The Saving Bailey Trilogy 1: The Bullet List

Chapter 6

                                                                              Chapter 6          

          I lift up a potted plant outside the apartment door and retrieve the key. I unlock the door and step inside cautiously, a quick scan of the apartment suggests that Mom isn’t home. First thing I do is throw open the cabinets to see if she has kept her promise. Sure enough, the bottles are gone.

I go to the bathroom to inspect the damage done by the school day. I pull my shirt over my head and prod a long bruise below my ribcage. I am wincing in pain, and trying to bend to see if my ribs are broken, when Mom walks in the doorway.

        “Where the hell did you come from?” I ask.

        “I just got home from work, didn’t you hear me come in the door?”

        “No…” I say. Work? In the early afternoon? I can smell the alcohol on her breath when she speaks.

        Mom runs her hand over my bruise.

        “A girl kicked me in the stomach,” I say.

        “You told the principal right? Your teacher? Or somebody?” Mom asks. I get another whiff of musty liquor and cigarette veiled breath. I think about calling her out for drinking and not being at work, but I still feel bad for the trouble I caused yesterday.

        “Mhm,” I say.

        “You’re lying,” she says.

        “I’m too scared to, she would kill me if I told someone,” I say.

        “That’s serious, Bailey. She could have really hurt you and she may have,” Mom says, taking a severe tone with me.

        I pull my shirt back on. “I’m all right, Mom, just a little cat fight. You know how teenage girls are.”

        Then to change to topic I say, “Enough about me. Yesterday was your birthday and I didn’t even wish you happy birthday. I was downright awful.” And in a quieter voice I say, “I ruined it. I’m sorry.”

        She squints at me like she is focusing a camera. “I ruined it with my sour attitude,” she says.  “I drank a bottle of vodka when I could have spent the night with my beautiful daughter, and then I proceeded to strike you down for reprimanding my reckless drinking. You didn’t ruin my birthday.” She smiles, though it seems out of place on her weary face.

        I open my mouth to say something but she cuts me off. “I’m sorry about last night, maybe we can just forget about it and move on,” she says.

         You mean forget about it the same way you forgot I saw my father kill a man at the tender age of five? Move on, as in sweep it under the doormat, but never deal with it properly?

        I smile a fake smile and say, “Yeah let’s do that.”

        “Great, I’m going to cook spaghetti for dinner, I hope you are hungry,” she says cheerfully.

        Once Mom has left me alone, I close the bathroom door with my foot, and take a good long look into the mirror. What is it that makes everyone hate me? I ask myself, searching for the answer in my reflection. Is it my dark, misty eyes, my pink and full lips; perhaps it is my small waist, or long hair? The answer escapes me, because I can’t fathom how someone could despise me only for my looks.