Jason （20）
Beer.
I want beer.
Cold. Cheap. And lots of it.
Preferably from a funnel.
Just dump it down my throat, please.
Anything to numb this feeling.
My oversized body shifts on the twin bed Ma put me in when the asshole screaming in the living room moved in. I had a decent room in the basement, but shithead needed space for his workout equipment.
Workout equipment. Ha!
A lot of good it did him. All those hours of pumping iron didn’t do him a bit of good against a twenty-year-old who’d had enough of his shit. Honestly, he should be grateful I stopped when I did. I could have broken his nose.
Brad…
When Ma said she was dating a Brad, I knew it was over. Brads are the type of dudes who peak in high school, then crash hard once they have to live in the real world. But what’s a Brad to do when he’s got years of Bud Light and broken dreams pumping through his veins?
Pick on his girlfriend’s son—that’s what.
He didn’t expect a tall, wiry kid who barely weighs a buck seventy-five, soaking wet, to drop him like a sack of bricks.
Nobody ever does.
I chuckle to myself, thinking about the last fight I got into. Everyone thinks they’ll teach the loud-mouthed kid a lesson until they’re crumpled on the floor and five of their buddies are pulling me off.
There’s another scream in the living room. Ma’s doing everything she can to calm him down, but there’s no point. When a guy like Brad gets humiliated by a guy like me, there’s no use in trying to mend his shattered pride.
What a little bitch.
Brad—not Mom.
Though she’s been trying my patience lately, too.
My jaw throbs. He got a good one in before I headbutted the motherfucker.
It’s all about the element of surprise.
Headbutts, a jab to the neck, a knee to the nuts. Those are the moves that knock a guy off his game.
Oh, shit, I’m bleeding.
I notice the bloodstain on my bedsheet.
Whatever.
A knock on the door is followed by Ma’s annoyed face glaring at me. “Jason, what the hell is the matter with you? You could have seriously hurt him!”
I squint my eyes at her. This is what she does. It’s always my fault when one of her boyfriends gets what’s coming to them. “I should have,” I reply.
She pinches the bridge of her nose, then sits on the end of my bed. “He wants you out,” she informs me with a defeated tone. “I’ve been trying to talk him out of it for hours, but he won’t budge.”
“Then tell him to eat a dick and get lost.”
Her eyes land on me.
And that’s when I see it.
A cold chill runs down my spine before a fiery rage takes over.
“Are you kicking me out? For him?”
She can’t even look at me, so she stares at her hands instead. “Jason, I told you the last time you got in a fight—”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t date dudes who want to fuck with me!”
She jumps to her feet, stomping about the room. “There isn’t a guy on the planet you can get along with!”
“Bullshit. You just can’t stop dating assholes. The last two years have been a parade of douchebags, and each one is meaner than the last.”
“A parade? ” she shrieks.
“I didn’t mean—”
Slap.
The backhand to the face comes faster than lightning.
My temperature rises to a million degrees, and my right arm shakes, but I pin it to my side.
I won’t hit her.
I’d never do that.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps, holding her hand like it had a mind of its own when she hit me. Like she hasn’t done it before when she knows damn well she has.
“No, you’re not,” I spit back.
Ma pushes back the hair from her face, tears welling at the base of her eyes. “Jason, I just want a normal life. Why can’t you get along with anyone? Just be reasonable for once in your life.”
“Reasonable?” I’m gonna freaking lose it.
“We’ve been in and out of crappy apartments chasing one guy after another for two years.
You finally decide to settle down, get a job, and rent a halfway decent place, and then Brad comes into the picture.
You haven’t made a reasonable decision since we left Belmont, but I’m the one who’s causing trouble? ”
Mom stares at me with a sad expression. “He wants you out.”
The way she says it—
Her voice is quiet. Haunting.
It’s not a threat. She’s resigned herself to the fact that Brad wants me out, and she’s going along with it.
“So, you’re choosing him over me? Your own son?” I ask, masking the crack in my voice.
The tears fall this time, and she quickly wipes them away. “I called your Dad. He’s okay with you staying with them for a bit. Maybe you can come back when Brad cools down.”
She called Doug? My heart pounds—years of awful memories flood my mind all at once.
“I haven’t seen Dad since we left.”
“I know—”
“You’d make me go back there? After everything he did?”
She wraps her arms around her body, like she’s hugging herself when I’m the one who needs a goddamn hug. “He wants to do better—”
“So you expect me to move in with him, lunatic Linda, and…fucking Gabe?”
Gabe.
That liar.
The only person I thought would never hurt me ended up hurting me the most.
Dad beat the hell out of me; Mom is a little slap-happy, too, but Gabe broke my heart.
I can handle physical pain, but I can’t handle that.
“You two used to be friends…”
“I’m supposed to live with a convicted murderer and a man who beat the hell out of me my whole life?”
“Manslaughter,” she whispers. “Not murder.”
“Oh wow, manslaughter? Well, thank god. That changes everything.”
The volume of her voice startles me, and my body rattles the bed. “Well, that’s the option, Jason! Or you could move out and get a fucking job! You’re twenty, not a kid. I want a life. A partner. I deserve that.”
“And what do I deserve?” I holler back.
“I don’t know, but I want a life, Jason, and you keep ruining it.”
She gasps, covering her mouth with her hand, like she can push those words back in.
But she can’t.
Silence.
I take a deep breath. “Fine. Tell Doug I’m on my way.”
“Jason, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t.”
Her mouth falls open, and her hands shake at her sides. I can see the gravity of it all crashing down on her. “Look, maybe if you apologize to Brad—”
“I’d rather eat dogshit. Tell Doug I’m on my way and to hide the sharp knives from his psycho wife.”
She turns pale, and, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I have the upper hand. I’ve been a nuisance to her since we left Belmont—a memory of the man who broke her heart. Well, fuck it.
I’m ruining her life?
Where was she when Doug had the belt in his hands?
Why didn’t anyone help me?
Because no one ever chooses me.
Not even Gabe.
“Jason, I—”
“I need to pack. Go take care of your pathetic boyfriend.” She doesn’t move—just stands there staring at me.
“Go.”
She can hear in my voice that this is it, and if there’s one thing Ma knows, it’s that I don’t back down when I’ve made up my mind.
She slowly makes her way to the door, but then I add, “Tell dickface I need money for the bus. I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to finance my disappearance.”
She pauses, but she doesn’t look at me. “Okay,” she responds in a shaky voice. I can tell she’s crying.
For a millisecond, I almost rise from my bed to hug her, but I don’t. I’ve wiped away a lot of her tears in my life.
Nobody ever wiped away mine.