A Heart Full of Blues by Jessica Knapp

Author:Jessica Knapp [Knapp, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sloane

Four years ago . . .

“Hey, Mom. Can we talk?” My voice never sounded so small. My mother frantically ran around the kitchen. Bagels popped up from the toaster and she poured coffee into her stainless-steel travel mug.

“I’d love to, but I’m running late. Your father’s in the car waiting for me.” Her navy suit was wrinkled, and her hair was in a messy bun. Her appearance seemed out of place for a courtroom.

My parents were always busy. Busy with work, busy defending criminals, busy with each other. So busy, they had no idea what was happening under their own roof. Or they were choosing to ignore it. I couldn’t figure out which. They’d barely given me much time to talk to them and to be fair, I didn’t try. I liked that I flew under their radar, barely noticeable or pretending I was someone else, someone else who was fine and normal.

Hannah made plenty of comments about how I looked “sick.” I hated that word. Sick. I didn’t hesitate telling her that, either.

So she corrected herself and said, “Fine, you look like an addict, Sloane.”

Why was that one harder to hear?

If Hannah noticed, why didn’t my parents? Why was their job more important than their two children who needed their help? I had always asked myself these questions, but more so lately when I discovered Ryan was using heroin.

I tried to speak with him about it again, but I didn’t know how to talk to him without him getting annoyed after we just started speaking again. He’d wave me off or roll his eyes. “You need to relax, Sloane,” he’d say. Or, “It’s fine, don’t worry about me.”

Above Hannah and Cole, Ryan was my best friend, and I refused to be a front-row spectator in his own destruction. He distanced himself from me, retreating to his bedroom as soon as I arrived home. He hung out with Cole without me, causing resentment to build between all three of us.

We were tightly bonded growing up. Ryan and I would wander through the woods together, catching and releasing frogs, the bottom of our jeans covered in mud by the time we came home. We’d visit the local library with our parents and spend the day picking books for each other. The first time I picked up a paintbrush was because of him. One year for my birthday, he bought me a watercolor set. I was young, four or five years old, and painted mostly my arms and my parents’ walls. Still, he introduced me to something I ended up loving. That’s where it all began. He encouraged me through the years to keep pursuing it when my parents had other ideas.

And Cole. Most siblings wanted to keep their friends to themselves, but Ryan happily introduced me to Cole when they became the best of friends. Then it was the three of us. We went from Legos and sports outside to parties where we’d snort coke and pop pills.

While I knew

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