This Too Is Love Read online

  This Too Is Love

  Anya Monroe

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Week One

  Week Two

  Week Three

  Week Four

  Week Five

  Week Six

  Week Seven

  Week Eight

  Week Nine

  Week Ten

  Week Eleven

  Week Twelve

  Week Thirteen

  Week Fourteen

  Week Fifteen

  Week Sixteen

  Week Seventeen

  Week Eighteen

  Week Nineteen

  Week Twenty

  Week Twenty-One

  Week Twenty-Two

  Week Twenty-Three

  Week Twenty-Four

  Week Twenty-Five

  Week Twenty-Six

  Week Twenty-Seven

  Week Twenty-Eight

  Week Twenty-Nine

  Week Thirty

  Week Thirty-One

  Week Thirty-Two

  Week Thirty-Three

  Week Thirty-Four

  Week Thirty-Five

  Week Thirty-Six

  Week Thirty-Seven

  Week Thirty-Eight

  Week Thirty-Nine

  Week Forty

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Copyright @2017 by Anya Monroe

  All rights reserved

  This edition published by arrangement with

  The Lovely Messy

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  For my daughters,

  Isabela Nicole and Maisey Sue,

  may you always know how very lovely you are.

  * * *

  And for Eryn Carpenter,

  who believed in my writing before I did.

  Week One

  When I told Mom I was leaving, I expected more of a reaction. I’d been building up the courage for a year, but when I told her, I realized she saw my going as a relief. She wouldn’t be responsible for me anymore, wouldn’t need to account for me when she found someone who could supply her with a place to live.

  “I called Aunt Lena, she said I could come,” I explained.

  Mom leaned on the bathroom sink in the motel room, applying makeup to her thin lashes, coating them with year-old drugstore mascara. She swiped eyeliner across her lid with a shaky hand, not pausing on my words.

  I pressed my lips together in an effort to muster the strength I needed to confront the woman who’d held me back from being a teenager. As her daughter, I became the adult. Being her parent exhausted me.

  “Anyways,” I said, braiding my long black hair in an effort not to meet her eyes. “Justice is a junior now and I can go to high school with her. Aunt Lena’s still working at the gas station, but she promised to pay for my food, my clothes. Grandma’s old house is big and has extra rooms now that she left it to Aunt Lena.”

  I talked up my plans because part of me hoped she’d come too, that this would be the clean start she’d been wanting. In truth, Aunt Lena had just kind of sighed through the phone when I’d asked her. Sure, she agreed that I could live there, but I’d have to pull my own weight.

  “Look, Trixie, if that’s what you want — I think it’s good. You’re old enough to do what you want.” She looked at me in the mirror, cocking her head to the side as she puckered her bright red lips. “You can have your own bedroom at Grandma’s shit-hole house. You’ve never had that.” Turning to face me in her faux-leather mini dress, her sagging breasts pushed high, I could see traces of myself in her if I stayed. But I wasn’t going to, and she knew it because all she asked was, “When are you leaving?”

  A few days later she gave me her cash, thirty-eight dollars in rumpled ones and fives, and helped me get a bus. When I said goodbye, her eyes were already twitching, but not because of a teary heartfelt farewell. No, they were looking for a fix.

  When I was four years old I remember lying on a couch that smelled like Cheetos. The apartment dark, the only light a glaring TV.

  A movie blasted at me, but I hid under the blanket, not wanting the pictures on the screen to get too close. A doll was alive and carried a knife, and it wasn’t until I was older that I figured it must have been Chucky and the movie was seriously demented for a toddler to be watching. None of that night made sense then. None of it makes sense now, nearly twelve years later.

  But that night, Mom walked into the living room of the apartment we were crashing at, crying hard, loud enough to break me away from my hiding place under the blanket. She didn’t look right; blood covered her face. This man had hurt her.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. Even as a little girl my concern was always for her.

  “That man said he didn’t want just me. I thought I’d be enough, but he wants you too. You know what that means, honey?” Her voice cut through the smoky room, sliced through the visions of the knife-toting doll. Sharper than anything I’d seen, I felt the edge of her words as she placed the anger on me, not the man in the other room.

  * * *

  I didn’t know what her words meant, but she picked me up and we left the apartment and got in a beat-up blue car. The man stood yelling at Mom from his second-story apartment and then ran down the steps trying to catch us, but Mom was in the driver’s seat, speeding away. She drove through the night, just her and I. She never stopped crying long enough to see my fear. But at the age of four I’d lost hope that she could see me that way at all.

  Her eyes were always somewhere else.

  When we got to Grandma’s, Mom neglected to open my door, didn’t think to carry me inside. Alone, barefoot, and hungry, I pushed open the car door and tiptoed into Grandma’s house, where the kitchen roared with adults screaming at one another. This was nothing new.

  Even though my stomach growled, I knew better than to ask for what I needed. Without a word, I crawled on a couch that smelled like cats and fell asleep.

  When I got older and realized what Mom had said to me that night, I thought she must really love me — she protected me by taking me away from that man.

  For years I used that one memory to excuse all the other terrible things she let happen to me. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that it didn’t seem enough anymore. That good thing she did, by taking me away that night, didn’t take away the hundreds of nights I slept on a floor in a motel while she got high with some guy who fucked her while I tried to sleep.

  It didn’t take away the days I looked in dumpsters for food or sat in empty hotel rooms waiting for Mom to get back. It didn’t take away the fact that her choices meant more, in the end, than me.

  A year ago I got on that bus taking me to Aunt Lena’s. For the hour ride, I cried for the mom I wanted and didn’t have. I cried for waiting as long as I did to leave. I cried for the bag of dirty clothes I carried, for the envelope of pictures in my purse that consisted of my childhood — the entirety of my life so easily sitting in my lap.

  When the bus stopped, I wiped my face, pulled my long dark hair into a messy ponytail and focused on my new life. I didn’t know what it would be like, not babysitting Mom anymore, but I was ready to be a teenager like I saw in movies. Girls who were beautiful and had boyfriends and everyone adored. I knew that dream was reaching, even then, but I had this idea that if I could just get a redo, everything would be fine. I would become a normal, regular sort of girl.

  Now I’m fifteen. That bus ride was a year ago and those childish dreams of mine
are just that. Made for a child. That was something I hadn’t been in a long time. That was something I never really was.

  Today I lie on the same cat-smelling couch I slept on that terrible night so many years before. Grandma died seven years ago and left Aunt Lena the house, in all its rundown, ramshackle glory. And I’m not sleeping soundly after a night driving in the car with Mom. Instead I’m a balled-up disaster of snot trying to get over a stupid sinus infection and strep throat that’s been getting worse for the past few weeks. The movie Twilight is on and I’m thoroughly annoyed with myself for knowing all the words even though I’ve sworn this movie is lame.

  My phone buzzes, a text from a guy I used to hook up with over the summer. I blow my nose, reminded once again that my naïve idea of moving here and having an ordinary teenage life will never be my reality. Ever. Instead of the best friends forever and calls from a boyfriend, my phone only rings when some guy can’t get what he wants from his girlfriend.

  And knows he can get it from me.

  I am my mother’s daughter.

  Week Two

  “Your second-period teacher gave me this stack for you. It’s a bunch of work, syllabus crap or whatever.” Justice drops a paper-clipped pile of pages on the blanket covering me. I’ve been lying here for ages, still sick, annoyed that I can’t start the new school year with everyone else.

  “Any cute new guys?” I ask my cousin, wiping my nose with a tissue. Not that I’d want any of those guys seeing me right now, anyway. I’m so gross; my nose is cracked and red and disgusting. It’s probably good I’ll be home the rest of the week until the antibiotics end. But how many episodes of Judge Judy can one girl watch? A lot, apparently.

  “I haven’t seen anyone, Trixie, but you know how Josh gets when I even look in another guy’s direction.” She laughs, stealing the remote from my hand, then dropping herself in the recliner next to me.

  When I first got to Aunt Lena’s, Justice showed me to my bedroom. She shut the door and began telling me about the love of her life, Josh. Justice is two years older than me, and she and Josh plan to finish senior year, get married, and join the military. Then they’ll go somewhere far away and exotic like Japan and forget this town and this life.

  I don’t blame them.

  The thing about Josh and Justice is that they really are sickeningly sweet together. It’s like all those people who say you can’t fall in love when you’re young haven’t seen these two together. Somehow Josh doesn’t see Justice as this girl with a white trash mom in a rundown house and a fourth-grade reading level. He sees Justice as the person she will be as his wife someday. Strong and faithful and real. And that’s beautiful. That’s all I really want. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

  So with that shoved in my face right away when I moved in, for the first time in my life I began to think about guys that way. Like someone who had the potential to see me as something more than what I saw in myself. Subconsciously, I figured if Mom wasn’t giving me the unconditional love I craved, maybe someone else could.

  But I didn’t have much experience. Sure, I’d made out with a few guys, but it wasn’t like they were my boyfriends or anything. It was just what you did when you lived in motels. I’d meet the boy who was traveling through town with his parents and we’d kiss by the pool at night. It was exciting in the moment but then they’d leave and I wouldn’t think much about it. But moving into Aunt Lena’s and seeing Justice so freaking happy, it made me want what she had.

  The first weekend I was here the three of us went to the house of one of Josh’s friends. When I lived in the city I didn’t do things like that. Mom always held me hostage. Always worrying about her — staying up late if I hadn’t seen her for a while — and definitely never meeting up with classmates. The less anyone knew about my situation, the better.

  Mom would usually stay around the motel, but bad things happened there. People would OD or go missing. I’d pace the stained carpet in my bare feet, stealing drags from half-used cigarettes, while listening for noises from the rooms around me. Waiting for Mom to come back, I’d flip the channels, eating convenience store corn dogs, blocking out the pounding on the wall from the neighbor's headboard as it rammed the sad reality of my life into my back.

  It wasn’t until I was away from it that I realized how much it controlled my life. Mom’s lifestyle was my captor, and I just let it handcuff me. But that was my old life. When I moved to Aunt Lena’s I was ready to be free, so when Josh and Justice invited me to a party, I was freaking excited to go, to be the person I’d never had the chance to be. To finally wash my hands of my watchdog role as the cops patrolled the parking lot, to unlock the handcuffs I’d let hang on my wrists for so long.

  His friend’s house was nice. Furniture was positioned in all the places it should be and a mat at the front door read “Wipe Your Paws.” It was the kind of normal I had dreamed of. There were a couple dozen people there, and about half were clearly couples, intertwined with faces locked on one another. I felt like I should look away, but I guess if you let a guy put his hands all over your boobs while he’s on top of you on a couch in the living room maybe you want people to see?

  I didn’t know, so I walked to the kitchen where a guy grabbed a can of beer from the fridge.

  “You want one?” he asked, handing me a Bud Light. He wore a sleeveless shirt, his biceps flexing, and I smiled inside, thinking this was the sort of moment I’d been waiting my entire life for.

  “Uh, sure.” I took it, smiling self-consciously. Justice had dressed me earlier after seeing how dorky my clothes were. The truth was I’d never used clothes for anything other than to cover myself. Justice used clothes to uncover everything.

  I wore a push-up bra that made my 32B’s, look, um, not like that. My black tank top revealed pink bra straps and I wondered if that looked tacky. The truth was I kind of thought Justice dressed like a skank and that I looked like one now too. But Josh liked it on her. Maybe this guy who gave me the beer would like it on me.

  “You just moved here?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I moved in with my cousin.”

  He didn’t ask anymore about my backstory, and I was glad. I didn’t exactly want people to know my past, and truthfully, no one even seemed to wonder why I moved here. Everyone was just concerned about surviving high school and getting through their own messed up life.

  “I’m Todd. This is my house, well, my parent’s house. But they’re out of town for the weekend.”

  “I’m Trix,” I answered, dropping the “ie” people use when they know me. “Your house is great,” I said, immediately wondering why I’d say something so obvious.

  Todd didn’t seem to care, he was looking for an in as much as I was. “You want me to show you around?” He flipped back his baseball cap revealing green eyes.

  “Yeah, sure. Should I finish this first?” I’d had beer before, but not when I was nervous like this. I wanted to come off as cool, natural. I bit the side of my bottom lip in a way I hoped was sexy.

  “I have a better idea.” He pulled down two shot glasses from the cupboard and poured us Jagermeister. “Drink!”

  We picked up the shots and drank fast, he downed his in a second. Me? Not so much. He laughed and clapped his hands, encouraging me to finish.

  I smiled wide, sliding my dark hair behind my ears, looking at Todd, wondering if he saw me the way Josh saw Justice.

  Todd showed me the house, the dining room, the TV room, the office, his hand on the small of my back as he led me around the 2,500 square feet of suburban perfection. He asked if I wanted to see his bedroom and I nodded encouragingly.

  Sitting on his bed, he told me he’d be right back. He brought back the beers we left in the kitchen and we finished them, talking about music and how he plays the guitar and how I like to draw. Soon enough he was telling me how sexy and beautiful I was, and then his mouth was on mine. I didn’t mind. I liked it, him whispering the words I was desperate to hear.

  I wanted to be told I w
as special and worth something.

  Anything.

  So I let him touch me and pull off my tank top and slide off my pants and see me in that pink push-up bra.

  “Is this okay?” His breathing got heavy and soon he tugged off his jeans. I nodded my head, scared to speak, scared to say something that would make him stop because if he stopped he might not think I was beautiful and sexy and special anymore.

  And that’s all I wanted. It’s all I ever wanted. And for a moment, I believed it.

  He was inside me and I let out a sigh, not because it felt good but because I realized what was happening.

  When he finished he told me I was amazing, and I smiled knowing I didn’t do much except help him get where he wanted to go. I’d never done that before and didn’t know what was supposed to happen next.

  What happened next was a string of late-night texts and quickies. Todd was sixteen and I was fourteen and where Aunt Lena was in all of this I’ll never know.

  It took me awhile to realize Todd only showed up at Aunt Lena’s house when he was on his way to something else and had an hour before he needed to get there. We’d go to my room or his car or sometimes back to his bedroom. He’d tell me I was fly and that I looked so good, and basically that was all I needed to hear to let him do what he wanted.