Seasons of Change

61

Heather sat at the small kitchen table, staring at herself in the reflection of her pink stand-up makeup mirror while Brad silently sketched something for one of his clients. She felt like a shell of herself.

Things had been fun until the first week of January when that bitch of a baby momma and him had their divorce hearing. She wanted a thousand dollars a month for child support which was insane. Brad had decided to fight it and was given a court hearing thirty days out so he could obtain an attorney, hoping to lessen the child support amount.

He was pissed off all afternoon and Heather was not one to tolerate an attitude from a man. So she told him that. Brad wasn't even high, he'd been clean for the entire week but his fuse was short. Before she could react, Heather found herself pinned against the wall with his body weight, his hands squeezing her throat, "Raise your voice at me again," he hissed, his grip tightening.

As he began to let go of her throat, she told him that he was a piece of shit just like his fucking brother. His body still firm against her, he grabbed her throat again that time bashing her head against the wall, spitting in her face before he allowed her to be freed.

Heather silently wept on the floor of their bedroom once he disappeared into the living room as though nothing had happened. He left her alone until she entered the living room, he looked up from his sketch, waiting for her to speak.

Any other man would have gotten an earful, Heather was stubborn and didn't allow no man to walk all over her or treat her like she was less than. Heather liked to be in charge but the cold look in Brad's pale eyes scared her.

"I shouldn't have said that," Heather said, voice barely a whisper, her eyes cast down, "About you."

Brad simply nodded, returning to his sketching.

"I'm sorry, baby," she told him.

His eyes raised to meet her's, "Remember that," he said flatly.

Crackhead Krist, Brad was not. She understood that Krist was a sore subject for him and he clearly didn't like to be spoken to out of tone but he was unreadable. At least with Krist, he threw temper tantrums, yelled, maybe cried a little, and was overall harmless. Brad had kind of scared her.

Afterward, he let her know she could make it up to him which she was all for.

It wasn't just the threat of violence from him, he'd casually talked her into getting high with him. Heather wasn't going to deny that she was a drunk, she had been for years. Brad couldn't stand how sloppy she got, offering her a line to sober up so he could tolerate being around her.

That one small line was enough to do it and she understood why people got sucked into meth. It felt frigging good. She wasn't drunk anymore, she was stone sober and coherent, it felt good. And on top of that, she and Brad fucked for hours that night. He'd given her more than the first rail of course. She'd had some amazing sex but chem sex was phenomenal.
The next thing she knew, she was not only drinking from the time she started her day but she was tweaking.

She still went to the bars with her girlfriends, because they were also drunks they hadn't even caught onto the fact she was using meth. Nobody knew, aside from Brad.

Heather dabbed undereye concealer over the circles beneath her eyes, feeling Brad watching her intently.

"This attorney... he's good?" he asked, pausing from his sketch.

"Courtney said that's her boyfriend used in his divorce, said his wife didn't get shit."

Brad nodded, he liked what he heard, "I don't care what she takes materialistically, I just don't need her thinking she is going to take that much money from me. It doesn't take that much to care for an infant, especially being that she lives off my mother."

Heather nodded sympathetically, though she knew if she had left Jeremy under different circumstances, she would have hit his ass with not just child support but spousal support and half of everything.

"You know she's just trying to live off your dollar," Heather murmured, darkening her pencil-thin eyebrows, "A thousand a month til the kid turns eighteen is bullshit. Your other baby mommas never pulled that."

"Nope," he said, focused now on his drawing, "I buy the kids stuff and we call it good. But they have both always been self-sufficient. Madison can't even support herself, I had to do it."

Brad paused, studying the drawing before him, "You know, when I was locked up I was not only sending her three grand a month from my bank account, I had paid the lease in full on our apartment and paid for her rehab. All out of my own pocket."

Heather had heard that multiple times but each time she pretended it was the first. Shaking her head, she told him that Madison was lucky that he'd done so much for her and that maybe she needed to find herself a sugar daddy if she thought she was going to live off a man.

Brad must have been feeling extra spiteful that afternoon, replying "Oh I'm sure she is doing a little extra for Bill to have all this help from him. Madison isn't above that."

"How did you go from your first wife to her, anyway?"

"Madison is good at pretending to be someone she's not," he replied, glancing back at her, "Are you about ready to go?"

Heather nodded quickly, "Yes," she applied some gloss to her lips, gave them a good smack, and called it good.

****

The attorney was confident he could at the minimum get child support lowered. After all, Brad was released from prison barely six months prior and had only been working four of those months with his wages varying.

"They're going to base it off your income," he told him, "Looks like you only make around two...to three thousand a month? And it varies from what I can see?"

Brad nodded, "Sounds about right, and yes. It depends on how much work I'm getting."

"I think we can shoot for six hundred?" his attorney said, reviewing the paperwork, "Have you considered requesting split custody? This will lower your payment as well."

"No, our daughter is still very young," Brad replied, "She needs to be with her mother."

While this sounded well-meaning, Brad simply couldn't be bothered to raise a child half the time or pay additional childcare expenses. And he sure the fuck wasn't trying to ask his two-faced bitch of a mother for help.

Though he wasn't thrilled about even paying six hundred a month, it was better than what Madison was asking and he left the appointment in a much better mood than when he had arrived. He took her to pho before meeting with his friend Jonathan who had recently paroled.

"Aint that Krist's ex?" Jonathan asked Brad, after taking one long hard look at Heather, "The one who used to go on Facebook live talking shit about he wouldn't eat her pussy after he came in it?"

Brad sighed, "I don't know about that part but yes, she is Krist's ex?"

Jonathan shook his head, "Damn, dawg... you went from Madi to her...he got any other ol' bitches you can fuck with too?" he asked, cracking open a can of Budweiser.

Brad felt himself becoming irritated, "So did you get your blood-born pathogen certificate or not?"

"Sure did, when can I start?"

"Give me a few days and I'll get a spot set up for you, you got everything you need?"

"Might need some new ink but beyond that, I do."

Brad stroked his bare jaw, nodding, "I'll get you set up, I've got you."