Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2 by Nikki Roman Read Free Book Online Page A

I step around the back and see that her window is wide open, the curtains billowing in the cool night breeze.
    She is asleep on the floor with Angel. I step in through the window, and as soon as I make it in, my foot hits something. A tremendous sound erupts as well over fifty orange prescription bottles roll across the floor.
    Angel barks at the commotion, his hair standing on end.
    “Shhh!” I hiss.
    Bending down next to Bailey’s head, I push the hair from her face. It’s risky, beyond risky, to be in her room, to be touching her and not expect her to wake.
    “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
    That’s all I can muster; I’m sorry. It’s heartfelt, but doesn’t serve justice. She deserves to hear so much more from me, so much more that I could never communicate. I kiss her cheek; it’s wet with tears.
    What it must be like to cry in your sleep every night, I wonder. Except, I really shouldn’t have to wonder, because I’ve been doing the same since the day I came into this world.
    I run her hair over my palm, and then throw myself out the window like a grenade is exploding behind me. I get into my car and break down in a way that I haven’t in a long, long time. I disintegrate.
    You’d think Florida would be underwater from all the tears that have been shed.

Chapter 6
    Someone has been watching me sleep. I heard them climb in through my window and felt them touch my hair. I have really lost my mind.
    I even imagined that Angel was barking and there was a great clatter. And my prescription bottle pyramid is collapsed, bottles scattered around the room like they were kicked.
    “Angel, that took me forever!”
    I pick them up and start to recreate the pyramid. Mom walks in as I’m concentrating on my third tier; she stands over me, silent as a hunter, fascinated.
    “Uh, huh,” she says, breaking my pinpoint concentration and causing my third tier, second tier, and consequently first tier to fall down in a domino-effect. I kick the pile of bottles out of frustration.
    “What’s wrong, baby?” Mom sits cross-legged on my floor, ready to listen.
    “I- I am hearing things now, imagining things. Mom, I’m going insane!”
    “You’re not going insane, everyone has that happen sometimes. What did you imagine?”
    “That I heard Angel barking last night. Did you come into my room and kiss me while I slept?”
    Mom’s face twists like she is sucking on a lemon, then she spits out a laugh, a crazy hysterical little laugh. “Maybe you should slow down on the Vicodin,” she says, ruffling my hair.
    I stare at the bottles, imagine them heating up under my gaze. Orange plastic bubbling, until all they are is a puddle of melted orange sherbet on my floor.
    Slow down? I wish. Wish I could slow down but my Vicodin addiction is like driving a fast car—if I hit the brakes too soon I’ll lose control, smack into a tree, and go flying through the windshield.
    “Spencer knows,” I say.
    “What does he think about it?”
    “He says I have to stop and he’s right. But, I don’t know how I’ll be able to.”
    “I was able to stop drinking. So you should have no problem giving up the Vicodin.”
    She doesn’t know that I have to stop drinking, too.
    “I have to get ready for work,” she says, patting my shoulder as she gets up.
    From a drawer in the kitchen a fresh bottle of Vicodin is calling me, beckoning. I want to stop, desperately need to, but there’s no way for Spencer to know if I don’t. While Mom is in the shower, I slip the bottle from the drawer and down six, the most I have ever taken at one time.
    I’m sitting on the living room couch, buzzing, when Mom comes out of the bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel.
    “Something came for you in the mail,” she says, dripping water on the carpet. “I think it’s from Clad.”
    “Clad? He sent me a letter?” I say, the Vicodin bee buzzing loudly in my head.
    “Yes, it’s on my bed.”
    I leap off the couch and find Clad’s letter propped up against