Stay For Me - Megan Smith Page 0,4
a good road, until he got mixed up with the wrong crowd our freshman year of college and things plummeted quickly; but in that year Brian was the perfect caring boyfriend. He knew about my life, my shitty mother and my cute as a button sister. We didn’t have any money, never did. One night, Brian came over and found out we didn’t have any heat in the dead of winter; a few hours later it was turned on. Brian said he didn’t have anything to do with it but who else would have paid it? He also never let me or my sister walk to school; he took us everywhere we needed to go. A few times while I was at an away soccer game I came home to a fridge full of food when there was nothing before I left.
“You didn’t have any intention of telling me, Layla. I was going to pick you up today but couldn’t get out of work. If I had picked you up you wouldn’t have been going to your interview. Care to explain that?”
Shit, he had me. If he didn’t text me I was going to make up an excuse why I had to stay at school or go out with Jaylinn so that I could go. “I was going to ask you when you picked me up.” I stuttered trying to back pedal.
He shakes his head and squeezes my arm hard once more before letting go. “You’re fucking lying to me, Layla, you know I hate that.”
I hold my arm to alleviate some of the throbbing pain, side stepping him so I have a clear path to my front door; I’m just praying it’s unlocked. “Brian, I’m not lying. You know how I am; I forget everything.”
He laughs bitterly. “Not when it comes to needing money to keep a roof over your heads or when you need money for food, or even when you need me to pick up your sister.”
I look back towards the apartment hoping Mom picked up Fallon from school today. I didn’t get a call from the school so I’m praying she did. “Brian you know someone has to be the fucking adult around here. I can’t depend on my mom for anything. I can’t forget when it comes to Fallon; she’s six and can’t take care of herself.”
“Fallon, Fallon, Fallon. That’s all you ever care about. I’m the one who helps pay your electric and half the time your rent but all you care about is your sister. For once I’d like for you to worry about me. Ask me how my day has fucking been. Ask me how work was. Ask me how school was.” Brian yells.
“Are you pissed because I didn’t tell you about the interview or are you pissed because I don’t pay enough attention to you?” I seethe, pissed that everything is always about him. He never asks me any of those things either!
He bangs his fist on the roof of his car and it makes me jump. “All of it, Layla. All. Of. It.”
We stand there, staring at each other for a few long minutes. I don’t know what he wants me to say. I can’t change the outcome of my life because if I fucking could I would. I wouldn’t be living in this hell hole of an apartment where every morning when I leave to take Fallon to school we have to step over the piles of puke from some drunken bastard who can’t hold his liquor and got kicked out of the bar. I wouldn’t have to worry about where we are going to get money for food, about making sure Fallon has shoes on her feet or clothes on her back. I wouldn’t have to worry about my mom paying our bills. I’m twenty-one years old and for once I’d like to wake up in the morning without a damn dark cloud hanging over my head. I want to be a kid for one freaking minute instead of the adult.
Finally, Brian breaks the silence. “I’m outta here.”
I fold my arms across my body and watch as Brian gets into his car and drives off. I look up to the sky; it’s dark and gloomy, just like always.
“Layla,” Fallon yells when I open the door. “Layla!”
I smile at the sound of her cheerful little voice. She doesn’t even realize how much we’re struggling. I take the steps two at a time and Fallon, with her crazy blonde curly