Page 29 of Penance (Rising From the Ashes #2)

Lily

M y senior year wasn’t much better than the rest. There was a point when I hoped it would be, but life doesn’t care much about hope and dreams.

At seventeen, I’d never had a friend—not a real one.

I had acquaintances at school who always asked to see my answers on the homework, but never a real friend.

By that point, my mom was done trying to hide her addiction, and it had grown bigger than just alcohol and weed.

The weed turned into cocaine, and the Mom I used to know all but disappeared.

She no longer laughed as she swiped on red lipstick.

Instead, she cussed me out for inconveniencing her by existing.

I hadn’t learned to be callous yet, so each time she looked me in the eyes and said she wished I had never existed, it landed like a direct shot to my heart.

Somewhere along the way, she started blaming me for the reason my father never stayed, and that was a sin she would never forgive me for.

My first chance to make a friend came my senior year of high school, and a part of me hoped it would help fill the void that had started to form in my chest where my heart should have been.

A new family had just moved to town, which was rare given I’d gone to school with the same kids since grade school, but that year, a new girl sat right behind me in my advanced trig class.

Her name was Haley, but that’s all I knew.

I didn’t pay much attention to her at first. I didn’t see the point.

I figured the other kids would eventually tell her how I was a social piranha because of my mom’s reputation as an addict—parents didn’t want their kids hanging around someone like that—but Haley wasn’t much for being ignored.

On the third day of class, she tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around, she grinned. “You’re not much for talking, are you?” She asked, and I shrugged.

If my non-answer bothered her, she didn’t act like it. She kept right on talking for the both of us.

“So, what is there to do for fun around here?”

I shrugged again, not because I was trying to be rude, but because I didn’t know.

I didn’t have time for fun when I was both a parent to my mother and a kid just trying to survive the day-to-day of school.

I always knew school would be my way out.

If I could get into college with a scholarship, I could get the kind of job that didn’t land me in another trailer park.

Haley laughed, and I wondered what it felt like to be so carefree—to laugh so easily. “Okay. I see we are going to have to work on your communication skills, but no worries, my mom says I could make a wall talk.”

A reluctant smile tugged at the corners of my lips.

“Sorry,” I said, my voice in a near whisper. I rarely used it. There weren’t many people for me to speak to.

Haley grinned. “You can make it up to me by showing me around the town.”

“Why?” The question slipped out before I realized how rude it probably sounded. Luckily, Haley didn’t seem to be easily offended.

She shrugged. “Because being the new girl is hard. I’ve done it a hundred times, and you look like you could use a friend. So how about it?”

I rubbed my thumb against my nail, picking at my cuticle. No one had ever asked me to hang out before. I didn’t know how to agree—or even if I should. I worked most days, and on the days I wasn’t, I was busy making sure my clothes were clean and my mother had eaten.

I wondered what it would be like to just hang out with someone who didn’t need or hate me.

Of course, everyone hated me eventually, either because I was poor or because I was the addict’s kid.

I guess it didn’t help that I felt awkward in my body.

But Haley was a fresh start. I could be anyone to her, at least for a while, and when I left for school, I’d be able to take that mask off for good—be the girl who didn’t grow up with hardships around every corner.

Hanging out with Haley was like practice for that.

“Okay.”

______________________

Haley and I agreed to meet at the diner I worked at that afternoon.

I suggested we start there for food, mainly because the owner always gave me food for free.

She tried to pass it off as an employee benefit, but I didn’t miss that I was the only employee to benefit.

My pride wanted to refuse it, but I was so hungry most days that I just said yes.

I was getting ready to walk out the door when my mother walked in, and with one look, I knew what I’d always known—that loving someone was a curse.

Her once thick, blonde hair now hung in strings around her face.

It was greasy from days of not being washed, and dark circles lined her eyes.

Her cheeks were sunken in, and her bones stuck through her skin.

I was always terrified I’d walk in one day and find her dead.

It was my biggest fear—the thing that drove all my choices.

She was weaving on her feet, hardly capable of holding herself up.

Anger burned in my chest. It’s funny how the lines of love and hate are easily interwoven.

With sharp, angry movements, I jerked off my jacket and kicked my shoes into the corner. I resented her because I knew with the choice to stay—to protect her—I was giving up my chance for friendship.

“This is getting old, Mom,” I said, reaching for her arm to lead her to the couch,

But things were never that easy with her. She jerked her elbow away. “Get off.”

We’d been through the same song and dance a hundred times. I should have been prepared. Unfortunately, my anger blinded me, and I didn’t see it coming.

Her elbow landed in the socket of my eye, knocking me to the ground.

Pain sharpened into a blinding light, and I heard my mom drop to her knees beside me.

“I’m sorry, Lily. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, baby.” The naive part of me wanted to believe it was an accident, but the jaded part knew it wasn’t.

I stood, gritting my teeth. A blinding headache had started to form where she hit me.

Standing in front of her, I looked down at her as the walls around my heart started to form.

I realized something then that I never had before.

The moment you stop caring is the moment you are free. And I’d stopped caring.

“I’m done, Mom,” I said, turning my back on her as she lay on the floor.

Her cries followed me to my room. In the past, I would have picked her up—comforted her until the high wore off—but I’d given her all I had left to give.

There was a mirror above my dresser, and I stood looking into it. A bruise was already forming around my eyes, but I looked past it—to the emptiness staring back at me.

I had nothing left.

With wooden movements, I picked up the foundation I’d stolen from the dollar store. It didn’t match my skin tone, but it worked well enough.

My finger shook as I spread the makeup over the tender bruise, wincing when I had to press a little too hard to blend it out. When I looked back at myself, the bruise was barely visible, looking more like I’d had a sleepless night instead of an elbow in my eye.

It was the first mask I ever put on, but it wouldn’t be my last. I went out with Haley that night, leaving my mom passed out on the couch.

Haley never asked about my eye, and it became a lesson for me—when you show people what they want to see—the things that are easy for them—they don’t bother peeking behind the mask.