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“I’m coming with you guys,” I say.
Tanner nods and fist-bumps TJ before jogging back to his car.
“I could give you a ride,” TJ offers.
“No, thanks. I should go.” Far, far away from you and your muscles.
“Goodbye, Carla.”
“’Bye, TJ.”
Chapter Eight
The Past
TJ
The day Mom died, I thought my problems were over. (How fucked up does that sound?) I had no idea it wasn’t the end of my troubles. It was only the beginning.
I’m in the same police station I’d practically grown up in. Except now, I’m not sitting in a detective’s chair giving my statement. I’m sitting in a jail cell. And Woods isn’t looking at me with those gentle, sorrow-filled eyes. He’s looking at me in disgust.
It’s ironic, really.
“Woods, hurry up and say whatever you’re going to say. I’ve got a pounding headache and I need to take a piss.” At least, that’s what I meant to say. What came out was a slurred, mumbled version of that. A bottle of Jack Daniels and a hit of heroin will do that to you.
High is my preferred state now. Being sober after what I’d been through? Impossible. I’d tried.
But I was angry at my father for doing what he did.
Angry at my mother for allowing it to happen.
Angry about having to live with complete strangers who didn’t give two shits about me.
Worst of all, I’m angry at myself. Losing control of your own life is a scary thing. You become desperate, willing to try anything and everything to sit in the driver’s seat again.
Heroin gave that feeling back to me.
Now, I’m in control. It sounds like an oxymoron, being in control by losing control. But to me, it makes sense. I get high to numb the pain. I’ll always be grateful for that redhead.
“Oh, I’m not going to say anything,” Woods says. “I’m past saying something.”
“Then let me out of here.”
“So you can go where, exactly? You’ve got nowhere else to go. Phil and Theresa aren’t going to take you back after this. They were nice people. You could’ve had a family. A normal life. But you insist on fucking it up every chance you get.”
I gesture to the homeless man sleeping on the floor in the corner of the cell. “I think Old Man Jenkins here shit his pants. Just let me out.”
“I’m not letting you out of here! Not until you stop this. You can stay in there and rot for all I care.”
I roll my eyes. “You can’t keep me in here. I’m only seventeen.”
He grips the bars and presses his face against them. “I can do whatever the fuck I want!”
I laugh. He looks like he’s reenacting that scene from The Shining when that guy sticks his face through the door. Who was that actor? I can see his face but I can’t remember his name.
Woods turns red. “I can’t watch this anymore, Thomas. I can’t watch you turn into your father.”
That stings a little, even in my inebriated state. “I didn’t kill anybody. Chill out. And for the hundredth time: stop calling me Thomas.”
