Free Never to Hope by Aimie Grey

talk to either of them. After looking at the screen to confirm it was one of my parents, I seriously considered letting it go to voicemail. But, much to my regret, I didn’t.
    “What now, Mother?” Leaning against the wall, I patted my pockets in search of a cigarette. In this familiar position, my subconscious didn’t seem to remember that I’d quit six months ago. Smoking was a huge waste of money, and I made better tips when I didn’t smell like an ashtray.
    “Hey, baby,” she said. “Can you float your daddy and me six hundred? We ran out of gas. We just bought food, and it’ll all go bad.” They liked to keep their ‘mobile home’, as they liked to call it, in the middle of nowhere and live off of the grid. I was surprised they’d never started a fire.
    Knowing they didn’t need that much money for gas, I replied, “Maybe you’d be able to pay for your own gas if you actually sold some of your shitty homemade crank instead of snorting all of it.” That was actually the last thing I wanted. If they were going to run a meth lab, I’d much rather they kill themselves than fuck up the lives of others. “I can’t do this anymore. You know I want you to get clean. There’s no reason you can’t go to rehab and then get a real job.”
    “Please, baby? We’re desperate.”
    “Why should I care after everything you’ve put me through?” I fought like hell to keep the tears from my voice. Their decisions started me down the path that lead to my current devastation. I wasn’t one to rub the past in people’s faces, but it was way too close to the surface at the moment to suppress.
    “You know how sorry we are for what happened. We were just trying to get things straightened out. We didn’t have another choice.”
    “You could have sold your body instead of mine.”
    “Oh, baby, you know you were worth way more than me. Please, sweetheart?”
    “Fine, I’ll give you two hundred, but this is the absolute last time. Even if I didn’t hate your career choice, I can’t afford it anymore.” Not that I ever could.
    “Thank you, baby. We’ll leave the porch light on.”
    I pushed off the wall I’d leaned against so many times before and headed to my car.

Chapter Seven
    My life had gone to shit, and I had no one to blame but myself. It was stupid of me to open up to Carter. Making love with—no, fucking—him had been even worse. How could I have been so foolish to believe I was special to him when I wasn’t even special to my own mom and dad? How could I have believed something so beautiful could happen to me and not be a joke?
    In the few days I’d known him, I’d been certain he would be the one to get hurt. I tried to prevent it, but in the end, I’d been weak. Just when the slightest glimmer of hope started to force its way into my heart, I found out I’d been utterly wrong. How could I have not known he’d been playing me the entire time? How had I not realized I’d given him the power to hurt me worse than I thought possible?
    The last minute trip to my parents’ current campsite only made my heart hurt worse. Meth had turned them into horrible parents, yet through it all, they had stayed together. Even when they were in desperate need of a fix, they still loved each other; however, their love no longer extended to me. After everything they’d done, it wasn’t fair for them to have some fucked up version of true love in their lives when it was their fault I couldn’t even try without falling on my face. I’d often wondered if they would be better apart—if maybe at least one of them would get clean if they weren’t feeding off of each other’s addictions. However, it was that bond between them that made me think there was a chance they could still be saved.
    The sun was still several hours away from rising when I’d gotten home. Longing to escape my new reality, I pulled the covers over my head as I climbed into bed. The beautiful oblivion of sleep was the only thing that