Infinite Us by Eden Butler

Author:Eden Butler [Butler, Eden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eden Butler
Published: 2017-05-22T18:30:00+00:00

Nash

When I was young, my father wore a Bulls ball cap. It was red and black and had Jordan’s number twenty-three taking up much of the right side. He’d won it from a work raffle. Five bucks for a Bulls swag pack and a chance at airfare and two tickets to the Bulls/Celtics game that season. He’d spent twenty bucks that day; five on the ticket and fifteen on a case of Bud he’d polished off before his lunch break ended.

I only remembered that because he’d been fired for drinking the Bud and my mother threw the cap out the second-floor window when he came home that night. I’d found it the next morning on my way to the bus stop, stepping over my father, who’d passed out on the front porch and stayed there the whole night.

That morning, I’d looked down at him, face pale and hollow, lips chapped and white and realized for the first time in my brief nine years, that my father was a loser. He wasn’t the cut-up he pretended to be when he and Mom drank during the Falcons games, laughing and teasing each other when the dirty birds won. He wasn’t the guy that would stay sober for a couple of weeks, meeting me and Nat at the bus stop, fixing our dinners when Mom worked late or took a night class. He was the guy who’d passed out on the porch with a brand-new Bulls cap twenty feet away from him near the garbage can. He was the asshole who made my mother cry when she thought we were asleep.

More than anything, I was petrified of turning into him.

It was the main reason I’d kept to myself, had stayed clear of any drama that might contribute in any way in making me more like my father.

“You gonna sleep all day?” Nat called, pulling me from my thoughts and what remained of my sleep and damn Sookie and her drama that locked me down each night. There had been the boy again, Dempsey, and the asshole who’d tried attacking her. It felt like metal had lodged itself in my chest when I thought of that little girl—something about her made me rage with anger, something made me sick with guilt. I couldn’t place her, couldn’t do more than blink away her face, the fear she’d felt and the sweetness, how that boy had made her feel when he… I was losing it. I was losing my damn mind.

The scent of bacon and pancakes hung in the air, making my mouth water and I got up from the sofa, a little disoriented by the thick blanket on the floor and the pillow on the other end of the room.

“Bad dream last night?” Nat asked, pouring a mug of coffee for me as I flopped onto the stool in front of the island. I shrugged and my sister shook her head. “You were fussing all night. Woke me up twice.”

She’d had brought dark roast with

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