Just as I Begin to Fade

Eleven. Talking it Over

Sunday would greet the mother and daughter the next day; Stevie rather sooner only because she had an awful headache.

Waking up, she was laying on her side, her head in the crook of her arm while the other was covering the top of her head. A comfortable position, though having slept in that way all night, she was stiff and sore. Slowly but surely peeling herself up, she wiped the corner of her mouth and tossed her blonde strands back. When trying to gather herself, she noticed her attire and she was easily taken back to the night before.

Going out with her friends and getting drunk or high was not new, but this time she was only upset that she couldn't handle being semi sober for a little bit; her addictions just had her by the hand and with a simple tug, she was a slave to it.

Standing up, she continued to stumble a bit, but when she caught her balance, she got up and she went to the kitchen. There, she grabbed a beer from the fridge and started guzzling it down because not only was the carbonated beverage the cure, but so was the alcohol.

"You're starting early, aren't you?" Gwen snidely replied as she came out, holding her shoes in her hands.

"Don't start with me, it is too damn early," the blonde replied as she took a seat at the dining table.

"No, don't start with me. I tried to help you, but it's obvious you didn't want it. Lori told me you guys bought more coke and you bought a shit ton of booze," she explained.

"I couldn't do it."

"You didn't try."

"I tried. I tried until I couldn't. You don't understand what it's like for me right now."

"Yeah, I do... Believe me. But you have to have the desire to want to stop and you don't. I did drugs, I went to jail, guess who stopped after being locked up?" she assured. "You've had the luxury of paying your way through life. Dad wasn't gonna bail me out and you were too high and out of state to bail me out so I had to sit there. I didn't like it, so I stopped."

"And don't you think I've paid to stop? I went to rehab and it costed a fortune."

"I remember well, you missed my eighth grade promotion. And then you got hooked again. You've spent milions on this shit once again and just in the last couple months and you wonder why you're out of money when you are. Why don't you spend it on rehab?"

"Just for it to not work again? I'm not gonna pay that for it to not work---it was a nightmare in there anyway."

"Um, excuse me, it does work. You just started drugging like nothing and out of nowhere. What is it about your life that is so boring?"

"I just wanna be back on the road, okay? I'd be a lot happier if I were working."

"Then work. Nobody's stopping you."

"Yes, you are. You want me to be here for you... Plus, I don't trust that you'd not get in trouble."

"Oh, my God, are you finally admitting it?" the teen stood up.

"What are you talking about now?" she grumbled as she rubbed her head.

"You don't want to be here with me."

"I didn't say that."

"Yes, you did! I already know that you didn't want me when you found out you were pregnant."

"Who in the hell ever said that?" she looked up at her, more confused than anything.

"It's not the point. The point is, is that you have never wanted to be there for me. If you could just leave without a word, you would and you wouldn't care. I know you don't want to have to be a mom."