Rebel Without a Claus (25 Days of Christmas: Bikers & Mobsters)

CHAPTER 1 - BRYNN

“Mom?” I call, forcing the old door to our tiny apartment closed with my shoulder before flicking over the four locks. Some people might see that as a little excessive, but those people had never lived in this part of St Louis before.

They’d also never lived with someone who has a habit of running their mouth after a few drinks—like my mom.

Those locks, they’ve taken their fair share of beating and battering over the years, but by some miracle, they’re still holding it together.

Unlike me, who is falling apart by the second.

Tossing my backpack onto the floor, I march past the kitchen and down the hall.

“Mom! You forgot to pick up Jovie again! The school just rang, I need your keys so I can go get her!” I call out, hopping on one foot as I attempt to get the soaking wet shoes off my feet—my sore, aching feet courtesy of the seven mile walk from the community college and back, which is only going to be made worse by the six hour shift I’m about to do at the bar down the street.

After so long playing this back and forth with her, I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.

Playing psychologist to drunks and perverts for less than minimum wage and a handful of tips isn’t the dream I imagined for myself, but it’s paying the bills.

For now.

The actual dream is to go to a real college.

And get a business degree, so that one day, I can open my own restaurant or upperclass cocktail bar.

It’s the very distant, head in the clouds kind of dream—but one that might actually be within reach if I manage to complete my GED this year. Then I can finally get both me and my daughter the hell out of this place and start living our lives.

Leaving high school during my senior year wasn’t exactly where I wanted to begin that journey, but I was barely seventeen, nine months pregnant, and watching my mom spiral every time another boyfriend walked out on her.

If I wanted to make sure my daughter was looked after and neither of us were taken and placed into foster care, I had no other choice but to leave school and get a job to support us. Because it was obvious the adult in my life wasn’t going to do it.

She’d started drinking.

She’d stopped going to work.

And she’d found someone to blame for it all—me.

I did what I had to do to keep us going. I left school and got a job, thinking it would just be until Mom found her feet.

Several years later, and here I am.

Still working at the bar waiting tables.

Still dreaming of a life outside this.

I pause outside my bedroom door, tossing my wet clothes into the bathroom and finding some dry jeans as I wait for Mom’s response. Usually, there is some kind of grumble or groan—an acknowledgement that I—the bane of her existence—was home.

But all I get is silence.

“Mom!” I yell, holding my breath as I wait, but still, nothing.

I curse under my breath and stomp back down the hall and through the kitchen.

“Mom, come on, I need to pick up Har—” My words catch on gasp as I turned the corner into the living room and see her lifeless body sprawled out on the floor.

My stomach instantly turns, churning at the sight of the red wine bottle clutched in her right hand, though it’s the bottle of pills in her left that forces me to press my fingers to my lips to hold back the wave of nausea that rushes over me.

This is it.

This is the moment that has been haunting me since the first shitty boyfriend walked out and I found her here, unconscious, drunk, and completely unable to control her body—or her bodily functions.

The first time of many.

I can’t move. My feet are cemented to the ground. I just stand there, holding my breath, watching her chest.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Scared to touch her.

Not because I’m afraid of confirming she’s dead.

But because I’m afraid of the disappointment I know I’ll feel if she’s not.

Jesus Christ, is that what my life has come to?

“Brynn...” The low groan startles me, and I press a hand to my heart. “Open.” She barely lifts her hand, wiggling the pill bottle ever so slightly. The sound of the loose pills rattling inside hits me like a slap in the face.

Ah, I get it now.

She got drunk as hell and couldn’t open the damn kiddy lock lid on the ibuprofen bottle, so she just passed out on the floor.

“Mom! What the fuck is wrong with you?” I curse, crouching down beside her and snatching it out of her hand, shaking the half empty bottle dramatically. “I thought you were dead!”

And now that I know she’s not, I’m fucking furious.

“Open!” she slurs again, rolling over onto her side. “I goddaaa head ack.”

I look down at the bottle, noting the way someone has scribbled across the printed label with a black pen, crossing out all the details about who it’s been prescribed to.

It’s not just ibuprofen. Twisting the lid off, I glance inside, frowning at the handful of pills that are for sure not just painkillers.

“What are these?” I demand, scratching at some of the black marker with my nail in an attempt to see what was written beneath. “Jasmine Jones… Oxycodone? Did you buy oxy off someone?”

These pills cost money.

A lot of money.

Money we don’t have.

“Give me…” she mumbles, reaching out, but I simply step back, out of her grasp.

She quickly gives up, slumping again onto the floor, causing the wine bottle to slip from her hand.

The last little bit of crimson liquid sloshes out onto the pink shag carpet, and I don’t even try to stop it.

The carpet in this apartment is something straight out of the sixties and smells like it hasn’t been cleaned since it was installed.

What’s a little wine?

I instantly regret tempting fate with that thought because a moment later, Mom’s body convulses and she lurches forward, spilling her stomach contents across the carpet like a fountain.

The smell hits me instantly, and I leap up and stumble back against the wall, trying to breathe through the pungent odor.

Now there’s a little wine, and a lot of vomit.

All of which she will expect me to clean up because she clearly can’t look after herself.

Angry tears burn my eyes. My breathing becomes heavier and deeper as I fight to keep control of my emotions, but the second a single tear breaks free and drips down onto my cheek, I shake my head.

“No. No fucking way.”

My body moves on its own as if sucked into some magnetic pull I’ve never felt before. I spin on my heel, stomping across the apartment floor, knowing full well Miss Southwell downstairs will be leaving an angry note on the door later.

I don’t give a shit, though.

Because I won’t be here.

I storm down the hall to the bathroom and twist the cap off the bottle of pills in my hand, eyeing how many are inside. Probably ten or twelve. A couple of hundred dollars worth at least, which makes it all the more satisfying as I upend the bottle and empty every last one into the toilet bowl.

Then flush them.

Her grunts and groans fill the hallway as she somehow manages to drag her ass to her feet and follow me. I toss the bottle onto the bathroom floor and make my way to the bedroom Jovie and I share, crouching down and pulling an old Minnie Mouse backpack from under her bed.

“Where did… yewwww put ‘em?”

“I flushed them,” I respond, glancing back at her and trying to ignore that tiny part of my brain wondering how the hell she’s even standing on her own as she looms over me. “I tipped the entire bottle into the toilet, and I flushed them. Maybe if you lick the water, you’ll get a hit—”

She moves faster than I anticipate, her open palm connecting with my cheek, leaving a sharp stinging sensation.

My fingers itch to reach up and touch it, to try and soothe the sting and hide the large red handprint I know is beginning to bloom.

But instead, I inhale slowly, placing my palms on the floor and using them to force my body to stand on two trembling legs.

“I’m going to pick up Jovie, and her and I are going away for a while, because she deserves better than this.

I deserve better than this!” I growl through clenched teeth, fighting a second round of tears and a complete and utter mental breakdown.

“I’m not going to stay here and let you destroy us both. ”

“Why do you have to be such a bitch!” She swings again, this time though, I’m ready, and I lean out of her reach so her hand flies past my face.

The force throws her off balance and she stumbles, crashing into my bed, her head barely missing the corner of my side table.

“I’ve done eve…” Hiccup. “…everything for you! Ungrateful brat!”

This is usually where the thick cloud of guilt fills the room, swirling in like smog, making it difficult to breathe.

She’d lay it on thick, using it to choke me until I finally give in and beg her to stop, not wanting to see this woman who I desperately wanted to look up to and be proud of, sit here broken.

She’d start apologizing.

Promising to do better.

And I would accept every word like it was gospel.

Because she’s my mom.

But I’m a mom too.

And it was almost impossible for me to comprehend ever hurting Jovie in the way she hurt me. Hell no, my daughter will never feel that kind of hurt. She’ll never be guilted into loving me, she’ll never see me as anything but a pillar of strength, and someone she can look up to and be proud of.

Someone she can aspire to be.

I want more for my daughter.

And here, right now, is where that is going to start.

I shake my head, stepping around Mom’s crumpled body and pulling open the top drawer of my dresser, digging my hand in deep beneath the mess of clothes I never wear.

They’re only there as a distraction. Right in the back, I wrap my fingers around an old, rolled up shirt and pull it out, quickly unwrapping it to reveal a handful of cash, at least eight hundred dollars.

I quickly shove the bills into my jeans pocket and toss a few of mine and Jovie’s clothes into the old backpack. Thankfully, I’d started stashing the emergency money a few months back, maybe because I knew eventually this was coming.

We’re going to need it, given I don’t have much in my account, I’m not expecting a paycheck for nearly another three days, and I’m about to make us homeless.

“Brynn!” her voice screeches as I storm out and leave her in the bedroom, the sharp, high-pitched tone quickly melting into a heart wrenching sob. “I’m so…ray, I’m sorry! Halp…”

I pause at the small side table in our entranceway, fighting my body's natural reaction to go back to her. That’s all I’ve ever known.

While this situation isn’t new, every step after this, will be.

If I choose to take them.

Take them.

Take them.

I inhale a deep breath and reach for the keys on the table—the keys to the car I’m barely ever allowed to drive, clutching them tight in my fingers as I exhale.

Then, without turning back, I walk straight toward the front door of the apartment and once again flick over the four locks and yank it open, lifting my chin high as I look out into the rain, knowing things are about to be different.

And scary.

The second I step out there, Jovie and I will be on our own.

So as the rain hits my face and I close the door behind me, stepping out into the world, I don’t know what’s coming next.

But I do know it’s better than what we’re leaving behind.