The worst were the sticky summer nights, listening to the bugs humming in the trees through my crappy apartment window. We were entering the thickest nights now, here in Georgia, as alive with life and noise as they were long.
Those were the nights when I sat in my PJs after dinner, bad TV yammering in the background, fighting for distractions.
Those nights, I broke out the whiskey, toasting the times gone by before they put me in tears again.
Never more than a shot or two. I had to work early most days, after all. I was an adult now.
I stopped short of that sweet, ultimate buzz that would've laid me down, and let me forget. Not for my own sake, or because I wanted to make another helpless attempt to run away from the past, and the boy who'd left me in this lonely hell.
I had to do it for him. Alex.
Leaning over his crib, I reached down and stroked my son's brow. Nighttime helped hide how much he looked like the face I wished I could bleach from my head forever.
He'd just had his second birthday a couple months ago. Since the day he was born, I'd told myself I'd keep going, however hard it got. I'd live and die by my baby boy, and to hell with the old times wanting to get in the way of that.
Sure, days like this took the damned cake.
But they didn't stop me. Nothing ever would.
Not even when I remembered the short-lived forbidden romance, the fiery kisses, the passion that created the little miracle sleeping in the corner.
That was then. This sleeping, innocent baby was my now.
Alex trembled, yawned, and rolled over in his sleep.
I smiled, planting a long, desperate kiss on his forehead. “It's okay, baby boy. Long as it's just you and me, we can take on the world. You're going to be ten times the person I've been someday. A hundred times the man your father is, too.”
I caught myself near the end, pulling away in a whisper. Had to be more careful soon. I couldn't keep talking like that unless I wanted some very hard questions ripping open old wounds.
In just a few more years, he'd be talking up a storm and going to school. A few years after that, he'd be thinking about life and big dreams, not to mention where he came from, wondering why he didn't have a father.
I didn't have an answer. Not even a noble lie to feed him, until he was old enough to understand.
And that made me want to break down all over again. I stood up, pulling my bottoms tighter, hugging myself as I stood next to the dark window, staring out at the lights in the parking lot through the blinds.
A drunken neighbor staggered through the darkness. He dropped a bottle, making a loud clang in the night, swearing to himself as he tumbled down to pick it up.
Fuck my life.
Fuck. Everything.
I'd put myself here because I'd gotten involved with the wrong man. Maybe I deserved it, misery as punishment, but the baby sleeping behind me sure didn't.
The longer I stared through the dusty glass, watching other tenants come and go, revving their old cars long into the night, the more it caught up with me.
Half an hour later, I buried my face in my hands.
I remembered everything. I hurt and bled over it, too. The harder and better I fought, the worse it caught up with me in the end, and tonight was one of those evil nights.
Oh, God. The times gone by swallowed me alive.
*
Six Years Earlier
I was working at my Uncle Robby's bar after school when they came in. Two loud, hollering groups of frat boys, passing by for spring break, tearing through Seddon on the way to Atlanta, or maybe the beaches further south.
It didn't take them five minutes for the first one to grab my ass. The smug, shiny eyed asshole pinched it – hard – and eyeballed me a hundred times harder than the menu I'd just handed him.
“Yeah, I think I want the special,” he said, shooting me a savage look. “How much for a quickie?”
He pulled his hand away to slap the table while his fellow assholes jeered, high-fiving themselves.
“Fuck, man, you looked so serious!” one of them said, roaring. “Keep it up and you'll have her panties off by sundown. These bitches love that shit.”
Without missing a step, I retreated, fighting the urge to shoot him a dirty look over my shoulder. Past experiences taught me fighting back would only invite more trouble. I could still hear them by the bar.
“Have her bring us another pitcher, boys! We'll fuckin' save some for her when she gets off her shift. These bitches around here are all dirt poor trailer trash. They'll slobber your knob like their life depends on it for a couple drinks!”
Bastards. I swore underneath my breath, angrily punching the keys on the bar's old computer for the order.
Worst of all, the place was empty except for the dozen college boys, and maybe one or two drunken regulars over in the corner, staring sadly into their beers. Uncle Robby made a tidy profit from managing this place since I'd been a little girl – but he did it on the backs of the biggest losers and worst tourist chumps around.
Seddon attracted scum like a stagnant pond.