Epilogue #3
The line cuts out, and I’m left staring at my screen in the middle of the empty street, feeling the silence settle like ash in my throat. “I miss you, Will.”
The walk home isn’t long, just a few cracked sidewalks and flickering porch lights away.
Mason Park sits tucked at the edge of town like a secret no one wants to claim.
My trailer's wedged between two others, one with a pit bull that won’t shut up and the other with wind chimes that sound like haunted silverware. The porch light’s busted—again.
I juggle the bag of food as I reach for the door handle, but it doesn’t budge. Locked.
“Seriously?” I mutter, pressing my forehead to the metal. I don’t remember locking it. Hell, I don’t even remember if we have ever had a working lock to our trailer. I take a step back and scream, “Mom! Mom!”
After a few moments, I step back, hands raised in frustration, an exasperated scream caught in my throat.
Can this day get any fucking worse? If I walk into that trailer and find my mom on the floor again—OD’ing on whatever her new loser boyfriend handed her—I swear to God, I’ll rip my own damn hair out from the roots.
I circle around the side, where the screen window to my room sticks just enough to piss me off but not enough to stop me.
I wiggle my fingers through the crack, pop the latch, and hoist myself up.
My foot slips once—graceful as ever—but I manage to haul myself inside and land on my mattress with a heavy thump.
The room smells like old incense and cherry lip balm. I left the fan running, but it’s just blowing the heat around like a lazy hand. The low sound of grunting rises from the next room and I gag at the mewling sounds of what I hope and pray is not my mother.
I spin around hoping I can slip on my massive over the head headphones when I notice my room looks empty, and not my mom-stole-a-few-shirts-again kind of empty. No, this is you’re-moving-the-fuck-out empty.
My heart kicks up.
The bookshelves are bare, save for one knocked-over candle I thought I lost months ago.
My Polaroids? Gone. The dreamcatcher that’s hung above my window since I was thirteen?
Ripped down. My desk drawers—wide open, hollow like they’d been looted.
Even the little ceramic frog Willow made me in sixth grade is missing, and that thing has survived every shitstorm in this house.
I turn in a slow circle, throat tightening, a rising pulse of disbelief hammering in my chest.
Then I see them.
Three black garbage bags slumped in the corner like body bags, sealed tight, full of my life shoved in without care. Like someone was cleaning up after a party that I didn’t even know was over.
And just like that, the numbness burns off.
“Fuck no.” The words rip out of me raw.
I yank one open, hands shaking. My hoodie’s inside—my hoodie, the one with the burn mark on the sleeve. My sketchbook, bent in half. My socks, my jeans, my makeup bag. All just… stuffed in like trash.
“What the fuck!” I yell, voice ripping through the stale air.
I rip open the second bag—more of the same. My old photo albums, crumpled notebooks, the mug I stole from Waffle House two years ago. The life I’ve been barely holding together, tied up in plastic like it didn’t mean shit.
My heart’s pounding so hard it hurts. My mouth tastes like smoke and betrayal.
I storm toward the hallway, every step heavier than the last. The closer I get, the louder the noises from her room—low, sloppy moaning, a bed creaking in rhythm.
I don’t knock.
I slam the door open and there she is—my mother, straddling Nick, tangled in bedsheets, hair a mess, eyes wide like I’m the one who ruined the moment.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I shout, barely able to see straight as I shake the trash bags in my hands. “You packed my life into garbage bags before you were screwing this greasy discount jackass who will probably rob you next month for a pack of cigarettes?!”
She scrambles for the blanket. “Jasmine, how the fuck did you get in here. I changed the locks.”
People used to say I was the spitting image of my mother. Same gray eyes, same long wavy blonde hair, same sharp little smirk like we were both in on some private joke.
But now?
Now her hair hangs in limp, tangled waves. Her skin’s gone papery, pulled too tight over her bones, and scabs litter her arms and legs. She clutches the blanket to her chest and flares her nostrils at me.
“I was going to let you know earlier but you came back late from work, but Bud wants to move in, so you have to move out.” My mom slurs, her words sticky in her mouth, like she can barely get them past her cracked lips.
I feel my lip curl in disgust as the trash bags drop to my side. "Bud? You’re throwing me out for Bud?"
My mom’s eyes dart to the man behind her like she needs backup.
He just sits there, sprawled in the stained naked mattress like a king on a trash heap, scratching his chest with one hand, the other is bent behind his head.
He watches me like this is entertainment, like my life getting torn apart is the best thing he’s seen all week.
“Bud wants to move in, and he has a son,” she repeats, rolling her eyes as if I was too slow to understand her the first time she said it. “So you have to move out.”
My chest caves and burns at the same time, like my heart just cracked in two.
"Move out?" I choke on the words. “I pay the bills! The electricity, the water, the Wi-Fi, the fucking rent! I keep this shithole running while you pump what little money we have straight into your bloodstream! How the hell are you going to be able to afford to live without me.”
She flinches, then sneers, clutching the blanket tighter as if it could shield her from the truth. “Bud works, and he said he could cover it.”
“Oh that’s great,” I laugh humorlessly. “Your drug dealing boyfriend can pay the rent! Fucking fantastic decision making skills, Patricia! What about me?”
Mom rolls her eyes, and sighs pinching her nose between her thumb and ring finger. “What about you, Jasmine?”
Tears sting the back of my eyes, and my throat tightens painfully. “I am your fucking daughter!”
Bud chuckles, low and raspy. "Feisty little thing, ain't she?"
My glare shoots to him like a blade. “Shut the fuck up before you catch something worse than a felony.”
His smirk only widens, but before I can say another word, Patricia slams her palm against the side table, rattling the empty pill bottles.
“Don’t you talk to him like that!” she shouts, nostrils flaring. “You are eighteen, and I don’t want you here anymore.”
“Mom-” I croak but she cuts me off.
““I’m not gonna let you take another man from me, Jasmine. I won't."
I freeze. For a second, I swear the whole room goes quiet except for the sickening thud of my heart in my chest. “What?”
Her eyes glisten, wild and desperate. "You always do this! Always!” she screams, pushing up to her feet, the blanket falling away, revealing bruises blooming over her legs like rotten fruit. “Every time I find someone good, you ruin it. You poison it!"
“Good? He’s a fucking dealer, Mom! He’s an abusive shit!” I shout back, my chest heaving, my vision swimming in red.
“You’re just jealous!” she screeches, her voice cracking under the weight of her rage and whatever high she’s barely clinging to. “You are such a selfish child. I am happy Jasmine. Do you not want your mother to be happy? I mean fuck! You have taken everything from me, at least give me this!”
That does it.
I lunge for the garbage bags, yanking them open, pulling my clothes out and throwing them across the room, my heart in my throat, my fury boiling over.
“You think this is better?!” I scream, tossing my ruined journal at her feet. “You think this is a life? Waking up on some loser’s lap, your veins full of poison, your brain turned to mush?! You’re fucking pathetic!”
Her face twists into an ugly snarl. Before I can brace myself, she lunges at me, nails catching my cheek, scraping deep. The sting blooms hot across my skin.
Reflex takes over—I shove her back, harder than I meant to, and she stumbles, crashing into the armchair. Bud scrambles to catch her, spilling the ashtray from the folded table next to the bed.
“Get the hell out!” she screeches, her voice ragged and raw. “Get out of my house!”
I stand there, chest heaving, fists clenched so tight my nails bite into my palms.
“Gladly,” I rasp, my throat tight as hell, but my pride harder. I grab the nearest bag of my things, slinging it over my shoulder. My eyes burn, but I refuse to let them see me cry.
She slumps into Bud’s lap like it’s some twisted throne, glaring at me like I’m the villain in this story. Maybe I am. Nothing in my life feels like a happily ever after. I feel like I am only fit to destroy, might as well lean into it.
“Hope he keeps you warm at night,” I snap, my voice like ice. “Because he’ll never pay the fucking bills.”
And with that, I turn, stomping through the hallway and out the front door, slamming the door behind me so hard the frame shudders.
I haul the garbage bag higher on my shoulder, its plastic digging into my skin, my cheek still burning from where her nails carved a warning into me. My chest is tight, throat raw from holding back the scream crawling up my windpipe. I swallow it down, bitter and jagged as glass.
My legs move on autopilot, carrying me out of Mason Park without even thinking. Past the pit bull barking its head off. Past the porch with the haunted silverware wind chimes clattering in the muggy breeze. I don’t know where I’m going until my feet know for me.
Hot tears spill over my lashes, blurring my vision as I walk. My mind rushing with the spiral hate talk of how far I have fallen in life.
I used to have dreams.