AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What?”
“We do?”
“Who’s up there?”
There was such chaos, and she felt like she was in the way, taking her purse she’d dropped into the grass and moved to go get into her vehicle. With the amount of smoke, lights, and flames going through the roof, she knew it was not going to be cleared up anytime soon.
No, she was going to be really lucky if she had a home in the morning.
Trying not to panic, she leaned her car seat back all the way and carefully held Zane against her. The blanket was laying over the two of them, and she cracked the window slightly, locked the doors, and held her son. He was everything… in more ways than one now.
* * *
As the sun rose, Eris stared at the hollowed-out frame of a building that eerily ended with stairs going upward into nothingness. The people on the other side of the building were having to move into other apartments due to water intrusion and smoke. However, that was not going to be the case for her.
She couldn’t prove she had renter’s insurance. The building was covered, but her meager number of things would not be replaced, nor would they rent her another apartment without it or a fresh lease with a deposit. She had a hundred bucks until payday and needed to get diapers, food, and clothing for Zane.
… And fuel apparently.
Her car decided to announce as the fuel light illuminated with a tell-tale chime when she started her car to look for a place to stay. Her neighbors said no for a variety of different reasons – most of which was that they were having their whole life turned upside down, too.
“Okay, breathe,” she thought, turning off the car once more. “Think, think, think,” she muttered aloud and heard Zane’s laugh beside her from the passenger seat.
“Tink, tink, tink,” he beamed, tapping on his head and scrunching up his brow like Winnie the Pooh did on one of the VHS tapes she had for him to watch. Ruffling his hair, he laughed, and she smiled sadly.
“That’s right, little pooh bear. Mama needs to think for a minute, okay?” she explained and moved back into her ‘I’m not having a breakdown yet’ form, clutching the steering wheel, taking several deep breaths, while trying not to cry.
Priorities first, she thought bluntly. A hotel was too expensive, and her credit card was maxed, but she really did not want to drive into Tyler to look for a women’s shelter. No, the less she drove, the better. She could put two gallons of gas in her car, get a pack of diapers, a few small items to snack on that were cheap and paused.
How am I getting to work?
That bubble of panic started again as she started sucking in air, trying not to burst out crying, but that little voice inside of her was screaming awfully loudly.
Commencing nervous breakdown in three… two… one…
“Okay, Zane, Mommy needs to get some gas for the car and a pack of diapers first thing, then she’s going to probably go fold over like a deck of cards, press her face into the passenger seat bottom and scream bloody freakin’ murder so she doesn’t need a looney bin. Okie dokie?” – and the only reason she was saying that was because her son wouldn’t understand, and it felt good to at least get it off her chest.
“Tink, tink, tink, Mama?” he questioned happily, smiling up at her.
“Yup, sweetie. Think, think, think…” Eris whispered tearfully and sighed heavily. Getting out of the car, she buckled him into his car seat to start figuring out what to do next and where to go.
Thirty minutes later, she had the smallest pack of diapers possible for her son and wished with all her heart that he was potty trained already, but it was hard to teach him when you were working all the time and picking up extra shifts to pay the bills.
Putting ten dollars of fuel in her car gave her a little over three gallons and she would need to be very careful until Friday. She had to buy a bra at Target because people were looking at her funny and a pair of jeans on clearance. Yeah, strutting your stuff through the local Target in pajama pants and a Transformers T-shirt got you looked at – not to mention watched. She was pretty certain the ‘mall cop’ at Target was watching her to make sure she didn’t shoplift anything… not like she had a place to hide it. Yeah, she could get by wearing her clothing a few times before it became a real issue.
Looking up, she happened to look around, and she did a double-take. There, at the next pump on the opposite side of the gas station island, just out of clear view, was a license plate she knew like the back of her hand. The memories washed over her, and she remembered laughing so hard at him because his vanity plate on his jalopy of a pickup truck said, ‘PRTYGRL’
Colton.
She had teased him so much about that. To her, she read it as ‘Party Girl,’ and he thought he was soooo clever putting ‘Pretty Girl’ on the back of his truck that he’d dubbed ‘Ariel’. He named the truck after The Little Mermaid because she was sea green with green tweed upholstery on the bench seat. Oh, they had laughed and laughed together, had such fun being around each other, before it all fell apart.
Putting on the gas cap, she watched that truck like a hawk, her mind working overtime. She couldn’t ask him for help, because she never told him about Zane. That was the fight that had started it all – and ended it.
One mistake had created life.
When Colton had flipped out about the broken condom and said things that couldn’t be unsaid, she’d grabbed her purse and left. Ignoring phone calls, ignoring text messages, she’d even quit her job when he showed up at her work demanding to talk to her. No, if he wasn’t ready for a commitment, then he wouldn’t be a part of the biggest one a woman could make, one that would change her whole world.
“Mama? Oooh Mama?” Zane whimpered, shoving his thumb in his mouth. “’Nana?”
