Fighting to be Free by Kirsty Moseley (23 page)

But that wasn’t me. I would never walk away from her like that, I guess that was part of a flaw in my character, that I cared about other people, some people would see that as a flaw I guess, I knew Ellie wouldn’t see it as that though.

I couldn’t call her, I needed to just get this done. I pushed my phone back into my pocket and gulped as I looked back to the house. Maybe she wasn’t even here and I wouldn’t have to go inside, maybe I should try the local bars first in the hope that I would see her there instead. I mentally shook myself and knew I needed to just get over this and do it, I needed to face my demons instead of pretending that all that bad stuff didn’t happen.

I clenched my jaw and pushed the car door open, stepping out quickly, slamming it shut before I jumped back in and drove away as fast as I could, never to look upon this place again. I put one hand on the top of the car to steady my body, and took a couple of deep breaths. Come on Jamie, you can do it, turn around and walk to the door and knock.

I slammed my hands down on the roof of my car and after calling myself a pussy a couple of times in my head, I turned and stalked to the door, a fierce determination settling over me. I’d get this done, sort her out and then leave and that would be it.

I knocked while I still had the nerve and stood there waiting for her to come to the door. I couldn’t help but wonder what her reaction to me would be, hell, maybe she wouldn’t even recognise me after all this time. She hadn’t seen me since I got sent down, she didn’t once visit me in juvie. The last time I saw her I was in court where I pleaded guilty for murder and was led off in a pair of handcuffs while she watched from the stand, not even crying for me.

The door opened within a minute and my heart was in my throat at the sight of her. She looked older than I remembered, the five years hadn’t been kind to her, she looked a lot older than her thirty-eight years. Ray was right about one thing, she was in a bad way. Her cheek was bruised, her lip split and there was a little cut in her eyebrow. Fell down the stairs my ass, you could practically see the fist print on the side of her face.

Her brown eyes that were the exact shade of mine, settled on me and were curious for a split second before recognition washed over her face and her mouth dropped open in shock. Her whole posture changed, instead of the relaxed woman that opened the door, leaning against the door frame in her slutty skirt and low cut top, she seemed to stiffen all over, her shoulders squaring off as her eyes turned hard.

So much for,
I wonder if she’ll recognise me
….

“What the fuck do you want?” she growled. Her eyes flicked up and down the street, obviously checking to see if anyone saw me standing here.

I sighed, the way she was looking at me made me both angry and sad at the same time, I didn’t know which emotion to feel first they were both so strong. She really didn’t deserve my help at all, I should just turn around, get in my car and go back to the life that I was building for myself. But I couldn’t, damn my stupid morals!

“I heard through the grapevine that you fell down the stairs. I came to see if you wanted anything.

You know, bread, milk….. wayward son to beat the shit out of the abusive pimp you obviously have?” I offered sarcastically.

She sneered at me, “I have no son!” she shouted.

I flinched internally at her words but didn’t let anything show on my face as I put my hand on her shoulder and pushed her out of the way so I could step into the house. I slammed the door shut behind me and turned to her, she was glaring at me with so much hate that I’m surprised I hadn’t burst into flames from the intensity of it.

“So you may think. Let’s try this again, shall we? I’m here to sort out whatever shit you’ve gotten yourself into this time. You may not want my help, but you’re getting it. Now tell me who this guy is and I’ll go and sort it out!” I said sternly, looking her right into the eyes, ignoring how her good hand clenched into a fist at my words.

“You can’t just come in here! Get the hell out and don’t come back! You stupid little shit, Jamie. I don’t need you and the way you ‘
sort things out’
, I never needed you to sort anything for me. You did everything off of your own back and look where it got us! You go to jail and I lose everything!

Just get the fuck out!” she cried, grabbing the door handle and yanking the door open angrily, and gesturing for me to leave.

I smirked at her as I turned around and walked off down the short hallway. I tried not to look at anything on my way through to the lounge, I tried not to notice that the peeling wallpaper was the same one as when I lived here and the drawing that I had done on the wall by the stairs. I tried not to notice that the threadbare carpet still hadn’t been changed or the little burn where I had dropped a lit cigarette after being made to smoke a whole pack at once, apparently to teach me not to steal my mother’s from her purse. I tried not to notice these things but I just couldn’t help it.

She was screaming at me, telling me what a useless waste of space I was, how I ruined her life, how I screwed her over and left her with nothing. I ignored it all and stepped up to the last door on the left, my hand hesitated, hovering over the handle, scared to touch it and open the door. This room was where my worst nightmare happened. I was scared that I would walk in there and see Sophie laying on the floor, blood seeping from her head, her eyes open and vacant. I was scared I would see me crouched over her body, crying and sobbing like I had never done before or after that moment.

I bit the inside of my mouth and grabbed the cold brass handle, pushing the door open in one quick movement. My eyes automatically flicked to the right, looking at the wall that last time I had seen it had been covered in blood, the plaster cracked from the force that her head had been smashed against it. I really was expecting it to be the same, for it to still be there, but it wasn’t. The room had been painted a pale yellow, the carpet had been changed to a dark brown, obviously they couldn’t salvage it with the massive amounts of blood that had seeped into it that day.

Thankfully, I didn’t have a long time to dwell on my memories though, because before I knew it, my mom was in the room behind me, screaming profanities at me at the top of her lungs, slapping her hands against my back.

I closed my eyes and tried to force everything else away, I needed to focus on what I came here for, I couldn’t keep thinking about Sophie. I turned around and grabbed the top of her arms to stop her hitting me, shaking her a little to get her to shut up and listen to what I had to say.

“Stop it!” I demanded.

“I hate you!” she screamed, her face red and botchy, the veins in her neck actually standing out where she was so angry and tense. She actually spat in my face, I closed my eyes and let her go, wiping my face with the bottom of my t-shirt as I gritted my teeth.

“I hate you too,” I admitted, it actually felt quite nice to say those words to her. I’d never said that out loud in my life, I’d thought it since I was about seven years old, but I had never spoken the words. I was a little shocked at myself and how much feeling I had put into those words as they left my mouth.

She stopped, her face crumbling slightly as she looked at me, then her hands dropped down to her sides, all traces of emotion gone, her face was hard as stone. “Then leave. We’re nothing to each other, I don’t need your help,” she said quietly.

“I won’t let people hurt you. You’re still my mother. Now tell me what’s happened,” I stated, crossing my arms over my chest, just watching her face, waiting for her to tell me.

She frowned, her eyes dropping down to the floor as she played with her fingers on her broken hand. “It’s nothing,” she said, shaking her head.

I sighed and sat down on the armchair, keeping my eyes on her, not allowing myself to look around the room and see if there were any photos of Sophie around that I could take with me when I left.

“If it’s nothing, then you won’t mind telling me,” I countered, my tone firm and hard, letting her know that I wasn’t leaving here until she told me the guy’s name that did that to her. It was pretty obvious by the clothes that she was wearing – or hardly wearing – that she was back on the game, her pose as she opened the door clearly signalled that she thought I was a punter come for a little afternoon delight.

Instead of getting angry again and shouting like I was expecting, she did something I never thought I would see her do. She sat down on the sofa opposite me and put her head in her hands and cried. I gulped at the sight of it, I’d never seen her cry before. She didn’t ever show any emotions when I was a kid, usually she was too drugged up or drunk to actually ‘feel’ anything, so this was a first for me. I didn’t know what to do, I knew I should comfort her, put my arm around her or something, tell her it’s ok. But I couldn’t find any compassion for her in my body at all. This woman sitting in front of me, was nothing to me, but that didn’t mean I would stand by and let some guy hurt her because he thought he ‘owned’ her.

“Just spit it out, Sharon!” I demanded, using her name because I couldn’t bring myself to call her mom, I needed to stay detached.

She sniffed and wiped at her face, her eyes not meeting mine. “I…… I don’t have a pimp, not anymore, not since…..” she trailed off, shaking her head, wincing slightly.

She didn’t look like she was lying to me, her eyes actually looked scared, terrified even. “So who did this?” I asked, waving my hand at her face and then her arm.

“I….. I …..borrowed some money. I had a little trouble keeping up with the repayments,” she whispered, breaking into another round of sobs.

Oh shit, this was worse than I thought. “Please tell me you borrowed from a bank,” I begged, knowing the answer to that before I even asked, what type of bank would take payment in the form of violence? No respectable bank.

She shook her head and I felt my heart sink. Loan sharks, I really didn’t want to be getting involved in this at all. I mentally added up how much money I could get my hands on. I probably had just over a thousand bucks in the bank, I got paid weekly, if I worked extra hours I could probably get three cars done for next week instead of two. If I didn’t eat properly or go out for a couple of weeks, then I could probably scrape about eighteen hundred bucks together, maybe a little more.

“Who did you borrow from?” I asked, not even wanting to know the answer.

She sniffed and I noticed how her body flinched as she said his name. “Tony Grier.”

Oh shit! I needed to leave. I really didn’t want to get involved in this situation. I needed to get the hell out of this house and pretend that I never even had a mother, that I just arrived with the stork and didn’t have any parents. Tony Grier was the worst person in the world you could owe money to.

His interest rates were through the roof, if you so much as missed one payment then payment was taken in the form of broken bones. His reputation around here was feared, much like Brett’s was, but Brett was more into the business side of things, cars, cons, drugs and ‘protection’. Whereas Tony was more money related, he would take everything she owned, chew her up and spit her out, before selling her to the highest bidder and then doing the same with every member of her family and friends until there was nothing left to take.

I ironically thought about how much simpler this would be if she just had a new pimp that was bashing her around, I could sort that so easily, but this, this was different. Did I really owe her this much?

“How much did you borrow?” I asked, closing my eyes waiting for the answer.

“Two thousand,” she replied, her tone had changed now, it was softer, more pleading, as if she suddenly thought she needed to be nice to me so that I’d help her. She’d done a complete one eighty and now wanted my help judging by the tone of her voice.

I nodded, my body relaxing slightly because it was a fairly achievable target. “I can get it for you within two weeks.”

She sniffed, “Jamie, that’s…… that’s just what I actually borrowed,” she muttered.

I opened my eyes and looked at her, she was leaning forward in her chair, her hand half outstretched as if she was going to touch me. I flinched my hands back, I didn’t want her to touch me, the woman repulsed me and if I had any other choice I would never see her again.

“Interest,” I stated, nodding as I realised what she meant. I should have guessed it wouldn’t be that easy. “So, how much do you need to pay it off?”

She swallowed and ran her hand over her hair, trying to smooth her ponytail as she looked away from me uncomfortably. “Thirteen.”

“Holy shit,” I gasped. My heart sank, there was no way I could get that money, and if she didn’t pay it off then it’d go up more every day. “Why would you borrow from him? Why didn’t you go to Brett?” I asked, looking at her like she was stupid. He would have given her the money, he wouldn’t have changed interest like Tony Grier would have either. Brett always looked after the family of his boys, he would have just let her borrow the money no questions.

She shrugged, her lip trembling slightly. “I wasn’t thinking. I needed a hit, I was desperate and no one would give me credit. I’d borrowed a couple of hundred from him before and paid it back with no problems. I thought everything would be fine, but then I missed a payment and he just went crazy, smashing everything up and shouting threats. Then the interest was added and now I’m even paying interest on the interest! Business was really slow last week because I was ill, so I couldn’t afford the latest payment….” she trailed off, looking down at her arm wincing slightly.

I bit back my angry retort. This all started over drugs? She borrowed money from a loan shark to buy drugs, how idiotic can one person get?

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, not even bothering to wipe the tears and snot from her face. She looked so helpless, so vulnerable and weak. But she wasn’t helpless, she had me, she always had done.

I took a deep breath and shook my head, pushing myself up from the sofa. “I’ll sort it. Just don’t pull this shit again, this is the last time I’m fixing anything for you.” I glared at her warningly, I was trying to go straight, this wasn’t what I needed. I was trying to get free of this life and just like I thought she would, she was pulling me back into it again.