a story as endless as the ocean . pjo / allie jackson

0.3 hurricane season

That, combined with paparazzi always following me around, combined with how awfully I got along with my asshole stepfather, her life was a trainwreck. She'd married Gabe when I was around 5 or 6. He'd been nice the first few seconds we knew him, but quite soon after revealed his true world-class asshole, misogynistic colors. As I grew up, I'd started calling him a range of nicknames, most including curse words that my mother always gave me a dirty look for saying.

I didn't know if it was just me being superstitious or paranoid or something, but I always felt gross around him. He stared at me like I was a piece of meat or a stack of 100 dollar bills or something. It always made me feel like I needed to take five showers and scrub a layer of skin off of my body.

Just to add salt to the wound, he smelled awful. Like so bad to the point where I'd have to apply perfume outside of my apartment because it would wear off the second I walked into the same room as him.

The two of us made my mom's life a living hell, with how much we hated each other and how awfully he treated her. When I get home is a really good example of how our 'step-father, step-daughter' "relationship" worked.

Our apartment was pretty small, mostly because it was coming from mom's money and not mine. When I needed a fix of seeing my mom, this is where I'd hunker down, but that didn't mean I lived there full-time. I had my own apartment in my name in the Upper East Side, almost too luxurious for a seventeen-year-old, but there were certain pretenses I had to set as "Hollywood's  Shining Star". Plus, I needed a few bones to throw paps whenever they got too close to figuring out my mother's address. The absurdly large amount of rent I paid, in addition to giving me an escape whenever Gabe pissed me off too much, was another way I attempted to save my mother. I'd been used to the business for my whole life, she still didn't understand many of the ways my world worked. 

But even as small as it was, Gabe mostly took over the living room so he could play poker with his buddies, so that always made it seem even smaller. I never knew why he enjoyed playing so often, since the times he won were few and far between. The T.V. blared ESPN, talking about an NFL player who'd hurt his hamstring during practice. I'd hoped my mom would be home, but I doubted it. Stale chips and beer cans were strewn all over the place. Oh, if only the cameras could see me now.

He hardly looked up from his cigar, but I knew he knew it was me. "Well, there's my darling step-daughter, home from school. I was wondering when you'd make it home. Got any cash stuffed up that bra of yours?"

"No. Is my mom home yet?" I asked, praying he wouldn't actually check.

He raised a greasy eyebrow. "She's still working. And don't lie to me, I know you love carrying cash around. I'd say you have a few twenty's in there. Maybe even a hundred or two. C'mon sweetheart. Just a little something for your step-daddy. Wouldn't want me to check now would you?"

Fuck. I sighed mentally. He could sniff money out like a goddamn bloodhound, which was funny considering his smell should've masked everything else. He was right though, not that I'd tell him; I did have a few twenties and two hundred dollar bills. And I definitely did not want him checking, considering the only time that happened was when I'd been close to getting sexually assaulted by another dude who came over to play poker with the asshole in front of me.

I gritted my teeth and pulled out some of the cash that's been there. I slowly counted it in front of him, $280 in total, and used a little sleight of hand to give him only $60. It was a little trick my instructor had taught me a few months prior when I was filming Now You See Me.

Gabe managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I never knew why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. I may have enjoyed a drink or two here or there— a bit of wine at dinners, and a bit of tequila and others at certain parties— but I was never able to stomach beer. Even the smell made me sick. No doubt Games proclivities were to blame. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "little secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out. Again.