Wherever they stuck me.
Wherever they weren’t.
Really, the only time I ever saw my parents was when their backsides were leaving while I cried. My mom used to hate when I cried. “It grates on my nerves,” she’d say in an even tone. I think my clingy behavior made it easy for her to climb into the car without a backward glance or a wave goodbye.
No kiss. No hug.
Obviously I didn’t realize when I was little that they were just fucking assholes, didn’t realize it was nothing personal.
All I knew was that it crushed me.
My mother didn’t do affection, even before success hit. She was too hurried for it. Always in motion, always on the go. Always moving a different direction. If I begged to be picked up as a toddler, I remember being shooed away, a burden.
I don’t know why they bothered having me; my mother had no business having kids.
When my parents started making money—serious money—the DVDs they’d play to keep me out of their way became nannies and caregivers. Aunts and uncles and people they paid to watch over me that really didn’t give a shit.
They were only in it for the money, too.
Then it really started rolling in, a windfall they earned when my father sold his first program to Microsoft. Bought stock in multiple dotcoms. Invested in several startups. This was back when I was very young, but I remember standing at the edge of the small kitchen listening to my mother cry with relief and joy. She cried about hard work and sacrifice. The long hours. The endless work days. The scrimping and saving, all on a bet that my father’s ideas would pay off.
And they did, twenty-fold.
But of all the sacrifices they’d made—cheap dinners, shithole rentals with a garage my dad could use as an office, walking everywhere because the car had to be sold to buy computer parts…
None were real sacrifices.
I was.
I was the real sacrifice.
Afterthought, burden—whatever you want to fucking call it, I was left behind after the big payday came.
My mom had always yearned to travel, even long before they had a pot to piss in. Exotic places. Dubai. Morocco. Iceland. China. She wanted pictures by the Taj Mahal and the great pyramids of Egypt.
Dad?
He couldn’t have cared less.
His passion was inventing and creating. Making something out of nothing. Technology out of thin air. His brain? Sharp and insightful.
Not insightful enough, it seems, because when it came to my beautiful mother, he was spineless. When she wanted to hit the road, charter private jets, and see the world?
He carried her purse and pulled her matching, newly minted designer luggage—only the best that her new money would buy.
“Who took care of you?” Kyle persists, his voice breaking into my thoughts.
“Some relatives.” I don’t tell Kyle they were paid to take care of me and only did it for the money. “Sometimes my parents’ friends.”
“That sucks.”
Yeah. It did suck.
I was shuffled off to my grandparents the first time my folks jetted off. It was only going to be a week, so no harm in that, right? One week turned into several, several turned into weeks on end, and soon my grandparents had thrown their hands up and cried defeat. They implored their daughter to take her son along. “Ezekiel cannot miss school,” my mother would say in this prissy, holier than thou voice, using any excuse to leave me at home.
The real reason: who could jet set with a young son desperate for their attention?
My mother has zero fucking maternal instincts.
My grandparents were older, retired, and not looking to raise a freaking kid. They’d done that already with my mom, who lived at home until she was twenty-two and had never been an easy child. My grandparents were tired.
In middle school I’d ended up with my Aunt Susan, her husband Vic, and their son Randall. I wish I could say things got better when I moved in with them, that I’d found a family unit who finally gave a shit, but that wasn’t the case with them either.
Randall was a little dick.
A spiteful little prick if I ever met one.
Two years older than me, all I’d ever wanted to be was his friend. I honestly thought we were going to be like brothers when I moved in. What a fucking idiot I was.
Nobody hit me at their house.
But nobody hugged me either.
When Kyle and I arrive to my house there are no cars in the driveway. Not Oz’s truck, not Jameson’s Honda, not Elliot’s fifteen-year-old Tahoe.
Which means I’m actually going to have to figure this Kyle shit out on my own, without any help.
Unless…
I pull the phone out of my pocket and compose a text.
Zeke: Hey
Violet: Hey
Zeke: Are you still mad about the boob thing at the trampoline park?
Violet: No, I got over it. I realize you have no filter.
Zeke: If it’s any consolation, they’re still really great boobs.
Violet: Let’s not say anything else about my boobs please.
Zeke: I kind of need a favor.
Violet: …
Oh, I see—she’s not going to make this easy, is she?
Zeke: What are you doing right now?
Violet: Reading.
Zeke: What are you reading?
Violet: What do you want, Zeke? I know you’re not just texting to be friendly. Ask me for the favor and get to the point.
My brows shoot up; she’s really being sassy. I like it.
Zeke: Kyle is here. I need help.
Violet: Is everything okay?
Zeke: Well, yeah. I mean he’s watching TV, but his mom has to stay at work and needed me to watch him. So he’s on my couch.
Violet: Have you ever babysat a little kid before?
Zeke: That would be a no.
Violet: Yeah, I figured you’d say that.
Zeke: Yeah, so, he’s here at my place…
Violet: If everything is okay, then what’s the problem?
Freaking A, why can’t she just volunteer to come help me? Why do I have to come out and ask? It’s pretty obvious that’s what I’m texting her for.
Zeke: He’s on the couch. Do I leave him there or what?
Violet: Does he look content? What’s he doing?
Zeke: Watching TV. I don’t know what the hell this show is called but there are two guys running around in superhero capes and blowing shit up, one is Captain Man. It’s fucked up.
Violet: Is he laughing?
Zeke: Yeah.
Violet: Then you should be good :)
Zeke: I’ll pay you.
Violet: Pay me to do what?
Zeke: Pay you to come save me.
Violet: From an eleven-year-old? LOL
Zeke: Yes, exactly. Any moment he’s going to need something. Or realize his mom isn’t coming back until late.
Violet: I guess I could stop by to check on you.
Violet: But only for a few minutes—this is your gig. I’m just coming to make sure you don’t burn down your house with him inside it.
Zeke: Great. How does fifty bucks sound?
Violet: I just rolled my eyes—you don’t have to pay me to stop by. Just tell me your address.
Zeke: 2110 Downer
Violet: Putting on coat. See you in five.