But my childhood had been nothing like that. My mother had had strange men over, disappeared for months at a time, did drugs, and had gotten drunk often.

I learned quickly that hope was for idiots.

Yet, a part of me didn’t want Dylan to be like that. I wanted him to hold onto the things that made him innocent. I wanted him to hold onto his childhood for as long as he could.

“Is that her?” he asked me, his voice barely above a whisper.

It was like he was afraid to talk too loud in fear that she would fade away like a spirit or something.

“Yes, Dil, that’s her.”

I didn’t bother saying anything else as we exited the car and headed towards the front door. Tyson was leaning against the wooden railing on the front porch, looking agitated. He’d probably heard me pull up and decided to let us in on whatever hell was raging inside.

Ryder was home and I knew for a fact that he was probably verbally abusing the crap out of our mother. He’d had a deep hatred for her ever since we were growing up. Maybe because he’d been older and remembered a lot more from when she’d been on her downward spiral, or maybe there was so much anger inside him that the only way he knew to direct it was by hating her.

“Ruby’s home,” Tyson said, as a way of greeting.

None of us actually called our mother “Mom”. That word implied a term of endearment; it implied closeness to a person, and that was something we didn’t have with her. So, to us, she was simply Ruby, the woman who had given birth to us.

“Did you guys pick up anything for dinner?” I asked, ignoring what he’d just said and walking inside.

My way of coping with Ruby’s return was to act like nothing had changed. There was no point in getting angry or upset or reacting at all. There was no point in hoping or being happy, because her return would only be temporary. As soon as she found another guy who’d fuck her and buy her nice things, she’d be out of here without a backward glance.

“Yeah, there’s burgers and fries in the kitchen,” Tyson responded, following us into the house. “Have at it.”

It was eerily silent inside—I’d expected to walk into the middle of a shit storm between Ryder and my mother—but it didn’t take me very long to pick out the one thing that didn’t belong in the picture: Ruby.

She sat on the couch with her face buried in her hands. At the sound of approaching footsteps, her head jerked up and she stared at us with bloodshot eyes before jumping to her feet.

“Vin, Dil, my babies!” She hurried to us with arms outstretched as though she expected us to run to her.

That wasn’t going to happen.

As she reached us, I tried not to notice the minor similarities I bore to this woman, particularly the dark eyes and the deep cheekbones. Really, Tyson was the one that looked most like her. She always said that Ryder and me looked like our father, and that Dylan looked like his.

Years of drug and alcohol abuse made Ruby look a lot older than she really was. She was only forty-one, but she looked more like fifty.

Dylan didn’t make a move towards her, but instead grabbed my hand. I squeezed it in a reassuring way, letting him know that I would handle the situation.

“Aren’t you boys gonna hug your momma?” Ruby asked when neither of us said or did anything.

“Are you our momma again? For how long this time?” I asked in a cool tone. “Well, momma, did you know that last month Dylan turned ten?”

Ruby went pale at my words and her smile faltered. “Of course I knew it was my baby’s birthday, but I was so busy, you know? I really tried to make it, but Mikey was just so—”

I raised a hand to silence her, and she flinched almost as though she was scared of me. “I don’t need to know the name of your fuck buddy. I just need to know how long you plan on staying here.”

There was a thick silence, and then Ruby’s lips began to quiver as she turned on the waterworks. “Goddammit, Vincent! H-he beat me up! He wouldn’t even let me get all my stuff! All I got is that one bag!” She gestured to a single suitcase that was propped against the couch. “I got nowhere to go! I got no money, nothing! Baby, don’t you ever go thinking that I don’t love you! I gave birth to you, honey, and there ain’t no love like a mother’s. I know I’ve done stupid shit, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”

Any other person would’ve reacted to their crying, broken mother, but I had no reaction. I had seen this act before, many times, and the only thought that crossed my mind was how pathetic this woman was.

“How long are you staying here?” I asked again through clenched teeth. She was really testing my patience. I didn’t have time to stand around and listen to her spout her well-rehearsed bullshit.

The crying stopped just as suddenly as it’d started, and Ruby narrowed her eyes at me. “For as long as I have to.”

“Not if I can help it.” Ryder was in the room, and in a few quick strides, he was standing beside Dylan, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You stay one night, that’s it. I don’t want you poisoning this house for longer than necessary.”

If Ruby had been a little scared by me, it was nothing to how she reacted to Ryder’s presence. She took a step back, her eyes wide as they darted around the room, trying to find a savior.

That was the problem with this woman. She could never pick herself up; she always needed a champion, someone who would take care of her and protect her. She was spineless and weak. She was a leech, a parasite that lived off other people. She repulsed me.

Ruby let out a whimper and walked over to Tyson who had been silent the entire time. “Tyson, sweetie, say something. Tell your brothers that what they’re doing is wrong.” She grasped his arm and stared up at him piteously.

For a fraction of a second, pity clouded Tyson’s face. His brow was furrowed as he stared at Ruby like he felt sorry for her. It was pretty clear that Tyson was the weak link, and Ryder could sniff out weakness in a heartbeat.

“I dare you to say it, Son. I dare you to go against me.” Ryder didn’t exactly raise his voice, but the threat in his tone was clear. If Tyson dared to challenge him, he would ruin him.

Whatever sympathy Tyson had been feeling, quickly vanished at Ryder’s words. He pushed Ruby away and glared at her. “I would never go against you for this piece of trash, Rye. I would never go against you over anything.”

Seeming satisfied with Tyson’s response, Ryder turned back to Ruby. “There is no one in this house who will ever take your side, you piece of crap. You can stay here one night and one night only. After that, I want you out of here and I don’t give a shit where you go.”

There was a creak of the floorboards, and Tyson turned and walked out the door. I think this was all too much for him. He hadn’t completely closed himself off to Ruby the way Ryder and I had. I think sometimes he thought that she’d come back as a mother, that she’d change, but the situation was too far gone now. Ruby would never be what he wanted her to be. She would never change.

Ruby’s dark eyes landed on Dylan who was still holding onto my hand. “Fine. I’ll just take Dylan. He’s my son and I can keep him with me if I want.”

A surge of anger pulsed through me, almost blinding me. Dylan was my responsibility; I took care of him, and there was no way I was going to let her ruin his life. For as long as I could remember, I’d looked after Dil, not because I had to, because I wanted to. I wanted to give that kid the best chance at life. I wanted him to have choices. I didn’t want him to turn out like any one of us. If Ruby thought she could get back at us by taking Dil away, she was delusional.

Shoving Dylan behind me, I took a single step towards her that had her shrinking backwards. “Just try to take him. See what I do to you if you step out of this house with him.”

This time there really was fear in her eyes. “What happened to you, Vin? You ain’t the same, sweet boy you used to be.” She shot Ryder an accusing look. “What have you done to him?”

“He’s not weak anymore,” Ryder shot back. “He’s not weak like you. I made him strong. I taught him to fight back.”

What happened next was something I didn’t expect. Ruby turned to me with sympathy on her face. “No, Ryder, you’ve taught him to be cold, hard, and uncaring. You’ve turned him into stone.”

With that, she turned and walked away down the hall. A few seconds later, the bathroom door shut.

What the hell?

“Stupid bitch,” Ryder muttered, before turning back to us. His eyes drifted over Dylan and then back to me. “Food’s getting cold. Let the kid eat.”

That was all he said before ruffling Dylan’s hair and walking out the house.

* * *

The next morning, Ruby and her suitcase were gone.

Dylan met me at the kitchen table with a solemn look on his face. He played around with his bowl of cereal, pushing the spoon through the milk, as I sat down across from him, burying my head in my hands.

There was some part of me that should feel bad about everything that had happened last night, I know there should. But I felt nothing except anger. I didn’t feel guilt or remorse for the way I’d spoken to Ruby. The woman who I couldn’t even call “momma”. The woman who said she loved me. The woman who said that I was stone.

That’s what was cutting me up the most; the fact that she felt sorry for me. This woman—who had no home, no money, no sanity, no one who loved her—felt sorry for me. That was the biggest punch in the face—that I was someone to be pitied, like her.

No matter how strong Ryder wanted me to be, there was still something about me that made my own mother pity me. Now that was fucked up.

“Vincent?” Dylan asked, his tone soft and tentative.

I looked up and met his blue eyes that were so innocent. Was there a time long ago that I’d looked at someone with the same innocence?

“Yeah, Dil?” My voice sounded tired and defeated.

Dylan pushed his bowl away and slumped against his chair. “Is she coming back?”

My little brother waited expectantly for an answer from me. I was the adult; I was supposed to have all the answers, but I didn’t know shit. I didn’t know if Ruby was coming back. I didn’t know why she’d chosen this path for herself. I didn’t have a fucking clue.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh.” Dylan sucked in his bottom lip. “Does she hate me?”

Shit. My ten-year-old brother thought that his own mother hated him. What kind of fucked up shit was that? No kid should think that they were hated by their own parent.

“No, she doesn’t hate you.” I reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “She hates herself.”

And a part of me knew that that was the truth

No matter how much we hated Ruby, she hated herself that little bit more.

Chapter Seven

Estella

My feet were dragging on Wednesday at school.

Sometimes it got hard pretending that everything was fine when it really wasn’t. My friends knew a little about my home life, but they weren’t aware of the full extent of it. No one was. Not even Nate and Anna. I planned on keeping it that way. They both had enough to worry about without having to worry about me.

The skin on my left arm was itching a lot today. I wanted to blame it on the material of my sweater, but I knew that wasn’t the reason. It was a psychological thing; whenever I was particularly stressed, that exact same spot would itch. It had happened without fail for the past two and a half years.

I stopped walking when I saw my two best friends heading down the hall towards me. Mariah Brand easily stood out with her deep shade of red hair that was thick and curly whereas Lana spent painstaking hours straightening hers. Hadassah Swinton—better known as Hadie—was short and petite with brown hair. She was usually full of smiles, but that had changed recently.

“Hey, Estee.” Even Mariah’s voice was void of its usual peppiness today.

The general mood amongst my group of friends had been pretty morose lately.  See, the thing was, our group of three had originally been four. Lana Buckley—who was also Mariah’s cousin—had recently had a falling out with her and we weren’t entirely sure where things stood with her right now. Mariah was really mad about it, especially because Lana was her cousin, and she couldn’t bring herself to forgive her.

As for Hadie, she was wonderful, kind, and selfless but last month she’d suffered something heartbreaking that had changed her. Some of the light that surrounded her had dimmed a little and she was forever changed. For a while, it’d seemed like she was pulling through it thanks to this guy in our grade, Eddie Cavallari, but lately she’d been withdrawing and pushing everyone away.