Lincoln

Drew's headlights lit up the road as he drove away.

Sometime during the ride back, Sadie had stirred awake. I was hoping she'd fall back asleep, knowing that if she didn't she'd be a cranky-mess tomorrow morning. She didn't end up closing her eyes again, but thankfully, she was still drowsy enough to want to be carried up the flight of stairs to the front door.

I closed the door behind me with my foot, setting my gym bag down in the narrow foyer. It creaked closed. The sound travelled through the darkened main floor of the townhouse and I hoped that if my mom was home that the noise wouldn't wake her up. Dealing with two cranky women was not something I considered a good time.

I kicked off my worn boots before helping Sadie with the jumbo buttons on her coat. The boots were next to come off before I scooped her back up.

"Let's get you into bed, okay?"

Sadie gave me a half-nod, her eyelids heavy.

"Did you have fun tonight?" I asked once I had her changed into a set of cloud covered pyjamas.

Sadie crawled up into her bed. The sheets were still a mess from this morning when I had woken her up to get ready for the day. A gentle shiver wracked her body as she slid into the cool mattress. I made quick work of throwing her duvet over her and tucking her in.

Last winter I had done my best to patch up a crack by her window that was causing a draft. It held up fine, but judging from the temperature in the room tonight, it might be time to check it again.

"California is really nice."

I wanted to scoff.

Nice to you, maybe.

As if it were an afterthought she added, "Her friends are nice too."

"Good." I pushed the stray hair from off of her forehead. "I'm glad."

Before I even had a chance to finish my sentence, Sadie had closed her eyes. She snuggled into her pillow and tugged Beary closer to her chest. It wasn't long before her breath turned shallow and I felt comfortable enough to leave her room.

Ever since Sadie had turned three she suffered from night terrors. They were violent episodes in the dead of night that caused her to scream and thrash around—stuck in a never-ending-loop of nightmares. In the first few months of her experiencing them, the night terrors would strike multiple times a night. For the first six months I slept on the floor beside her bed with the intent of calming her down before she could wake up Mom in the next room.

It never really worked and my mom and I functioned solely off of espresso and energy drinks.

By some miracle, the night terrors became less frequent after those six months. Instead of waking up four to five times a night, it trickled down until we were able to go a couple of nights without an episode.

She didn't have them too often anymore. Maybe twice a month if we were lucky. But the sound of her screaming still haunted me sometimes.   

The time on my phone read 12:42am. If I went to bed now I could get a solid six hours of sleep before I had to catch the bus and head back to campus for early morning cardio. Whitmore had an obsession with building cardio into our routine.

"Being able to sock someone is all fine and dandy," he'd say. "But if you can't move, you're a sitting duck. Do you wanna be duck confit, Pierce?"

I took the stairs to the main floor two at a time, taking a sharp left into the kitchen. The open freezer door lit up the room as I shuffled around before I settled on a half-full bag of frozen peas. I was sure this particular bag of peas had been in this freezer for as long as we'd been living here. The perfect ice-pack.

I slapped the bag on the back of my neck first. The sharp chill relieved some of the pressure I felt in my shoulders. I'd have to spend the next hour icing the majority of my body before I went to bed. I toyed with the idea of taking an ice bath (or at least sitting in a tub of very cold water). The last thing I wanted to do was sit in freezing water, but I knew I would thank myself for it tomorrow.

I moved the peas from the back of my neck to the side of the face. I could feel a nasty bruise forming somewhere on my cheek.

"You're home late."

A jolt rushed through me as I realized there was a shadowy figure in the threshold of the kitchen.

"You scared the shit outta me," I breathed, a hand over my chest.

"Sorry," my mother's voice croaked. "I heard you come in and couldn't fall asleep. I figured I'd come and grab a glass of water." She moved around the kitchen. "Why are you getting home so late?"

I fiddled around with the peas, not wanting to put them on my face until she was out of sight. I settled into one of the chairs around the cramped kitchen table. "Late match."

She nodded knowingly.

"And Sadie?"

"She was with Andrew," I bluffed.

She filled her glass up with tap water. The sound of the open facet filling the room. When the glass was half-full she cupped it with both hands and leaned her back against the counter. Mom was in her usual bed-attire, baggy track pants and a sauce stained t-shirt. The oversized clothing dwarfed her, making her tall frame look considerably shorter. There was a hollowness to her face. Her already sharp cheekbones were pronounced and her eyes were puffy from working overtime. She was exhausted.

"I don't know how I feel about Sadie being on campus at all hours of the night." She reminded me.

I turned away from her, peering across the hall and into the desolate family room. This was not a conversation I wanted to rehash. It was no surprise that she wasn't a fan of having her preschool-aged daughter on a university campus past midnight. It wasn't an ideal situation for me either. But unless we could scrape together enough money to find a regular babysitter, our hands were tied. We hadn't been in the financial position to do that for a very long time.

"And you think I do?" I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "We don't have too many other options right now."

"Maybe we can find some high school kid to watch her when we're both going to be out late..."

I fiddled with the bag of peas still in my hands. "Which seventeen-year old is going to spend their Friday nights babysitting a toddler until one in the morning?"

"Well we need to figure something out, Lincoln. She's just a baby. I don't want her having to spend her childhood being dragged around all hours of the night."

My mom and I didn't agree on much. Sadie's wellbeing, however, was something we both could agree on.

"I know, Mom. I know."

"I need to do right by her."

A pang of something shot through my chest. Hurt? Jealousy? Anger? A combination of the three? Whatever it was, I pushed the unwelcome feeling aside. This wasn't about me anymore. But no matter how hard I pushed, I still couldn't help but wonder, where was the same courtesy for me when I was growing up?

I swallowed the bitter lump in my throat. We couldn't change what happened in the past, but we could work to change the future. A future where Sadie did not have to endure the same bullshit I had to experience as a child.

"This is my last year at Fenton," I reminded her. "A few more months and we can finally put everything behind us and move on."

She paused to stare at me for a moment—her tired eyes meeting mine from across the kitchen. Time felt as if it were standing still. When she finally moved she headed towards the cabinet by the fridge. With one hand she shuffled around the half-used vitamin bottles before grabbing hold of a small bottle of ibuprofen.

Quietly, she closed the space between us, setting the bottle down in front of me. 

"You don't move on from your demons," she whispered. "You either destroy them or they consume you."

Then she left—disappearing from the room as if she were an apparition.

My head fell back and I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding. Tension was building all over my body and I couldn't tell anymore if it was from the fight or from the recent disparaging conversation.

"Fuck it," I muttered, popping a pill from the bottle I was just handed.

Forget the ice-bath. In mere minutes exhaustion had hit me like a freight train. I slapped the de-frosting bag of peas back into the freezer.

Sure, I might not be able to run from my demons—but I sure as hell could fall asleep and pretend they didn't exist.

* * * * *

author's note:

A little more insight about Lincoln and Sadie's home situation. For anyone who read the original version of this story, you might notice that I've made a couple of changes to Amelia's character. She's got a bleaker outlook on life and that will show in things she does and says in later chapters.

As always, I hope you enjoyed reading. Let me know what you think! Your feedback is always appreciated.