Chapter 27
Jagger
“Fuck.”
I raked a hand through my hair, wishing I was back at the Emersons’, wishing I was anywhere but here.
My mother and Catherine’s apartment was a damn mess—dirty clothes all over the place, dishes piled up in the sink, half-eaten frozen dinners with cigarette butts sticking up from what was left, and don’t even get me started on the stench.
It was a mix of sour, mildew, and… I sniffed again.
I really hoped something hadn’t died in here, too.
Meanwhile, my sister was frantically writing in her journal and hadn’t even noticed that I’d come in.
I stepped over a pizza box and cleared my throat. “Hey. Where’s Mom?”
She looked up, confused. “How did you get in?”
I held up my set of keys. “These.”
“But I had the top lock on.”
I turned to look at the door. “There is no top—” Jesus Christ. Not one, but three shiny new locks. One was screwed on more crooked than the others. I thumbed to them. “You install these yourself?”
Catherine nodded. She got up and bolted all three locks, then looked around the apartment. “I guess Mom must’ve gone out.”
My guess was that could’ve happened two days ago, and my sister wouldn’t have noticed with the state she was in.
Things had taken a turn during the four years I was in the military.
I took a deep breath and started to collect the garbage strewn all over.
“You need to clean up after yourselves or you’re going to get bugs in here. ”
She tucked her feet under her ass on the couch and went back to writing in her journal.
I raised my voice. “Catherine? Did you hear me? You need to keep this place clean.”
“You don’t have to yell at me. Leave it. I’ll do it. I’ve been sick.”
Sick. I’d been back home for five weeks now, and I hadn’t heard a single sniffle.
And I stopped by every few days. I picked up one of the three prescription pill bottles sitting on the kitchen counter and twisted the cap open.
Emptying the contents into my other hand, I counted the pills as I dropped them back into the canister.
Twenty-nine left of the thirty-day supply I’d picked up five days ago.
I walked over and stood next to the couch.
“You need to take your medicine every day, too.”
“I do.”
I frowned. “I just counted them.”
“They’re trying to poison me, and you don’t even care.” My sister’s eyes filled with tears.
I was frustrated and tired, but I knew Catherine wasn’t just being difficult.
She was ill. Managing her, or my mom, was like trying to catch a butterfly—I’d get close, but somehow they always slipped through my fingers.
I sat down on the couch next to my sister.
“Have I ever done anything to hurt you, Cat?”
She looked away but shook her head.
“And I never will. Look at me, Catherine.”
Her eyes met mine.
“The doctor is not trying to poison you. Those meds will help you feel better. Are you having trouble sleeping?”
She nodded.
“Do you feel anxious in your chest?”
She nodded again.
“Does everything feel too loud again? Like the TV and people talking?”
A tear streaked down her cheek, and she nodded more.
I held up the pill bottle. “These will make you feel better. But they take time to work, and you have to take them consistently.”
She still didn’t look sold, so I unzipped my backpack, pulled out my own pill bottle, and pointed to the label. “See the name here? I take pills, too, Cat.”
“Are you sick?”
“Not the kind of sickness you get, like a cold or the flu. I have something called PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder.” I rubbed over my breastbone.
“I get that same anxious feeling in my chest sometimes—usually when I’m trying to go to sleep, and then I wind up staring at the ceiling all night.
These help me when that happens. It makes me feel like I’m in control again. ”
Catherine’s shoulders relaxed. She scooched closer to me on the couch and leaned her head on my shoulder with a sigh. “Are we going to be okay?”
“We are. But in our own way. Not everyone’s okay is the same.”