Stay For Me - Megan Smith Page 0,5

hair, launches herself into my arms.

“Hey, squirt.”

She giggles as I set her back down on the ground; she grabs my hand and pulls me into the kitchen. My mother is standing at the stove, cigarette in her mouth, stirring a pot of who the hell knows what. I once thought my mom was the most beautiful mom on the planet. Much like myself and Fallon have now, mom had long blonde hair, stunning blue eyes, although I got my green eyes from my dad, small petite frame and a tiny little dimple on her left cheek when she smiles. There is no denying that the three of us are related. Now she’s the opposite. She’s washed out making her look double her thirty-seven years of age. Her long blonde hair is now stringy and always ratty looking. Her once stunning eyes are now lined with wrinkles and constant bags under them from all the partying she does. While she’s still petite, she lost a lot of weight so her clothes always hang from her thin frame.

Fallon jumps all around. “Mom’s cooking. Can you help me with my homework?”

I set my things down on the kitchen table and glance over at my mom. I wonder how much she’s had to drink today. I know it couldn’t have been a lot because she picked Fallon up at school and now she’s cooking. That hardly ever happens now-a-days.

“Chicken noodle soup.” My mom says without sparing me a glance. “And grilled cheese.” She points with the spatula. “Do you want one?”

“Um, sure.” I’d like to ask for her to hold the ash from her cigarette but think better of it. The more that Fallon sees our mom being a mom the better. “So what do you need help with?” I turn my attention to my little sister.

“Reading.”

A grin spreads across my face at her excitement. She loves reading, well trying to anyway, and loves being read to. That probably has a little something to do with me reading to her every night since she was little. It is how I use to get her to fall asleep while our mom was fighting with her current piece of shit boyfriend outside of our room every night.

So while my mom made us dinner we sat at the table and did her homework. When dinner was done mom sat a plate down in front of us and then left us to eat by ourselves. About an hour later she comes out of her room dressed up. She grabs her purse and jacket and yells over her shoulder on the way out. “Don’t wait up.”

Fallon rests her head on the table and sighs. All I can do is shake my head. The least she could have done was called out an ‘I love you’. We’re used to the whole leaving thing now but it doesn’t ever seem to get any easier for Fallon.

I glance to the clock on the stove, see it’s late and am reminded that it’s almost Fallon’s bedtime.

I ruffle her hair. “Come on, squirt. You need a bath and you need to get ready for bed.”

We clean up her homework and put everything back in her book bag. She grabs a towel from the linen closet in the hallway and I go to start her bath water. I watch my sister, the one who was so excited to see me when I got home, walk around with her head down. It makes my heart hurt for her. Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing the right thing by trying to make our mom look like a better person than she is. Maybe I should stop and let her see how she really is, maybe then she wouldn’t be hurt by all this bullshit that we deal with on a daily basis, but then she looks at me with those pretty blue eyes and I know that I’m doing the best thing for her, sooner or later she’ll realize our mom is a piece of trash that the trash men wouldn’t even take.

We both run our routine. She takes a bath and I help with rinsing her hair. I get her pj’s out and she dresses. I pull back her covers and she climbs in bed. I cover her up and she hugs me tight.

“What book will it be tonight?”

“Are You My Mother?” Fallon says with a cheesy smile. “Pleaseeeeee.”

“You got it.”

When I finish the book I set it on the floor with the stack of other