit.” I zip up the bag, feeling sickly gratified by the hurt in her eyes from my angry tone. “Now move out of my way and I’ll be gone.”

“I wish that were really true!” she shouts after me as I brush by her, slinging the bag over my shoulder filled with the only contents that belong to me now. And the bag is very light. “I wish you were really gone, but we both know you’ll be back here! You always come back!”

I bite down on my tongue all the way to the front door... Somewhere beneath being strung out and the lingering alcohol and drugs in my system, I know she has every right to be pissed off at me.

The disappointment.

Their only son.

Who’s chosen this life.

A life that isn’t a life at all.

“Tristan, just stop,” she pleads as I step over the threshold and embark into the cold night air. “Please, just stay for two minutes… I just want to talk.”

“About what?” I ask without turning around. “Getting sober? Because I don’t want to talk about that.” Can’t talk about it.

“You need to get clean.”

“Why?”

Because you love me?

Because you miss me?

Because it hurts you to see me hurting myself?

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” she answers, walking up behind me. “You’re not supposed to go around doing drugs. You’re supposed to be a better person, like…” She starts to choke up. “Like Ryder was. She was such a good person.”