Heroine Addiction by Jennifer Matarese Read Free Book Online

been the talkative sort as is, especially if it's about you kids or your mom.”
    I tear my gaze back to the dance floor, center myself on the infectious bounce and jam of the music rather than my crystal-clear mental vision of my father. He'd be tall and broad, his dark hair graying at the temples, his expression reliably stoic. He'd split his days between saving people with my mother and rescuing others with the rest of the Brigade, saying nothing to his teammates about what he engaged in when he headed home, but letting their rampant imaginations fill in the blanks. He'd go home and fall asleep in Morris's arms, and for the first time all day, he would breathe.
    I think I'm going to throw up.
    It's then that I spot my mother's effervescent smile as she and my father dance past us, weaving between other couples unfazed by the legendary superheroes prancing along with the music beside them. It's an understandably calm response. My parents come to Swing every week, plaster on cheerful smiles and make themselves a spectacle until closing. Regulars know them well and question if there's something wrong when they arrive late or miss a scheduled night. The day after my father left my mom, twenty hours after he toted bulging luggage out of my mother's apartment, the two of them were photographed performing an ardent jitterbug at Swing, their grins a secretive promise.
    That's my parents in a nutshell. Pretense first, everything else second.
    I dodge through the crowd before Nate can stop me, weave between dancing pairs who shout their annoyance in my wake. This could wait, I suppose. It would be a lot less confrontational if I simply hovered on the sidelines, waiting for them to escape the bustling dance floor for a cool refreshment and pouncing on them then. But that crack in Morris's smooth facade won't leave my memory. Morris wouldn't have come to me looking for my assistance if Dad's disappearance were due to something as pedestrian as the same weekly dance night he's been indulging in with Mom since they broke it off.
    Something is not right, that much I recognize.
    Swerving around a rotund man who moves more gracefully than most of the thinner people on the dance floor, I finally come face to face with my mother and father. His bulky hand clutches her fingertips lightly as she spins, and her untamed ebony curls encircle her body from the twirling motion. Dad throws a disturbingly out-of-character smirk to the fascinated onlookers, not even deigning to glance Mom's way before catching her in a backwards dip.  
    “Dad?”
    Mom rights herself in an agile move, gaping with blatant joy at the sight of me. Dad's smirk doesn't falter, and one hand slides lower on Mom's back in a silent sign of possession.
    I swallow hard. I really didn't prepare for this nearly as well as I thought I had.
    “Vera! What are you doing here, sweetheart?” Mom sweeps me into a stifling hug, too constricting, reeking of cloying floral perfume. I should be wondering what's brought on this abrupt bout of motherly affection, but I can't tear my eyes off my father.  
    “I was just in the city for the afternoon,” I hear myself say. “And I haven't seen you in ages, so I just thought you wouldn't mind –“
    “No, no, that's wonderful,” Mom says. She doesn't let go, giving me another gentle squeeze, then whispers in my ear, “I've got fantastic news.”
    Nate weasels his way through the jitterbugging masses, beaming from ear to ear as he claps Dad's meaty fist in an affable handshake.
    “Vera?”
    “I'm listening,” I blurt out, although I pay more attention to Dad's far too jovial behavior. Mom smooths her hand over my curls, some comforting gesture she presumably picked up from either a Lifetime movie or some much more soft-hearted mother whose child she saved in between posed photo ops.
    I fidget, unused to the attention.
    “It's your father,” she says, her voice pitched low enough for only me to hear. “He's coming home,