Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
HIM
Christmas had always been my favorite holiday.
We weren’t religious or nothing. It was just the only time it was acceptable for my mother to be as drunk as she was every other day of the year—Christmas and St. Patty’s Day too, I suppose.
But no one was giving out four-leaf clovers or whatever green shit was on brand on St. Patty’s Day.
No one cared if you went hungry on St. Patty’s Day.
But Christmas was when the church folks would stop by with canned goods and regifted presents—as well as lots of stares, a shit-ton of judgment, and the occasional Bible.
Was I a little too old for the toddler toys and used coloring books?
And were most of those cans expired and bullshit no one in their right mind actually ate?
Like creamed corn and some sort of unrecognizable bean?
Yup and yup and yup. But at least they were mine. And not much was mine in that trailer.
Something else my ma liked to remind me of whenever she got the chance.
Everything I owned was because of her. Including the cock between my legs.
Everything except for those toys and coloring books.
She was usually too whacked out of her mind to remember me opening them on Christmas morning, when she even bothered coming home, so it was much easier for me to hide everything in the back of the closet without her finding it and trying to hock it as some pawn shop or cash for gold store.
Which was why boredom had me once again snooping around Nurse Keller’s townie.
This time, for something more festive than the gray-on-gray décor she had sprinkled around the living room with pops of frilly pinks.
I spent a good hour or two rummaging through the house before finding a box of old decorations in the attic.
Brand-new, still in the packaging but boxed up anyway.
I pulled them down, dropped them into the living room, and then began the task of spreading a little holiday cheer…
The interior was all so… dark and pastel, if that was a thing? What it really needed was some red and green, some cheesy-ass holiday music, and some baked goods. My stomach grumbled at the thought. I was a sucker for sweets. Probably because those were a rarity too.
So I made my way into the kitchen next, grabbed a half-empty packet of stale crackers from Jules’s pantry, and shoved a handful into my mouth as I headed back towards the living room.
Where I threw some cheap garland up on the fireplace and a few of those decorative red and green balls into a dish on the coffee table before moving on to the dismantled tree.
The box was sealed and there was plastic wrapped around each of the branches.
Like the stuff had gone straight from the register to the attic without ever making a pit stop in the house.
But at least I had all the pieces to work with.
It took about twenty minutes or so for me to have the damn thing standing slightly crooked on its own, without bothering to read the instructions, its branches properly fluffed and a few string lights strung haphazardly around the middle.
Wasn’t the best looking tree I’d ever seen but wasn’t the worst either.
Then I took my ass back upstairs to the bedroom where my little rag doll was still propped up on the bed. I shoved her to one side, plopped down beside her on the mattress, and flicked on the tv.