Dare Me (Dare Me Series Book 1)

Dare Me (Part 47 - Colby)

Dreams... they pull you under like a strong current. You're defenseless, having to give up and let it take you. Mine switch from one scene to the other. Mom and Dad fighting.

Cars flipping, glass shattering, dead bodies.

"Are you okay?" I blink my eyes open just as a sharp pain stabs my head. My mind tries to clear the fog. What just happened? Where am I? "I'm going to get you out, okay? I've got to cut the seat belt." I groan, touching my head and feeling something wet. My eyes open wider as I try to focus on what's on my hand. Blood. I'm bleeding. Seat belt. I'm in a seat belt. Gage? My heart kicks up, and I come to completely. I look to my right, but my brother isn't there. "Gage," I say urgently. "Calm down, son. Just a little bit longer and you'll be out. Stay still." But I can't stay still. Where's my brother? I look around, trying to see any sight of him in my upside-down state. "Hold on," the man says. He puts his arm under me, and in a snap, I fall. "Where's my brother?" I say, trying to move. "Careful. There's glass everywhere." I don't care about the glass. I crawl out and stand, but I'm wobbly as I turn around. My mind spins, and I look down. Dad. His body is limp, and half is out of the car. His arm is in an awkward position, but he starts to move, frightening me. "Don't be like me," he says, looking up at me. His eyes are bloodshot, and his legs are bent and mangled. He starts to crawl, and I stumble backwards. "Don't let her make you fall," he says, reaching his hands out. I feel something cold running down the back of my neck. The forest turns black, and everyone disappears but him. "No!" I scream. "Stop. You're dead. You're not real." "Colby." I get snatched backwards, and my father fades from my vision. Where's Gage? "Colby, wake up." I'm shaken, and my eyes open. I look around frantically. "Where's Gage?" I ask. "He isn't here," a woman says. Wait, a woman? I look to my right. Alexis. "You were having a nightmare. Are you okay?" I throw the covers off me and run a hand over my head and down my face, trying to wrap my mind around my dream. But it wasn't a dream.

It was a memory.

A heartbreaking memory.

Sweat glides down my back as I move, my feet touching the floor.

"Colby?" A says.

She appears beside me and wraps her arms around me and rubs my back. "You alright?" She asks. I shake my head and walk downstairs and see my mother down there since she is living with us until this weekend.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why did you quit?" I ask my mother.

"Quit what?" she asks, taking a swallow of her drink.

"Us?"

She sighs and fidgets with her robe. "I had a great childhood." She tightens the straps around her waist. "My dad had money. We were a happy family, until I turned eighteen. I met a poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Your father," she says. "We fell in love, and we fell hard, but you see, my parents didn't approve, so we snuck around. "I became distant from them because all I cared about was being with him. Every minute of every day. We consumed each other. My parents weren't stupid. They knew I was going behind their backs. They'd called our relationship unhealthy." She shrugs. "Maybe it was. They thought he was vile just because he had no money. I'd never realized how snooty they were until then. To me, they were the disgusting ones. "One night we had a big blowout. There was shouting, and tears, and things being thrown. They told me to choose. To choose them or your father." She swallows, and her eyes fill. "I chose him." She wipes a stray tear and sniffs before clearing her throat and having another drink. "Life became very real the moment I did that. I left, and we got a little apartment together. He had a small-time job building barns. I got one at a convenience store down the road from where we lived. Everything was okay for a while. We were happy. Struggling, but happy. "And then I got pregnant. With you," she says, nodding toward me. "I was scared. Scared of how we were going to take care of you, but he assured me it would be fine. "Life went on. We had our lights cut off a few times, but we made the best of it. We didn't have a lot of food, but we made the best of it," she says. "And then I got pregnant again. This time with twins. "I stressed, and I stressed hard. I didn't have any idea how we would take care of two babies and you. Your dad wasn't making much money, and the store I worked at got robbed so he didn't want me working there anymore. I tried to find work somewhere else, but no one wanted to hire a pregnant woman. "So, I sucked it up and called my dad. I told him our situation, and he told me that if I came back home alone, I wouldn't have a situation." She chuckles, but it's sad and laced with bitterness. "Around that time, your father started drinking. He didn't go to bars and come home late at night or anything; he brought the whiskey home, sat on the couch, loved me, and that was our life. "I was enormous, married to an alcoholic, broke as hell, and trying to raise you." She twirls her glass on the counter and smiles. "But it wasn't all doom and gloom. I did get happy with the fact I was having twins. I talked to them every day and even got you to feel my stomach several times. Your father and I were still very much in love, despite his drinking, but the reality of our situation still weighed heavy on me. "One day I was cleaning the kitchen and I had a minor sharp pain shoot all the way across my belly. It got worse and more painful as the day went on, and when I couldn't handle it anymore, I called your father." People become depressed. They get help, or they don't, but it doesn't give her an excuse to stop being a mother, to go off and do drugs. I hold up my glass. "Well, here's to successfully forgetting." She doesn't say anything. She just stares at me as I down my drink. I grab the bottle, leaving her and hoping she feels alone like she's made me feel so many times. Maybe I'm wrong for doing this to her. Maybe I shouldn't act this way toward a recovering addict, but fuck it. This time she needs to prove to me she wants things to be different. I'm done begging her to be a mother.