Horse Ears.

Chapter One.

The door slammed shut, rattling the walls of the small, urban home. A tall girl with light brown hair stumbled in, a grin plastered on her face. She gripped the walls uneasily as she tried to find the stairs. She laughed at her efforts.

The TV was on but muted. Colors spilled from the screen, lighting up the living room. The girl gave up trying to find the stairs and instead plopped down on the couch, watching the testimonials for some useless kitchen product people didn’t really need.

She giggled loudly at the people’s mouths moving, because no sound seemed to come out. “You stupid television,” she laughed. “You stupid people!”

“Oh, my god,” a woman rushed down the stairs, pulling her robe tighter around her. “Lacey? Is that you?”

Lacey looked over at the woman standing at the entrance to the living room. Lacey squinted her eyes, but she couldn’t recognize the person staring back at her. Who was this woman? A thief? There was a thief in her house? “What the fuck are you doing in my house?” Lacey squealed.

Her mother rushed over to her side, but Lacey fell off the couch, trying to get away. “Lacey, shush, it’s your mother.”

Lacey smiled. “Ma?” then she started laughing—loudly. “Mom, you should’ve just said it was you!”

“Are you drunk?”

Lacey smirked up at her mother, crossing her legs Indian style and putting her purse in her lap. She swayed back and forth, as if she was listening to music. “No,” she sang, seeing stars.

“You’re not…,” her mother trailed off. “Are you on drugs?”

A grin settled on Lacey’s face. “Ding ding ding!” she said, waving her hands in the air as if her mother won a big prize.

“What did you take?!” her mother nearly screamed.

“Just a bit of this, maybe some of that,” Lacey admitted. Honestly, she didn’t know what she took. She went to a party with some of her friends and they spiked her drinks multiple times with a plethora of uplifting drugs and maybe a few downers.

“Oh, Lace,” her mother said softly. She bent down and helped her daughter off the floor. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Love me,” Lacey smiled, showing her white teeth.

Lacey’s mother led her upstairs, thinking about how nice she was on these drugs she’s taken. If only she was that nice when she was sober. She hated seeing her daughter high, but she loved being respected by her only child for once.

“Get some sleep, Lacey. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Lacey yawned. “But Ma,” she pulled the covers up to her chin and snuggled into her pillow. “I’m not… tired…”

Stacey stared down at her sleeping daughter. She didn’t want to do this, but it was the only option she had left. She walked out of her daughter’s room, shutting the door softly, before picking up her phone and calling the number she knew too well.

***

Lacey’s pov

“Fuck,” I muttered, feeling my head pounding as I lifted it off the cushiony pillow. My sinuses were going haywire and having a hangover wasn’t helping.

I slowly kicked my feet off my bed and touched the ground with my tip toes before placing my whole foot down. I got tunnel vision for a few seconds because of low blood pressure, but I was over it quickly.