My Soon-To-Be Sex Life Read Online Free Page A

didn’t fire me.”
    â€œSo then just stop.” I glared across the table. “Don’t take anymore pills, as of right now. Let’s flush them down the toilet.”
    Mom shook her head. “I wish it was that easy. It won’t be. I’m going to need help.”
    â€œBut you’re not an addict.” I struggled to match my mom with the admittedly stereotypical images of a drug addict ripping through my mind: strung out, skeletal guys with mullets, women with rotting teeth living on the streets. But she was just sitting there. The picture of soccer mom health wearing a trendy sports hoodie and yoga pants.
    â€œIf I don’t do something now, it could get a lot worse,” Mom countered. “I scared myself, Charlie. I could see exactly what was going to happen to me, to you , if I continued the way things were. I know what it’s like to have a parent check out on you and I wasn’t going to let history repeat itself.” She gave a sharp laugh.
    I stared down at the near empty pizza box, digesting the situation as the food I’d consumed lined my stomach like layers of crumbling brick.
    My mother, fighting an addiction.
    Sure, I’d noticed she’d been spacing out a lot lately. I wasn’t blind. I knew she’d been using her pills to check out now and then, but almost getting fired? The woman who’d wanted to be a nurse since elementary school? I gave Grace an accusing look.
    â€œWasn’t my story to tell, Charlie,” Grace said. “Hear her out. She needs to be straight with you. No pun intended.” She gave a weak smile.
    Mom continued, “I arrived at my station, read over the previous charge nurse’s notes, nothing out of the ordinary. Then, I lost it. I remembered I hadn’t taken a Valium before I left home. I panicked, wanted to jump out of my skin. I scrambled to my locker, downed a handful of Vals and went back to the desk. I sat there, seconds later, feeling all was well with my world.” She shifted in her seat. “There’s no way they could work that fast. I didn’t need the Valium, I just wanted it. I knew the difference and it scared me to death. Then I almost gave Mr. Plum his meds twice.” Mom looked up, her eyes bleak. “I’d put all those patients at risk. I can’t return to work until I have my own power back.”
    She rubbed a hand over her eyes.
    In the most surreal moment of my life, my mother, the woman who had just folded my clothes into orderly bundles, told me, “I’m going into rehab.”
    Resolution rested on every line of my mother’s profile. Rehab. The bricks in my stomach lurched. This was my fault. Why hadn’t I been in Mom’s face as soon as I started to notice her taking more and more pills? But I thought she knew what she was doing. Christ, she was a nurse. How the hell had I missed the fact that she’d started crossing the line? I felt dizzy, off balance, like someone held up my world and gave it a snow globe shake.
    â€œI’d drag you to my place,” Grace said. “But with my hours at the law firm and Ian being on the road so much – you’d be alone most of the time anyway.”
    I sucked back a snort. “I’m old enough to stay here and look after myself.”
    Mom shook her head. “For a few days, sure. But not a month.”
    â€œWhat if I stay with Roach?” The Jesus talk might send me over the edge, but it had to be better than what Mom was suggesting.
    â€œNot going to happen.” Mom put her hands on her hips. “The Dunmore’s would ask questions, they’d judge. This is a family issue and I don’t want my life turned into a sermon at their church, thank you very much.” Her eyes pleaded now. “It won’t be so bad, you’ll see. Either you stay with your grandfather, or I don’t go.”
    Emotional blackmail. Pure and simple.
    But oh, so effective.
    â€œI