Page 1 of Wasted On You
Prologue
Weston
Ten years earlier…
“Am I going to jail or not?”
That voice. Even though I know it’s mine, it sounds foreign to me, cracked from the stress. Dehydrated too, since my throat feels like 1200-grit sandpaper. Some guy offered me a diet soda or a water when I came in. I should’ve taken it, but I told him no. I wanted to look tough, not like some scared little kid. But I was terrified—still am. No matter how much I tap my toes or jiggle my knees, both my legs are asleep from sitting in a plastic chair. Even though I’ve tried to escape the dread with deep breaths to push it from my lungs, the swirling emotion, theunknowing, have all settled into my organs like a disease.
My brows pull together. “Don’t I at least get a lawyer or something? And why won’t anybody tell me about my mom?”
It’s been four hours since Duluth’s finest dragged me into this police station, and I know even less than when I came in.
All the moments—even the moments in between the moments—have blurred together since they slapped the cuffs on me. Since I entered this police station, time never felt quite right. Sometimes it moved too fast for me to make heads or tails of anything, just a continuous stream of legal nonsense and scowling faces in dark uniforms. Other times it dragged by in seconds that felt like hours. Earlier, they left me sitting alone at this cold metal table, making sure they kept the blinds open so every cop that passed by the window could sneer at me. It could have been hours but more likely it was only minutes. Every single second passing with a snappy click of the skinny black hand on the basic wall clock felt like the last moment before I would swing from the gallows. I feel like a caged animal or a sideshow freak. “Step right up, folks! Come see the kid who killed someone today! Let him know exactly what you think of him!” I’ve been in here for some time with my head down and my hood up for a sliver of privacy, but their judgmental eyes still burn holes in the back of my head.
And it isn’t like I can nod off anyway without knowing about Mom.
She’s what matters. She’s what’s important.
I don’t care about my safety, my comfort, or even my own future as long as she’s okay.
These two latest jerk-offs came in an hour ago. They’ve been questioning me up one side and down the other. I’m a little worried about jail time. I mean, I’ve seen re-runs ofDateline NBC,and people get screwed by the so-called justice system all the fucking time. In one episode, some dude spent his whole life in the pen only to be released right before he dropped dead of a heart attack with only the clothes on his back and a few bucks in his pocket. When they first brought me in, I overheard one of the cops talking to an uptight lawyer-looking type about the county DA and how he’s up for reelection. About how bad it might sit with voters to go all in like this after some juvenile without a record.
Hasn’t stopped them from harassing me just the same, and it’s not much different than anything else I’ve ever experienced from the boys in blue. Cops have never liked me much—being from the wrong side of the tracks and all. Even when I make it my mission to mind my own damn business, they’re always asking me where I’m going or why I’m out. Giving me the side eye and the third degree when I’m just trying to buy milk and aUS Weeklyfor my mom. I know what I look like with my ripped, washed-out jeans and my big black hoodie, my torn-up kicks, and the little gold chain Mom saved up to buy me for Christmas two years back. I look like trash, like some punk from the gutter here to tag your store front and jack your tires. Nobody cares that I actually get A’s most of the time, or that the reason my clothes are so worn down is because I won’t take guilt money from a stepfather who treats my mother like a human punching bag.
Despite what little I have, I do have one thing.
Pride.
I’ve been holding down a job of my own, spending nights and weekends at the Kwik Trip trying to scrape together enough change to get us a place of our own, somewhere far away from Joel and his temper. I guess I just didn’t save up fast enough. Maybe this is where we’ve been headed all along. He’s threatened to kick me out more times than I can count, but I don’t think he ever would’ve let Mom leave.
Fate forced the issue.
“You’re gonna sit here until we tell you to go somewhere else,” snarls the larger of the two officers.
Between the size of his stomach and the heft of his mustache, he looks like somebody trained a circus bear to wear a uniform and carry a badge. On a better day, I would ask him if he’s found any good picnic baskets lately. Better to not push my luck, or I could end up in an orange vest picking up trash on the highway or locked down in a juvenile hall with car boosters and dope slingers. If that happened, I don’t think Mom could make it on her own. The shame alone would kill her. Or worse. She would end up right back with another Joel. Only I wouldn’t be there to protect her this time.
Just thinking about that sends another shiver down my spine.
“I just want to know if my mom is okay,” I sigh, raising my hands in surrender. “If she’s being taken care of. Hell, if she’s even alive. I don’t understand why you can’t tell me.”
I’d also like to know if she’s mad at me. But that’s not something I can bring myself to ask. I’m certain I know the answer, but I can’t bear to hear it. Like most victims of domestic abuse, she’s been brainwashed by him.
“Listen to this kid,” the officer barks out a cruel laugh. “Keeps asking for his mommy. Well, Mommy’s not gonna save you now, tough guy.”
“That’s not—damn.” I slam my fist on the table with enough force that his nervous-looking partner flinches. “I just want to know if I got there in time, man. Just let me know if she’s okay and I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
I can’t help but feel that this is all my fault. I should’ve known better than to go out tonight, should’ve played it safe. It’s just that things have been so tense lately, and he’s always so much worse on the weekends when he has a few dollar bills in his pocket.
The officer smirks, shaking his head. A knock on the door stops whatever insult he wants to hurl at me. His partner, a soft-spoken man with huge glasses and barely a wisp of hair on his head, turns to answer it. He opens the door just enough for me to see a face over his shoulder. The officer outside looks at me with a pity in her expression that embarrasses me more than it brings me any comfort. I can’t quite make out what they’re saying, and it’s setting my teeth on edge. I think I hear the wordmother, but I can’t be sure. He thanks her half-heartedly, then closes the door and turns to face me.
He tries to look kind, offering me a smile, but it doesn’t reach all the way to his eyes. It’s the look of a man who thinks you’re nothing even as the overhead lighting bounces off his shiny bald spot like the beam from a lighthouse. “Good news, kid. Got word from the hospital. They’re discharging your mom. She ended up with no more than some light bruising and a sprained wrist. She’s lucky. And so are you. Apparently, she doesn’t want you detained. Who knows why, but she corroborated your story. A uniform is gonna give her a lift over to a shelter in town for the night. We didn’t think she’d want to stay in the house, what with the situation in the living room. There’s a number we can give her—for crime scene clean-up. People who handle that sort of thing.”
“Oh, she’ll want to call them, alright. I heard you made quite the mess,” Officer Asshole taunts me, sucking his teeth. If I wasn’t so relieved about Mom, I’d fantasize about how my fist would feel if I slammed it into his jaw. He has no idea what I’ve been through, no right to talk to me like this. I’ve dealt with things he couldn’t even begin to handle. Sure, I’ve shoved them down into dark places even I don’t acknowledge. But they could resurrect themselves at any moment and bubble to the surface, ripe for an explosion. “Now, we told you what you wanted to hear. And even though the district attorney’s not pressing charges for first-degree murder, doesn’t mean you’re getting off scot-free. Not by a long shot. A man died tonight—needlessly and violently—and I need to hear the whole story from you again down to the last detail. If you stopped in the middle to take a piss, I need to know it. And then we’ll let the system sort out the rest.”
Needlessly? That one word sets me off. Now that I know she’s okay—that it was all worth it in the end—something breaks inside of me. Words start to pour out from somewhere deep that I have no control over. I feel like I’m sitting on the ceiling, watching myself from the outside as I spill my guts to these guys like some perp of the week on a cop show. Everything flashes in front of my eyes. Not just tonight, either. I tell them about those first few years after Dad died, and how unprepared we were. Everything was so damn hard. It got so much easier when Joel showed up—at least for a little while. My mom fell so hard and fast because he could give her things that we didn’t have. Money. A roof over our head. Some semblance of stability. The sort of things her little boy couldn’t go out and get on his own, no matter how much I wanted to.
But it all came at too high a cost. Joel liked to drink. No. Joelhadto drink. And Joel also had to get his way. If he didn’t, consequences came soon after. I spent years watching my mom get called every name under the sun and get bruises she’d have to cover up the next day with cheap concealer and shaky hands. I wanted to go out tonight, to catch a movie with some friends and get away from it all. I thought I’d earned it since I hadn’t had a day off between school and work for almost a month now. But he always goes out with his buddies on Friday.