Toxic (Better Than You) by Raquel Valldeperas Read Free Book Online Page B

down my back, his touch burning me from the inside out. I need more Vic.
    “Sam said the same thing,” he says.
    Ten points for Danny.
    The drive to his apartment is quiet. I watch the stores and restaurants fly by and I wonder if people are there, shopping and eating with their happy families in their normal lives. I hope they’re happy. Then, like I do so much more these days, I think about Melissa and wonder if she’s happy, with her perfect mom and loving dad and adorable brothers. It was hard to stay in touch because I don’t have a phone or computer and could only email her from the library, somewhere I stopped going not too long after she left. But it’s impossible to forget the first person I ever called a friend, even if she was only in my life for two short years.
    Sometime during my train of thought we get to Danny’s apartment. The sound of the engine cutting brings me back to the here and now and I jump out and follow Danny up the stairs. It’s empty, like usual, and the first thing Danny does is take me back to his room. He undresses me slowly, methodically, and I start to panic when I realize I’m way too sober.
    “Baby, do you have any Vic?” I ask sweetly.
    “I get what I want, then you get what you want,” he says in between the kisses he’s dropping along my bare shoulders. Tears sting my eyes because I don’t want to do this, I never want to do this, but there’s nothing I can do. I just comply like a good girl and wait until it’s over. He walks out of the room and I hear the bathroom door open, the bottle of pills shake and then he’s back.
    I swallow them dry and hide under the covers until I forget where I am and what I’ve done.

11
    June 1 st , 2007
                  “Go sleep it off, Mom,” I tell her impatiently, leaned up against the counter in the kitchen. She’s pacing the floor, a cigarette dangling from her lips and a glass of vodka in her hand. Danny’s going to be here to pick me up in ten minutes and I’m not even ready. He’ll be pissed if we’re late for his own graduation.
                  “Don’t you fucking tell me what to do. I know what to do,” she slurs at me. Rolling my eyes, I push away from the counter. It’s pointless trying to talk to her when she’s like this. I’m about to pass her, heading to my room to finish getting ready, when her hand snaps out and grabs my arm. I don’t even know how she managed to move so quickly. Warning bells go off in my head.
                  “Let go of me,” I demand.
                  She gets in my face, her reek breath fanning over me. “You’re no better than me, Logan.”
                  It’s true, I’m no better than her and I know it, but to hear her say it makes me mad. The fact that even she knows it makes me mad. “Fuck you, Mom,” I say to her, slowly, deliberately.
                  Then just as quickly as she grabbed my arm, she swings her hand at my head, but it’s the hand with the glass of vodka and the cheap glass shatters against my temple. It probably wouldn’t have hurt too much, but a piece of it catches me just right and instead of smashing and falling, it slices into my skin.
                  Mom’s eyes widen and she puts her hand to her mouth. Warm blood trickles down my cheek, my neck, onto my shirt. I stumble to the side, too confused to right myself or step away from Mom. She hasn’t hit me in so long. Not since I refused to sleep with her boyfriend’s son to get her drugs. Carefully, I reach my fingers to my temple, wincing as my finger grazes a shard of glass sticking out of my skin. Now I fall against the counter, holding my breath to keep from puking up the emptiness of my stomach. On my hands and knees, I start to crawl towards the bathroom, leaving bloody handprints behind me as I go. Mom just watches from the side, her mouth still covered and her eyes brimming in tears. She doesn’t move