And I can’t even escape this shit life to watch television because the damn TV is still broken.

“I should call them.”

“Call who?”

I spin around, shocked to find Clara home. I didn’t even hear her walk through the door.

“Call who?” she repeats.

I didn’t realize I said that out loud. “The cable company. I miss television.”

Clara shakes her head as if she wants to say, Cable is so outdated, Mom. But she doesn’t. She walks over and takes Elijah from me.

There are two cable companies in this town, but I get lucky and call the one we actually have an account with first. I’m on hold forever before I finally get an appointment confirmed. When I hang up, Clara is looking up at me from her position on the couch.

“Have you even slept yet?”

I’m assuming she asks this because I’m in yesterday’s clothes and I haven’t brushed my hair. I can’t even remember if I brushed my teeth. I usually do it before I go to sleep and as soon as I wake up, but I haven’t done either of those things, because Clara is right. I haven’t slept. I wonder how long someone can go on no sleep.

Apparently for Elijah, it’s seven hours, because that’s how many have passed between his last nap and this one.

“Call Jonah and tell him to come get his son. You look like you’re about to break.”

I avoid responding to her comment, lifting Elijah out of her arms. “Can you run to the store and grab some diapers? I only have one left, and he needs changing.”

“Jonah can’t bring you more?” Clara asks. “Isn’t that his responsibility?”

I look away from Clara, since she’s staring at me like I’m water and she can see right through me. “Cut Jonah some slack,” I say to her. “His world has been turned upside down.”

“Our worlds were turned upside down too. Doesn’t mean we’d abandon an infant.”

“You wouldn’t understand. He needs time. My wallet is in the kitchen,” I say, continuing to avoid throwing Jonah under the bus, no matter how much I want to.

Clara takes my money and leaves for the store.

When it’s just me and Elijah, I lay him on the pallet I made for him. He’s finally asleep, and I have no idea how long it’ll last, so I take advantage of it and use the time to go to the kitchen and rinse out his bottles.

He hasn’t had breast milk since Jenny died, but he seems to be taking to formula pretty well. It just makes for a hell of a lot of dishes.

I’m scrubbing one of the bottles when it happens.

I start crying.

Lately, when I start crying, I can’t turn it off. I cry with Elijah at night. I cry with him during the day. I cry in the shower. I cry in my car.

I have a perpetual headache and a perpetual heartache, and sometimes I just wish it would end. All of it. The whole world.

You know your life is shit when you’re handwashing baby bottles, praying for Armageddon.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CLARA

There are several routes I can take to get from my house to the grocery store, or my house to the school, or my house to basically anywhere in town. One of them is the main road through the center of downtown, which is the shortest way. The other is the loop, which is out of my way, but even still, it’s the only road I’ve taken to get anywhere for almost two weeks now.

Because it’s the only road that takes me right by Miller Adams’s house.

The city limit sign has moved a little more, and I can see now why he’s moving it in small increments. Unless you’re looking to see if it’s been moved, it would be hard to notice a twenty-foot shift every week. I’ve noticed, though. And it makes me smile every time I see it in a different spot.

I drive this way in hopes he’ll be on the side of the road again, and I’ll have an excuse to stop. He’s never out here, though.

I continue my drive to the grocery store to get diapers, even though I have no idea what kind of diapers or what size to get. Texts to my mother when I arrive at the store go unanswered. She must be busy with Elijah.

I open my contact for Jonah. I stare at it, wondering why my mother wouldn’t call him for diapers. I’m also curious as to why she’s had Elijah for as long as she has.

I could tell she was lying to me when she said he just needed a break. I could see it in her eyes. She was worried. She’s hoping a break is all he needs.

But what if Lexie is right? What if Jonah decides not to come back for him?

If that’s the case, it’s one more thing to add to the long list of tragedies I’m responsible for. Jonah is stressed because he lost the mother of his child and has no idea how to raise him alone, and none of this would be happening if it weren’t for me.

I need to fix whatever is going on, but I can’t do that when I don’t know what, exactly, is going on.

I decide not to call Jonah. I put my phone in my pocket and leave the store without buying diapers, and then I drive straight to Jonah’s house because Aunt Jenny isn’t here to give me answers and my mother certainly isn’t being honest with me. No better way to get answers than to go straight to the source.

I can hear the television when I approach Jonah’s front door. I breathe out a little bit of relief, knowing if the television is on, he probably hasn’t skipped town. Yet. I ring the doorbell and hear rustling inside of the house. Then footsteps.

The footsteps fade, as if he’s walking away, attempting to avoid his visitor. I start beating on the door, wanting him to know I’m not going away until he opens this door. I’ll go through a window if I have to.

“Jonah!” I yell.

Nothing. I try the doorknob, but it’s locked, so I knock again with my right hand and ring the doorbell with my left. I do this for a full thirty seconds before I hear footsteps again.

The door swings open. Jonah is pulling on a T-shirt. “Give a guy a second to get dressed,” he says.

I push open the door and move past him, entering his house without permission. I haven’t been here since a week before Jenny died. It’s incredible how fast a man can let something go to complete shit.

Not that it’s reached the point of disgusting, but it has definitely reached the point of pathetic. Clothes on the floor. Empty pizza boxes on the counter. Two open chip bags on the couch. As if he’s embarrassed by the state of his house, which he should be, he starts to gather trash and carry it toward the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

He steps on the trash can lever, and the lid pops open. I think his plan was to drop the trash into the trash can, but it’s too full for that, so he releases the lever and sets the trash on the kitchen counter with a pile of other trash. “Cleaning,” he says. He takes the lid off the trash can and begins to tie the bag shut.

“You know what I mean. Why has my mother had Elijah since Sunday?”

Jonah pulls the bag of trash out of the can and sets it next to the kitchen door that leads to the garage. He pauses for a moment and looks at me, as if he might actually be honest with his answer. But then he shakes his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

I am so sick of hearing those words. It’s as if adults assume that being sixteen prevents a person from understanding the English language. I understand enough to know that there’s nothing in the world that should keep a parent from their child. Not even grief.