Jessica Sorensen: The Probability of Violet and Luke

After Violet moved out of the apartment two months ago, I called the police and reported what facts I knew about the murders. It was only a little bit, but I knew I owed Violet at least that much. But the phone call hasn’t led too much, unfortunately. The police haven’t found any real hard evidence to arrest my mother, but they’re trying to and I keep my fingers crossed everyday that something will happen.

I think part of me hoped that by telling the police, Violet would come back to me. But she didn’t. And the more time goes by, the less I think she ever will. If I was stronger, I’d go to my mother’s house and search for evidence myself, even though I have no idea where anything would be. But I wonder, what could be hiding in the chaos of that house. That perfect, clean house upstairs, covers up the years of crap she’s held onto that’s piled up in the basement. But the idea of going there and seeing that woman…feeling that kind of rage with her there… it makes me afraid of what I might do to her. So the wall remains between Violet and I, building higher and higher with each moment while I die a little bit more every day.

To help wake up every day, I try to tell myself that I’ll get over Violet eventually, because time is supposed to heal all wounds or some stupid shit like that, but it seems like time is having the opposite effect on me. The wounds have become infected and their seeping through my body and rotting me from the inside out. To add to the crap going on, I got a copy of my sister, Amy’s, journal she had before she committed suicide when she was sixteen years old. I didn’t ask for the journal, but my mother found it in one of her boxes and randomly sent it to me, playing her usual mind games, trying to tear me open by reminding me of my sister’s death.

“Remember how your sister left me,” my mother said when I’d called her up after I’d gotten the journal in the mail, wondering what the fuck it was. “You need to come back to me, Lukey. Don’t leave me—don’t be Amy.”

“Go to hell!” I’d yelled and hung up on her, feeling a fire so potent in my chest, I ended up tearing apart my room just to settle down.

I wasn’t planning on reading the journal because nothing that came from my mother has ever led to anything good. But with too much free time on my hands, the damn thing started haunting me and I finally cracked. The first thing I discovered is there was no way my mother even took the time to read it before she sent it to me and she should have. The stuff on the pages paints a horrible, very true picture of the kind of sick, messed up person and mother she is. Whenever I read a page or two, I learn more and more about how much stuff was going on between Amy and my mother that I didn’t understand while living with them. For example, the time my mother tried to whore Amy out to one of her drug dealers for payment.

Twelve years old and my mother is asking me to do something that sounds so wrong at my age. To be with a guy… like that… I don’t know what to do. But she says it’ll help pay the bills and other stuff. I’m not sure what the other stuff is but I’m guessing it has to do with that shit she keeps making my brother inject in her veins, which I know isn’t diabetic medicine like my mother keeps telling me. I’m not stupid. I know she’s doing drugs.

But I wonder, if I can sleep with this guy she owes money to… give up my virginity to save the family from getting kicked out on the streets, if my mother will finally say thank you to me for helping out and that maybe, just maybe she’ll tell me she loves me.

Each word I read makes my hatred for my mother grows and the rage in my chest expand. Pretty soon I’m going to be filled with so much hate, I’m going to drown in it. So I do the only thing I can do to cope with it.

I drown myself in other stuff, just like I do to hide the pain connected to losing Violet.

For the last couple of months, my nights have been filled with booze, gambling, partying, and fights, some of which I go looking for and others are thrown at me like when I get caught cheating during a game. I know I should stop, not because it’s unhealthy, especially because I’m a diabetic, but one of these days I’m going to piss off the wrong person or take one too many drinks. But I can’t find it in me to give a shit. Live or die. It’s all the same to me anymore.

Sleep’s become a foreign concept, along with eating and drinking anything that doesn’t come in liquid form and gives me an after burn that numbs my heart, soul, and mind. When I do manage to close my eyes, my past haunts me. It’s becoming impossible to escape, so I try not to sleep as much as I can. I think it’s starting to show, at least that’s what I wonder when I walk out into the living room. Seth’s sitting on the sofa when I walk in, yawning and dreary-eyed from no sleep.

He glances up from the laptop with a disgusted look on his face when he takes in the sight of me. “No offense man, but you look like shit,” he says, closing the computer up as he takes in my sunken eyes and the healing bruise on my cheek, remnants of last weekends fight after I was accused of cheating down at Denny’s. Thankfully, the guys that hang there are a bunch of pussies and I got away with minimal scratches and quite of few swings myself. Unfortunately I can’t go back there anymore to gamble so I’m going to have to find somewhere else to make some cash.

“Shut the fuck up,” I grumble back at Seth, running my hand over my messy brown hair. It’s getting sort of scraggily since I haven’t been in for a haircut in a while. But I haven’t cared enough to go.

Seth flips me off, then rolls his eyes. “You need to get over this shit. Seriously. It’s going to kill you.”

“Get over what?” I play dumb.

He rolls his eyes again. “I’d tell you but I don’t dare say her name because you’ll give me that wounded Bambi look and then rip my head off.”

“I’m not a wounded Bambi,” I snap harshly, but have to swallow the lump forming in my throat. I snatch my jacket off the counter, before going over to the fridge. “Where the hell did the bottle of Jack Daniels go? And the Vodka?” I ask.

Seth puts his laptop aside, stands up from the sofa, and walks over to the counter area. “You finished it off last night before you went out to wherever it is you go.” He pauses like he’s waiting for me to tell him, but I don’t because I can barely remember myself what I did five minutes ago, let alone five hours ago.

I slam the fridge door and open the cupboard next to it where Greyson, Seth’s boyfriend, and my friend and roommate, keeps his stash of Cherry Vodka. “You think he’ll mind if I drink some of this?” I ask Seth, reaching for the bottle which is only about a quarter of the way full.

Seth shrugs as he leans against the counter. “I don’t think he’ll mind that some is gone since he barely drinks.” He wavers. “But I think he’ll mind that you’re drinking.”

I grab the bottle, wanting— needing —to get some in my system. I’m starting to shake just thinking about it—starting to think way too fucking much. “I always drink.”

“Yeah, but…” he trails off, massaging the back of his neck tensely.

I scowl at him. “But what? Just finish whatever it is you’re going to say.”

He sighs, letting his arm drop to his side. “Look, I get the whole drinking thing. I do it myself a hell of a lot, but Greyson and I have been talking and it seems like…” He shifts his weight, appearing uncomfortable. “You’ve been doing it more lately, particularly in the last month or so.”

“You mean since Violet left.” I ignore the knife slashing at my chest and it’s easier with the vodka in my hand.