The Broken Hummingbird by Ann Marie Jackson

Author:Ann Marie Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press

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Thomas kept slipping through the cracks of her parents’ lives into a small-town trough of alcohol and then drugs, but Mom and Dad refused to see it. At Mom’s house, he’d sneak out at night and often go back to bed after Mom left for work in the morning, and the school only sometimes managed to report his absence. Jane had no idea anymore what he did at Dad’s house.

She heard scary rumors about him, that he’d been partying with wild older kids. Kids who stole things, like car stereos, and then sold them. Kids who as often as not didn’t show up at school. Jane felt her brother slipping away.

She needed to share the blame. “Thomas is not fine! You told me he’d be fine.”

“How is this my fault?” Kevin shrugged.

“It’s not, it’s mine. I left him.”

“No. He makes his own choices.”

“He’s still just a kid.”

“Well, he’s almost an adult.”

“Kev, I have to help him.”

“How?”

At first, whenever she tried to talk to Thomas about any of it, he offered breezy reassurances and non-answers. Later, the denials her sweet, smart little brother gave her turned ugly. He said he’d never speak to her again if she ratted him out one more time to either of their parents.

Kevin knew much more about that world than she did. He took her to the right parties to drag Thomas home a few times, but it never made an impact. Thomas just shrugged them off.

“Get it together,” Kevin would say to him. “Don’t you want to get out of here and go somewhere interesting? Be someone interesting?”

“Sure, Kev, I’m getting out.” Her brother laughed at them. “Nobody gets out.”

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