Anna
Rachel doesn’t say a word the entire ride home. She stares out the window, refusing to look at me as we ease down the snow-laden streets. The car is drenched in an awkward silence that’s only accompanied by a faint ringing in my ears from the gunshot earlier.
I wouldn’t even know what to say if I did want to say something, so I let the silence follow us from the car into the house as we arrive home. Rachel sulks off to her room, and I head to the kitchen with my thoughts.
I sit there with just the stove light on, sipping a cup of tea to take the chill out of my bones. Something truly dreadful almost happened to both of us tonight, and I’m not quite sure how to process it. I’ve had traumas, and I still carry many with me still today, but this could’ve ruined or ended both of our lives. I just don’t know what to think or say to Rachel.
I glance at the clock and realize that the snow has been more of a blessing than a hindrance. It’s almost three in the morning, and normally, I’d have to drive Rachel to class at seven, her final year in that run-down excuse for a high school. Today will be a snow day, however, so we’re both saved from that inconvenience.
I count what little blessings I have left while I finish my cup of early gray. It’s too hot, but I hate to be wasteful, and I’m exhausted. I gulp the rest gown and leave the kitchen, not bothering to shower before curling up in my bed and crying myself to sleep.
A spike of panic wakes me up a few hours later, likely onset by the harrowing incident last night. I’m compelled to get up even though I haven’t gotten enough rest, checking on Rachel to make sure she’s still safe in her room.
When I peek inside, I find her curled up in the same position that I sleep in, the blankets tucked between her legs like she’s holding onto them for dear life. Her expression is peaceful, calm, and part of me wonders whether there are still pills in her room that she took last night before bed.
I suppress the urge to pick through her room. She’s an adult, and I’m not her mother. Betraying her trust would just push her away further, and I don’t want to lose her.
I float away from the doorway silently, content to pace around the house as I try to figure out what I’m going to say to her when she wakes up. I don’t know what else to do with myself, and I can’t go back to sleep.
Rachel sleeps in past noon, and I take the time to replay the pre-planned conversation over and over in my head, trying to coach her about the dangers of street drugs and trying to remind her of what happened to our parents. Drugs killed them, and they’ll kill her too if she doesn’t stop with the pills.
Unfortunately, Rachel was too young to really absorb what happened to our parents, so she’s lived most of her life without the same aversion to drugs that I have. While I knew she’d probably smoke weed or cigarettes like everyone else in this neighborhood does, I never expected her to jump straight into pills. I just wish I knew how to help her feel like she doesn’t need them.
At around two PM, she emerges from her bedroom, dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie with her makeup smeared around her eyes. Her expression is defeated and hollow, and even looking her in the face pains me. She doesn’t even know how I feel yet, and she’s expecting me to be angry.
“Rachel, I know you didn’t mean for anything to happen, but last night was one of the most terrifying nights of our lives combined,” I begin.
“I’m sorry, I had no idea they wanted that much money,” she replies, and she’s already beginning to tear up.
“It isn’t about the money. You were too small to understand, but mom and dad’s lives were ruined and eventually taken by drugs,” I continue, trying to control my tone so that I don’t come off as confrontational.
But that’s what this is, isn’t it? A confrontation?
Rachel narrows her eyes at me. “I know what happened to mom and dad. I was still alive when everything happened, and I saw that shit just the same as you did,” she says, her voice growing pointed and defensive.
“You’re not getting what I’m saying, though. If you’re struggling and feel like you need help, we can try to get you help. If you feel neglected because I’m working so much, I promise that’s going to change soon,” I urge, knowing full well that my plan to switch jobs isn’t guaranteed. I haven’t told her about it because I’m not sure it will even work out.
Rachel folds her arms over her chest. “I wasn’t even taking most of the pills. I was buying them for my friends at school. They’re too chickenshit to do it themselves, and they give me a cut of whatever they buy. It sure beats the hell out of flipping burgers, don’t you think?”
I shake my head. “Rachel, I know you think you’ve figured out a way to make extra money, but it’s dangerous. Not to mention illegal. You could end up in jail, and that would be one of the better consequences.”
She glares at me, then turns her head away sharply. “Yeah, fine. I get it. I think last night was enough to convince me not to do it again.”
My shoulders fall a few inches from my ears, and the lump in my throat thins. I still have influence over her, and that means I can make sure she doesn’t slip into bad habits again. “I want you to give whatever pills you have left to me. You can’t give them to your friends, and you certainly can’t take them anymore.”
Her head snaps toward me again. “You think I’m hiding them from you?”
“I didn’t say that,” I reply, aware that I’m treading uneven ground. “I just want to make sure you don’t still have any in your room.”
“It’s my room,” she blurts.
“And it’s my name on the lease.”
She scoffs. “Oh, so you think you own me? I told you that I’m not going to do it again, and you’re still up my ass about it. You’re not my mom, so shut the fuck up and leave me alone.”
Her sudden desperate outburst makes my heart hurt. “No, Rachel, I’m not trying to control you. I just want you to have a real life, not like the ones our parents had and not like the life I’m living right now. You’re way too smart to spend your life in diners and bars trying to keep the lights on. You need to ignore this get-rich-quick bullshit and finish school.”
“You don’t understand,” she mutters, shaking her head slowly as she stares off behind me. “They don’t teach you anything at school, and I look like a loser for being there because I’m older than everyone. They think I’m retarded.”
“Selling drugs is retarded,” I reply sharply. “Finishing school is tough, but it’s going to make it so you don’t have to do this shit. You shouldn’t care what other people think. Those people asking for pills aren’t your friends.”
“Then I don’t have friends,” she says, her voice elevating into near hysteria. “I’m a fucking nobody, and the only way anyone respects me is if I get them the pills. Money aside, this is the only way I can fit in.”
At her age, social pressures might as well be god’s law. I understand her stance, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t stupid. She’ll regret it when she’s older, and I need to help her see that.
I lower my voice, trying to approach this in a different manner so that I don’t set her off and close the conversation for good. “I’m sure there are tons of people at your school who would be better for you, people who like art and have the same moderately offensive sense of humor.”
She gives me a doubtful look. “I don’t know. All I do know is that I feel completely by myself otherwise, and being able to get drugs for people became my thing,” she explains, her bristled tone falling back into a more vulnerable and saddened state.
“I’m going to make sure that there’s someone at the school that you can talk to, even if it’s just a counselor,” I reply.
“Fine, whatever,” she grumbles, and she leaves the living room, trudging back up the stairs to her room.
I breathe deep, holding my lungs for a good seven seconds before I release my breath. I look at the clock, realizing that I have to start my shift at the diner in forty minutes.
I can never escape from the treadmill of adult life.
No matter the circumstances.
In my bedroom, I dig through the pile of clothes on the floor for the cleanest work shirt that I can find when I stumble upon the card in my jeans pocket from the night before. What kind of a person shoots a man in the fact and then has a card made with his phone number on it?
Clearly, they’re the mob-thugs of some sort. Selling drugs to a high schooler is particularly heinous, and even if that guy helped get us out in one piece, he’s the ringleader of a group of guys who kidnapped a teenage girl. Somehow, he had given them the impression that it’s fine to obtain repayment by any means necessary, even by threatening somebody like my sister.
Despite the facts, I can’t get his stoically handsome face out of my mind. Seeing him become authoritative with righteous fury like that was… attractive?
Nobody has ever helped Rachel or me like that in our entire lives. Suddenly, a stranger with a gun and a Russian accent has become the only instance where I felt protected.
When he grabbed my arm to give me the card, I was equal parts terrified and aroused. Feeling his tight grip on me sent my heart up into my throat, and I could smell his cologne mingled with sweat when he pulled me closer.
He could’ve kept me with him and used me like the others were going to do, but he let me go. Surely, there’s a glimmer of something good in him.
Disgusted with myself, I shake the thoughts from my head and continue getting ready for work. I jump into my pants and grab my wrinkled uniform shirt from the pile of clothes on the floor.
As I slip it over my head, I feel the fabric brush over my nipples, and my mind automatically chooses to bring me straight back to the moment that he grabbed me.
Fuck. Now I’m forming associations.
Was he looking at my body? My memories from the night are so hazed by panic, but I’m suddenly self-conscious of the fact that I was wearing my work uniform from the bar, likely stained and soaked with bottom-shelf booze.
Maybe if I looked better, he would’ve kept me there, but that’s not what I wanted, right? I didn’t want him to take advantage of me like Alexei tried to do. I wanted to leave and never see him again.
I doubt I would even be his type, anyway. I’m so unremarkable, physically at least. I’ve always thought myself to be too chubby with limp brunette hair and eyes too big for my face.
Even being around guys like him makes me crawl with anxiety. The men in charge never picked me when I was younger. They always went after the tight little blondes.
Whatever. It doesn’t matter.
I’m just going to forget about him.
“Rachel, I’m going to work now,” I call over my shoulder, not waiting for a response before I rush out into the frigid cold.
The walkway is slick with ice, but I’ve mastered sliding down the concrete on my worn work shoes. It was fun when I was younger, but these days, I’m worried about slipping and breaking my tailbone.
Alive and unbroken, I make it to my car, only to find that it’s sitting inches lower than it should be. Knife slashes in all four tires quickly reveal to me why.
“Jesus Christ,” I groan.
Who would do something like this?
I don’t have time to do any investigatory work if I’m to catch the bus. I run back inside to scrape together a few dollars for a ticket to work. There’s a jar on top of the fridge that should house enough nickels and dimes to get me there.
As I’m on my toes, reaching for it, a loud crash erupts from the living room. “Rachel?” I call out cautiously.
I listen closely, realizing from the shudder of the pipes that Rachel is in the shower. I’m frozen in place, glancing around the kitchen for a weapon of some kind and eventually settling for a meat tenderizer that I’d left on the countertop.
As soon as I step foot into the living room, I can see that the main window has been shattered, and directly at my feet lies a brick with a note taped to it haphazardly.
When I read the note, my blood runs cold.
You’re fucked.