Doesn’t matter. I’ve long-since decided to just bide my time here for my little brother’s sake. Get through it, keep a close eye on Willie, and get gone out of this smelly shithole as soon as I can, figuring out a way to take my brother with me that won’t have child services breathing down my neck. Maybe I’ll offer her money to let me take him. That’d probably do it.
If I thought going to a foster home was better, I’d have gotten us out of here when Nan died and things really went to crap. But we could’ve been separated. We could have it worse, especially Willie and he might not have had anyone to look out for him. At least now I can take care of my brother, shield him as best as I can, and deal with the bullshit I know instead of what I don’t. And until it’s time to go, I’ll ignore Max. Unless he lifts a finger toward me or my brother again, then I’ll fuckin’ kill him.
The next few weeks, Max pretends I don’t exist. I do the same. But I’ve got a knife under my pillow so I’m ready if he sets foot in my room again.
She actually cleans the place, does laundry, and acts overly cheerful. Almost like an actual mother. Even takes Willie for a haircut.
We’ve been down this road before; she’s thinking she’ll fake it until it’s true, that she’ll fool me into thinking Max isn’t bad for her, fool Max into wanting to stay, thinking if she fakes it all well enough, he might turn out to be a decent guy. She’s only trying to fool herself.
Seems for a couple weeks like neither of them are drinking much. They’re watching TV at night, spending a lot of time in her room. Then it starts again when she gets her next check. Going to a bar one night. A couple days later – day drinking. Then a party at our place with about twenty rowdies on a Wednesday night. One night me comin’ home to Willie watching TV alone, saying they went to the bar. Things continue to break down over the next month with screaming matches over who smoked the last cigarette and who was gonna go out and buy more. Fights about money. Her fighting about him flirting with someone in the hallway.
And then I overhear them arguing, her saying she knows who called social services to say she’s got a guy living here. They’re threatening to evict her because she gets the subsidy being a single mother, so he starts saying he’ll disappear for a while and she loses her mind, not wanting him to go.
I don’t know what happens then because things go quiet, he disappears for a month or so and I think she’s dodged the eviction bullet because there’s no talk of moving.
And then he’s back. Again.
He’s pretending we’re not there, saying not two words to either me or my brother. Willie’s attached to me like glue when I’m not working. But he stops coming into my room and I’m proud of that. Until I hear the shithead making smartass comments about him bein’ a baby, so I know that’s why Willie’s trying to man up. He can do that later. He’s just a kid. I wind up in his room most nights, sleeping on his floor so he’ll sleep better.
It’s not easy balancing school, the pizza place, and bookmaking with Willie to worry about, so I’ve talked to the chick that lives three doors down who has the hots for me, and asked her to keep her eyes and ears open. Gina’s got a mom who works nightshift and has to take care of four younger siblings. She’s got no dad around. Most kids in our complex either have no dad or shitty dads.
I’ve asked her to take Willie to the park with her siblings sometimes. And if she hears yelling from our apartment when she’s home, she should knock on the door and offer to take Willie to her place to play with her brothers and sisters.
If she can watch him, I’ll pay her. If she can’t, she needs to call or find me. She tells me I don’t have to pay her, and my guess is she wants me to ask her out. I’m not into her but I do it anyway and we have to come back early so her mom can leave for work. We wind up fucking in her mother’s bed and I pop her cherry while her siblings sleep in the next room.
Gina wants to be my girlfriend, but acts on board when I insist we’re just buds and that I don’t have time for a girlfriend. And she’s a nice girl, is sweet to Willie, but it was more of a pity fuck for me. She agrees to be just friends, but I know she’s hoping to change my mind. She gives me these longing looks and goes out of her way to do shit for my brother.