Contagious Read Online Free Page B

’d never have to work and now you’re throwing it in my face!”
    “OK, ok, you’re right.” Rayne held up his hand. “What is the emergency? You said there was an emergency.’
    “This!” Lita screamed. “Are you an idiot?”
    “Stop with the name calling. I’m trying to figure out how this is an emergency. Do you need to pay for your hair? It looks nice.”
    “No, Rayne. I’m leaving.”
    “To go where?”
    “Doesn’t matter. We’re done. Through. It’s over. When you get home from work, I’ll be gone.”
    “You called me home to say you were leaving me?”
    “Yeah, Rayne.”
    “Can you not and just wait until I get home so we can sit down and talk?”
    Defensively she folded her arms to her body. “I will wait. But here’s your deal. Think about it while you’re working. I’m done. It’s wrestling or me.”
    Rayne didn’t say any more, he nodded his head and walked out.
    Brad was waiting in the truck when Rayne got in.
    “So what was the emergency?” Brad asked.
    “She’s pissed that I spent money on wrestling gear. Says she’s leaving me.”
    Brad shook his head. “She’s not leaving you.”
    “She said I have to choose. Wrestling or her.”
    “Rayne, wrestling is your life. Your dream. You do it for you and your brother’s memory. If she loved you, she wouldn’t have you make that choice. Don’t give in. I mean it.”
    “Yeah, I know. But what choice do I have?  She’s all I got, Brad. All I have in this world.”
    “Then you ain’t looking around. You’re young, Rayne. You have your whole life ahead of you. The whole world.” Brad shifted the gears and drove on. “And trust me, the world isn’t going anywhere yet.”
     
    <><><><>
     
    The overnight delivery envelope was perched before Ava’s front door. She knew what it was and was pretty excited to see it.
    She didn’t need to open it to know they were tickets to the live wrestling show at the arena. Calvin would be thrilled and for certain would stay out of trouble for the evening.
    It was all part of Ava’s part time job. Very part time job. She always wanted to be a writer and Darren’s friend owned an online blog called The Venue Vine . It was a pretty popular online source for wrestling and MMA fans.
    When Ava started to write for them, she wasn’t really a fan, until she learned the stories behind the wrestlers and then the entertainment sport grew interesting to her.
    After two years she became pretty fanatical.
    Her enthusiasm over the tickets was marred by her growing guilt about Cassie.
    At first she kind of basked in it with a ‘good, you deserve it attitude’. Then when she had an early lunch with Landon, it stayed on her mind. After dropping him off at kindergarten, she wondered why she hadn’t heard anything.
    Four missed phone calls from Cassie’s mother added to her guilt. Not only did she not want to speak to Rosie and tell her that her daughter was in Juvenile Detention, she knew the conversation would end up with Rosie asking, ‘Can you help me out? Just twenty bucks ? Please, I need food.”
    Food or whatever the excuse for money was.
    But what if Rosie really needed food? Ava would do what she always did, offer to take her to the store.
    Ava knew very well that if she gave her money, Rosie was going to buy meth. She always did. It was horrible what it was doing to her. Twice, since Ava knew her, Rosie went into Rehab, but her clean streak ended quickly and each fall from the wagon was worse than the time before.
    Rosie used to be beautiful, but everything about her appearance had been trashed. Her skin, teeth and hair.
    It broke Ava’s heart when Rose would visit with the kids. They had to see the self -destruction that was going on and it had to hurt them. Maybe, somewhere in them, they knew they lashed out in hurt over their mother.
    After walking in the house, Ava placed the envelope on the table, walked to the living room, and as a habit, turned on the television. Her plan was to make