Once Upon a Neighbor

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Jamie

"Hey, Jamie." Her mom's voice chirped on the other end of the phone. Jamie's eyebrows knit together in confusion. She sounds so happy. And it was hard to tell if that was a good or bad thing.

"How are you doing, Mom?" Jamie spoke into her samsung phone. Splotches of water dripped from her hair and onto the sleeve of her fuzzy green robe which she focused on.

"Good, honey. What about you? How's Tara? She been taking care of you?" Her mother chuckled sarcastically then, her happy demeanor dropping. "Well she is your father's sister, so I am not sure about that. She's probably fucking someone tha-"

"Mother, please. Calm down." She could feel tears beginning to brim in her eyes at the mention of her father. Jamie's father had divorced her mom after finding out that her mom had been screwing another woman.

"What did you call for anyway?" Her mom's bitter voice asked.

"I- uh. I wanted to know-"

"You, uh. you wanted to uh know uh what!"

Jamie flinched at her mother's harsh tone. Sully must have done something to piss her off. Or worse. Her father had done something to piss her off.

"...how Andrew is." Jamie finished her sentence from before with a heavy heart.

There was a silence on the other end that was deafening, telling her so many things that she hadn't wanted to hear.

"How do you think he's been doing?" Her mother replied in a softer tone. "He's packing up to be sent to a rehab facility in Texas. He's angry. Hurt. Ashamed."

Now tears were really falling from Jamie's hazel eyes. "Is he mad at me? Does he blame me, Mom?" she choked on her tears while asking her mom about her younger brother.

"Honey, he has a serious problem. Yes, he's mad at you but only because you did what he's been too scared to have done. You got him help. He doesn't blame you, Jamie. He blames himself for getting into the drug world in the first place." Her mother's words gave Jamie relief but only for a moment. Because that was when she remembered.

Andrew's going to rehab. In Texas.

☆☆☆☆☆

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Her mother was the one who finally ended the conversation. After hearing how out of it Jamie had sounded, she decided it was the best idea to give her space. Sighing, Jamie got off the ground and tossed her phone onto the queen sized bed that her aunt had put in the guest room. One of her old friends that she had kept in touch with had contacted her via Facebook to hang out and go see a movie. What movie, she didn't know. She did know that she wanted to get out of the apartment and go do something, so she got up and moved over to the compact closet. Because of the Texas heat, Jamie had packed mostly tank tops and short sleeved shirts. It was a good thing she had gone shopping before she went on this trip because she lived in Minnesota so she would have been miserable in her long sleeve shirts and pants.

She slipped out of the robe and pulled on the essentials first, panties and a bra. After that she found a white racer tank with the Batman logo on it, and pulled that over her head. For bottoms, she found a pair of light denim shorts with little rips near the pockets. Then, Jamie put on black converse with silver spikes in the back.

No point in wearing anything fancy. Jamie concluded, pulling out her phone and opening Facebook's messenger app. The movie's showtime was at 3:15, and that was about all she knew other than the theater's location.