Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
He has no fucking idea how badly I need to sleep. I’m delirious.
I chug the rest of the glass and intend on telling him that I drank the stuff he gave me, or maybe telling him something just so he’ll stay with me on the phone until I’ve fallen asleep.
That doesn’t happen though. Instead, I stare at the empty glass, feeling lightheaded and drowsy all at once. My sense of time begins to warp, feeling like it passes slowly but quickly just the same.
I barely get the glass on the nightstand before the darkness takes over. I’m able to slip under the covers, feeling the weight of sleep pulling at me. And I give in to it, so easily.
“You’re late.” Tamra’s voice is clear as can be. She always had a slight rasp in the last word of every sentence and she kept her lips in the shape of that word for what seemed like an odd amount of time.
Where am I? I can feel my brow pinch; this room is familiar, but not so much that I know where I am. The carpet’s thin and worn out in front of the television where the car seats are. There are three of them, although they’re empty now. No one’s here but me, sitting on the sofa that’s just as worn as the carpet and Tamra, who’s standing in front of the open door.
“He made me stay overtime.” My mother’s voice drifts in through the tense air. She’s agitated and suddenly anxiety runs through me.
“Well, then, this is overtime for me. I can’t watch these brats for free.”
I’m not a brat. I swear I was good. I was good. I want to tell my mother, but I know to be quiet. With my hands in my lap, I wait stiffly. I’ll only move when I’m told, I’ll only speak when I’m spoken to. With my throat tight and dry, I wring my fingers around one another and glance at my bookbag at the end of the sofa. It’s already packed, and I didn’t forget anything. I never forget. If I do, I don’t tell my mom and I hope she doesn’t find out.
“Of course, you’re gonna fucking charge me,” my mother spits out her anger at Tamra. Anger which I know will be directed at me on Monday when she watches me again unless she tells my mom she’s not going to watch me anymore without being paid early. Which she’s done before. In that case, I stay in my room all day and don’t answer the door. But Mom got in trouble for doing that once.
“Let’s go, Chloe.” My mom barges into the living room as Tamra stays where she is, keeping the front door open. It’s late and I still have homework to do, but I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to read the words and I need someone to tell me, but Tamra won’t and Mom’s mad so I know better than to bother her.
I can tell from the way she stomps across the room it would be a mistake for me to do anything or say anything. I get up quickly. But I have to be quicker. If I move fast enough it won’t burn when she grabs my arm.
“I’m coming,” I tell her as fast as I can, snatching my bookbag and scurrying to her side even though fear is racing through me and begging me to run.
I’ll be quiet; I’ll go to sleep. Miss Parker will help me. It’s only second grade, she keeps telling me I have time to do it at school if I get there early, but that I have to learn to read. I’m trying. I promise her I am.
“You see how no one helped me?” I hear a voice from outside this moment, a voice that sounds so close, so real. So full of rage and vengeance. My mother. Fear runs down my skin and up the back of my neck, freezing me where I am as I swear I feel her hot breath at the shell of my ear.
She didn’t say that in the memory. She’s telling me now.
I look back at Miss Tamra, still trying to keep up with my mother, even though her grip tightens so hard it’s going to bruise. My blood runs cold and a scream is caught in my throat at the sight of Tamra leaning against the back wall, her left hand on the sofa. Blood coats her hair where a bullet wound mars her skull and it leaks down to her cheek, dripping onto her collarbone. I blink and suddenly she’s standing there, yelling at my mother that she’s an ungrateful bitch.
The chill doesn’t go away, the sight from just before still stealing my breath and sanity.
The hand around my arm twists, burning my skin where my mother is touching me. It hurts. Mom, it hurts! I scream out, but the words don’t come. I’m no longer there. It’s dark and the bruising hold changes to something else, feeling like the kiss of a spider climbing up my arm in the darkness. I try to jump back, but I’m trapped, with nowhere to go and I can’t see a damn thing.