11. Colson
ELEVEN
COLSON
Aunt Bess: Sebastian told me you’re at your mom's.
Aunt Bess: We have stuff we need to discuss.
Aunt Bess: You’re giving me no choice but to drive there.
My head pounds as if a sledgehammer has come down on it repeatedly, my face and neck pulsating. My arms are hundred-pound weights each, and when I reposition them to roll over to my back, a low groan tumbles out of me.
Fuck.
I don’t know how much I drank last night. I stopped keeping track after that initial sip hit my tongue but judging by the way my body is one move away from combustion, I must’ve downed quite a bit.
I peel open my eyes, my gaze fuzzy around the edges. Nausea immediately implants itself in my stomach, reminding me of the flu I had when I was eleven. My insides churn at the memory of being in bed for those two days and vomiting up everything I ate.
The steady thump of pain behind my eyes worsens when I turn my head and peer over at the nightstand. I grab my phone and brighten the screen. It’s like someone is in my face with a flashlight. I squint through the newfound sensitivity behind my eyelids and note the time.
I slept through breakfast and nearly lunchtime.
Brown eyes invade my memory when I turn back over, their color matching the liquid of the Jack Daniel’s.
I want to hate Violet for showing up last night, for pushing me, and finally making me snap. I was doing so good at keeping Jack at an arm’s length. But then I had no choice but to crack her chest wide open. I saw the look on her face. She came to get me to see reason, to get me to open my ears and heart to the fact that I can trust and lean on her. I didn’t listen. Instead, I took advantage of her. The thought of it triggers the gnawing pain in my gut to pinch sharper, causing my throat to spasm with the possibility of a heave.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Why did I let her give me a blow job?
Why didn’t I tell her no and immediately walk her out to her car?
Mom is gone, and now Violet is, too.
All thanks to me.
This sense of anguish trickles through me, not near as potent as last night, but it’s there nonetheless. I find the bottle of Jack on the floor at my feet when I sit up and make it to the edge of the bed. What's left of the golden liquid sloshes when I kick it out of my way.
I make it to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. It’s the best thing I’ve felt since before Aunt Bess’s fundraiser. Even though Mom was in lockup, life felt hopeful back then. I had the girl of my dreams. Finn was paid off. I was in the clear and finally ready to figure out my life.
I cup another handful and toss it at my face. It helps calm the nausea stirring in my gut, and when I look at myself in the mirror, I’m met with blue eyes I’d rather not see. Blue eyes that are submerged so deep in a murky marsh that they can’t see clearly. Blue eyes that are desperate to get a handle on the grief stirring them into obsidian swirls.
A heaviness I don’t see coming hits me square in the chest and pushes itself up behind my eyelids. The pressure comes next. Before I know what’s happening, my chest cracks wide open, and I’m crying at the bathroom sink. I clutch the porcelain like there’s something grabbing at my feet, trying to pull me away.
“Why?” I bellow out, pressing my fingers to my eyes to get rid of the sting. “Things were messed up, but why did you have to go and do this? You could’ve gotten better.”
Just like all those other times.
The possibility was there. It existed.
Until she took those drugs and blew it all away.
The truth of never seeing Mom again knocks me off my feet. I slide down to the bathroom floor and knock my head against the sink as I try to catch my breath. The sobs worsen, the pain engulfing me like a goddamn wildfire, burrowing its way under my skin and into my bones.
My mind goes on a wild goose chase, searching and seeing all the different ways this could have played out. It won’t make a difference, I know that, but it helps lessen the panic in my chest and brings me back to the awful reality that is my life.
If I were only a few years younger, I’d be orphaned by Mom’s departure.
I’m thanking fuck that’s not the case when I hear someone at the front door. I wipe my mini meltdown from my face and cup another handful of cold water to throw at it. Something tells me it’s Sebastian. He’s the only one who’s shown up regularly, and it’s always in the mornings.
The knocks sound again, so I head out and open the door to find Aunt Bess. I have to do a double take to make sure I’m looking at the right person, but she’s standing right there. Four feet away from me in the flesh and blood with eyes that look like they’ve been through a waterfall of tears.
Relief settles on her face, and it’s the exact thing I don’t want to see. Sadness and sorrow. Sympathy and empathy. She wishes she could take away what I’m going through, but she can’t because she’s going through it herself.
I let the door hang open and walk into the house. She follows silently, shutting it as I make it to the futon and sit. I prop my elbow up and run my finger over my lip.
She blows out an unsteady breath. “I can’t remember the last time I was in this house.”
Neither can I.
Maybe when she brought Mom back from rehab and promised she’d be there for her every step of the way. Suddenly, I’m angry at her for not trying harder. For not being in her sister’s life more. For not helping me.
I stare at the wall. “Does it even matter?”
“I guess in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t.” She sits down next to me. “I wanted to check on you. How are you holding up?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I tell her, trying to cover the bite in my tone and the sting in my eyes.
“I know this must be hard.”
“Do you?” I snap, looking over. “Is it hard for you?”
Her brows pull together, an indent creasing between them. I’ve offended her. “How can you ask me that, Colson? Of course, it’s hard for me. She’s my sister.”
“One you stopped coming around for,” I mutter.
She shakes her head and clutches her bag on her lap like it’s her lifeline. Like it’ll help her find her way out of this house, out of this town. Like if she touches anything else she might succumb to the same fate as her sister. “There are reasons for what I’ve done, the decisions I’ve made. Janie was a flight risk. If I didn’t walk away and take care of myself, she was going to take me down with her. She already was beginning to.”
I don’t remember Aunt Bess succumbing to the pressures of dealing with Mom. But maybe I was too young. Too in my own head to see how much it affected her. I don’t care to pick apart the pieces of that puzzle right now.
“I wanted to wait for you, but you haven’t been around. I had to make the executive decision on her burial.” She rubs an open palm on her leg, and I realize this is more than uncomfortable for her, and it should be. We’re talking about her dead sister. My dead mother.
I move my elbows to my knees and drop my head in my hands. Just thinking about her being six feet under makes me want to fucking puke.
“I wasn’t sure what her wishes were or if she had any.”
“What did you choose?”
“I wanted her close to her family,” she says. “We picked a burial site for her at Willow Creek Cemetery near Chatham Hills. She’ll be laid to rest tomorrow morning. It’ll be private, just family, but we want you there, Colson. It’d be wrong to send her off without her son present.”
My heart kicks at my ribs.
“And if I don’t show?”
“Don’t do that to yourself.” I can feel Aunt Bess’s eyes on me again, burning a judgmental hole in the side of my head. “Don’t give yourself a lifetime of regret.”
I thought dealing with Mom’s erratic behavior was difficult. The mood swings. The cravings. The mornings she’d walk through the door like it was no big deal that she stayed out all night while she had a kid at home. The guys she’d bring back with her just to manipulate into giving her drugs or money. The money she stole from me—directly and through the money I gave Finn.
I’d deal with all that ten times over if it meant I didn’t have to have this conversation.
A thought hits me, one I’ve had many times since Uncle Thad finished the words Aunt Bess couldn’t say at the fundraiser. “I don’t understand how she got the drugs in the first place.”
“You know how it is. Even when everyone is supposed to be locked up and doing their time, things still sneak through the cracks.”
My gut knows that’s true, but I also get the feeling that it’s not the entire story. I hate knowing that someone handed over the very thing that took her life without caring that they were taking away someone’s mother and sister.
Aunt Bess gently rubs my back. “Your mom was a recovering addict who was in the thick of her addiction. Withdrawal can turn someone into a totally different person. Can desperately convince them that they need more of what they long for than they do. It was a tragic accident; one we should be grateful didn’t happen sooner.”
I rub my hands over my face to keep the emotions that want to wrack my chest all over again at bay. Perhaps she’s right in saying it was just a freak accident. Maybe it all came down to Mom taking more than she could handle. She was always good at biting off a bigger piece than she could chew.
“There’s something else we need to talk about,” Aunt Bess announces. “As you know, your grandmother left me and Janie an inheritance. It’s the same money that we used to set up the recurring payments on the mortgage and utilities here. My lawyer is drawing up the paperwork to have it transferred into your name as we speak.”
I remember Sebastian saying something about money.
“I don’t want it,” is what comes out of my mouth instead of asking more questions. I don’t want something that was hers. If I take it, it writes her death in stone. It makes it permanent.
“Yes, you most certainly do,” Aunt Bess rebukes. “If you don't claim it as her next of kin, the bank will absorb it. Do you want to say no to almost a hundred and thirty thousand dollars, Colson?”
My ears perk at her words.
A hundred and thirty thousand dollars.
I’ve never known how much money existed in that bank account. I was too young to understand the details of my grandmother’s death. The only thing that mattered was having a roof over our heads and knowing that Mom and I wouldn’t end up on the streets or have the power shut off.
I look over at my aunt. She’s wearing an expression like she knows I won’t say no to it. How could I? That’s a…literal shit ton of money. The kind that takes people out of this town.
So, as much as I want to, I can’t pass it up.
I swallow at the bulge in my throat, ignoring the way my stomach wants to upchuck the alcohol I drank last night. The nausea just won’t quit.
“What do you need from me to get it transferred?”
“We have an appointment with my lawyer after the burial tomorrow. He’ll go over all the details with you, and you’ll sign the paperwork, but you’ll need your social security card and birth certificate to prove your identity as Janie’s son.”
“I only have my social security card.” I carry it around in my wallet even though it’s heavily frowned upon. I didn't trust that I’d get it back if Mom held onto it. Or that I would remember where I put it if I hid it.
She takes in the house around us. The dingy carpet. The yellowed walls. “What’s the likelihood that she has your birth certificate stowed away in this house somewhere?”
My teeth cut into my bottom lip. “Your guess is as good as mine, but I’ll look around. If I can’t find it?”
She pats my back. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Pointless to worry about what hasn’t happened yet.” Her gentle hand hooks over my shoulder and rests there. “I won’t bother you any longer. I’m sure you’re enjoying your space, but if you need anything…”
…you know I’m here, I finish for her in my head.
I watch as she walks out the door and closes it behind her. I inhale a steadying breath, hoping to tamp down the urge to vomit. I find myself in the bathroom with my head in the toilet a minute later.