Page 74 of The Fire Between High & Lo (Elements 2)

“It’s me, Ma. Logan.”

Her dull eyes looked up in my direction and for a split second, she reminded me of Sober Ma.

Then she began to scratch again.

“All right, all right. Come on. Let’s get you a shower. Okay?”

After a little work, I got her to sit inside of the bathtub as the shower rained over her. She kept scrubbing her skin as I sat on top of the closed toilet lid.

“Kellan told me you were going to cut back on using, Ma.”

“Yeah.” She nodded rapidly. “Definitely. Definitely. Kellan offered to send me off to rehab, but I don’t know. I can do it on my own. Plus, that stuff costs a lot of money.” She locked eyes with me and smiled, holding her hands out to me. “You came home. I knew you’d come home. Your father said you wouldn’t, but I knew.”

“He still sells to me sometimes.” She looked down and started washing her feet. The bruises on her back and legs almost made me gag. I knew they were from my deadbeat father. And the fact that I wasn’t there to step in between the two of them made me feel as if I were just as bad a person as he was.

“Do you think I’m pretty?” she whispered. Tears were running down her cheeks, but I didn’t even think she knew she was crying.

“You’re beautiful, Ma.”

“Your father called me an ugly bitch.”

My hands formed fists, and I took a few deep breaths. “Screw him. You’re better off without him.”

“Yeah. Definitely. Definitely.” She nodded rapidly again. “I just wished he loved me, is all.”

Why did we as humans always want love from the people who were incapable of such a feeling?

“Can you shampoo my hair?” She asked

.

I agreed. I lightly touched the bruises against her skin, and she didn’t seem to react at all. For a while we sat and listened to the sound of the water. I wasn’t sure how to communicate with her. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to, but the silence was too much to bare after some time. “I was going to run to the grocery store for you tomorrow, Ma. You want to get me your food card?”

She closed her eyes and clapped her hands together. “Shoot! Oh shit. I must’ve left it at my friend’s apartment the other night. She lives right down the street from me. I can go get it,” she said, trying to stand up, but I stopped her.

“You still have soap in your hair. Wash it out, towel off, and meet me in the living room. We’ll figure out the food another day.”

I stood up and left. When I hit the living room, my eyes fell to the baggie of cocaine on the table. “Fuck…” I whispered, snapping my band.

Focus. This isn’t your life. This isn’t your story.

Dr. Khan said after I left rehab, moments would come up when I’d find myself seconds from stepping back on the hamster wheel of my past, but then he’d say that it wasn’t my story anymore.

My hands were sweaty, and I took a seat on the couch. I didn’t know when it happened, but somehow the baggie of cocaine was in my hands. I closed my eyes, taking in a few deep breaths. My chest was on fire, my mind wild. Being back in town was too much for me, but leaving Kellan wasn’t an option.

How was I going to survive?

“Look, we are going to be late—” Erika came barging into the apartment and paused, seeing me with the cocaine in my grip. I quickly glanced back and forth to the cocaine and Erika. She sighed. “Figures.”

She turned on her heels and hurried out of the room. Shit. With haste, I followed her, calling her name, but she ignored me the whole way to the car. Once we were inside, she revved up the engine and pulled away from the curb. A few minutes passed with no words exchanged.

“Listen, what you saw up there,” I started, but she shook her head.

“Don’t talk.”

“Erika, it’s not what you think.”

“I can’t do this, Logan. I can’t. I can’t be the one driving you around to go on these joy rides. I can’t watch you disappoint your brother.”