The line cuts out, and I’m left staring at my screen in the middle of the empty street, feeling the silence settle like ash in my throat. “I miss you, Will.”
The walk home isn’t long, just a few cracked sidewalks and flickering porch lights away. Mason Park sits tucked at the edge of town like a secret no one wants to claim. My trailer's wedged between two others, one with a pit bull that won’t shut up and the other with wind chimes that sound like haunted silverware. The porch light’s busted—again.
I juggle the bag of food as I reach for the door handle, but it doesn’t budge. Locked.
“Seriously?” I mutter, pressing my forehead to the metal. I don’t remember locking it. Hell, I don’t even remember if we have ever had aworkinglock to our trailer. I take a step back and scream, “Mom! Mom!”
After a few moments, I step back, hands raised in frustration, an exasperated scream caught in my throat.Can this day get any fucking worse?If I walk into that trailer and find my mom on the floor again—OD’ing on whatever her new loser boyfriend handed her—I swear to God, I’ll rip my own damn hair out from the roots.
I circle around the side, where the screen window to my room sticks just enough to piss me off but not enough to stop me. I wiggle my fingers through the crack, pop the latch, and hoist myself up. My foot slips once—graceful as ever—but I manage to haul myself inside and land on my mattress with a heavythump.
The room smells like old incense and cherry lip balm. I left the fan running, but it’s just blowing the heat around like a lazy hand. The low sound of grunting rises from the next room and I gag at the mewling sounds of what I hope and pray is not my mother.
I spin around hoping I can slip on my massive over the head headphones when I notice my room looks empty, and notmy mom-stole-a-few-shirts-againkind of empty. No, this isyou’re-moving-the-fuck-outempty.
My heart kicks up.
The bookshelves are bare, save for one knocked-over candle I thought I lost months ago. My Polaroids? Gone. The dreamcatcher that’s hung above my window since I was thirteen? Ripped down. My desk drawers—wide open, hollow like they’d been looted. Even the little ceramic frog Willow made me in sixth grade is missing, and that thing has survivedeveryshitstorm in this house.
I turn in a slow circle, throat tightening, a rising pulse of disbelief hammering in my chest.
Then I see them.
Three black garbage bags slumped in the corner like body bags, sealed tight, full of my life shoved in without care. Like someone was cleaning up after a party that I didn’t even know was over.
And just like that, the numbness burns off.
“Fuck no.” The words rip out of me raw.
I yank one open, hands shaking. My hoodie’s inside—my hoodie, the one with the burn mark on the sleeve. My sketchbook, bent in half. My socks, my jeans, my makeup bag. All just… stuffed in like trash.
“What the fuck!” I yell, voice ripping through the stale air.
I rip open the second bag—more of the same. My old photo albums, crumpled notebooks, the mug I stole from Waffle Housetwo years ago. The life I’ve been barely holding together, tied up in plastic like it didn’t mean shit.
My heart’s pounding so hard it hurts. My mouth tastes like smoke and betrayal.
I storm toward the hallway, every step heavier than the last. The closer I get, the louder the noises from her room—low, sloppy moaning, a bed creaking in rhythm.
I don’t knock.
I slam the door open and there she is—my mother, straddling Nick, tangled in bedsheets, hair a mess, eyes wide like I’m the one who ruined the moment.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I shout, barely able to see straight as I shake the trash bags in my hands. “You packed my life into garbage bags before you were screwing this greasy discount jackass who will probably rob you next month for a pack of cigarettes?!”
She scrambles for the blanket. “Jasmine, how the fuck did you get in here. I changed the locks.”
People used to say I was the spitting image of my mother. Same gray eyes, same long wavy blonde hair, same sharp little smirk like we were both in on some private joke.
But now?
Now her hair hangs in limp, tangled waves. Her skin’s gone papery, pulled too tight over her bones, and scabs litter her arms and legs. She clutches the blanket to her chest and flares her nostrils at me.
“I was going to let you know earlier but you came back late from work, but Bud wants to move in, so you have to move out.” My mom slurs, her words sticky in her mouth, like she can barely get them past her cracked lips.
I feel my lip curl in disgust as the trash bags drop to my side. "Bud?You’re throwing me out forBud?"
My mom’s eyes dart to the man behind her like she needs backup. He just sits there, sprawled in the stained naked mattress like a king on a trash heap, scratching his chest with one hand, the other is bent behind his head. He watches me like this is entertainment, like my life getting torn apart is the best thing he’s seen all week.
