Page 14 of The Fire Between High & Lo (Elements 2)

“Yeah?” he asked. I shrugged my left shoulder. He shrugged his right.

That was how we always said, “I love you” to one another. He meant so much to me. The person I someday dreamed of becoming. Yet still, we were men. And men didn’t say, “I love you.” Truth was, I didn’t say those words to anyone.

Clearing my throat, I nodded once. “Thanks again. For...” I shrugged my left shoulder. “Everything.”

He gave me a soft smile, and shrugged his right. “Always.” With that, he left.

My stare fell to Ma, who was talking to her bowl of milk. Figures.

“Kellan’s the perfect son,” she muttered to the milk, before tilting her head my way. “He’s so much better than you.”

Where’s Sober Ma?

“Yeah,” I said, standing up to take my food into my bedroom. “Okay, Ma.”

“It’s true. He’s handsome, and smart, and takes care of me. You don’t do shit.”

“You’re right. I don’t do shit for you,” I mumbled, walking away, not wanting to deal with her crazed mind that morning.

As I walked, I became startled when a flying bowl glanced off my left ear, and shattered against the wall in front of me. Milk and shattered glass splashed all over me. My head tilted back toward Ma, and she had a sly smile on her lips.

“I need those windows cleaned today, Logan. Right now. I have a date coming to pick me up tonight and this place is disgusting!” she shouted. “And clean up that mess.”

My blood began to boil, because she was such a mess. How’d someone get so far gone in life? Once they were so far gone, was there any chance of them ever coming back? I miss you so much, Ma… “I’m not cleaning that up.”

“Yes you are.”

“Who are you going out on a date with, Ma?”

She sat up straight, as if she was some kind of royalty. “None of your business.”

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure the last person you went out on a date with was some scumbag who picked you up on a corner. The time before that it was my deadbeat father, and you came back with two broken ribs.”

“Don’t you dare talk about him like that. He’s good to us. Who do you think pays most of our rent? Because it definitely isn’t you.”

A just-graduated-high-school, almost eighteen-year-old who couldn’t make rent—I was such a loser.

“I pay half, which is more than you can say, and he’s nothing but a piece of shit.”

She slammed her hands on the table, irritated by my words. Her body had a slight tremble to it, and she was becoming more fidgety. “He’s more of a man than you could ever be!”

“Oh?” I asked, charging toward her, starting to search her pockets, knowing exactly what I would find. “He’s more a man? And why is that?” I questioned, finding the small baggie of cocaine in her back pocket. I dangled it in her face, and watched the panic spill over her face.

“Stop it!” she shouted, trying to grab it from me.

“No, I get it. He gives you this and that makes him a better man than I could ever be. He beats you, because he’s a better man. He spits in your face, and calls you shit, because he’s a better man than me. Right?”

She started tearing up, not at my words, because I was certain she rarely ever heard me, but she teared up from fear that her white, powdered friend was in danger. “Just give it to me, Lo! Stop!”

Her eyes were hollow, and it was almost as if I was fighting with a ghost. With a heavy sigh, I tossed the baggie on the table, and watched her wipe at her nose, before opening it up, finding her razorblade, and setting up two lines of coke on the dining room table.

“You’re a mess. You’re a goddamn mess, and you’re never going to get better,” I said as she sniffed up the powder.

“Says the boy who’s probably going to walk into his bedroom, shut the door, and snort up your own treat that your daddy gave you. He’s the big bad wolf, but little red riding hoodie boy keeps calling him back to get his fix. You think you’re any better than me or him?”

“I am,” I said. I used, but not too much. I had control. I wasn’t wild.

I was better than my parents.