A thousand Years.

Chapter 4

"What is it today, Momma? What is it your making up for? Breaking and beating me, throwing Tara's stuff around?"

"I don't know what your talking about, Brookie Brooke?" It takes all my will to not flinch at the name. I stiffen, though, and I'm sure Jinx felt it cause he tightens his arms around me.

"Why haven't you visited me?"

"I don't want to."

"Is it because your dad won't let you? You know you have to visit me. That red headed skank need to get the hell out of my house," she starts. Here we go. Here comes the fight.

"That red headed skank is a better person than you'll ever be! Tara can stay however long she likes!" I say this even though I would throw a party if Tara moved out and it was just me and my dad again.

"Brooke, baby, you know she's not aloud to do that!"

"Yes she can! We where given a court order that day you weren't even at court saying y'all were divorced! That when she moved in! Then you made up a retarded excuse as to why you weren't!"

"It's been changed. Your daddy is lying to you."

"Hard to belief that from a drug head," I mumble. "I was there, Paulette. Where were you, Paulette, where were you!" I say to her, trying to keep my cool.

"I do not do drugs!" She starts crying and I can feel my mouth turning in disgust. What a baby.

"Yes! Yes you do! And I will not see or live or talk to you until you can get yourself fixed. Go to rehab; move out of the country; I don't care what you do! As long as I don't have to see you."

"Candace-"

"Don't bring Candace into this. She has hated you longer than I have."

"You don't hate me-"

"Yes I do," I say and turn on Laura. "What was the point to this?"

"We were hoping to bring you guys closer."

"This was a hopeless cause," I hiss. "Goodbye Paulette."

I grab Jinx's hands and wheel him out of the cabin. The tears are falling violently now and I wish they would just stop. I drag him around the corner of the cabin and fall into his arms. I wrap my arms around his chest and he traces small circles in my back.

"I wish she would just leave me alone. That's all I won't!" I choke out.

"I think that you wish she would have never left you," he says to me.

"I wish she was still my mother. The good one I had at the age of four," I admit to him, because there is absolutely just something about him that makes me want to admit everything I don't want to admit and tell him my deepest secret, spill my guts. I tighten my grip on him. "Promise you won't leave me. Promise me you'll never change like that."

"I'm not going anywhere, hyena. I wanna stay here."

Then the full force of what I just asked him to promise me hits me in the face like a ton of bricks. "You can't promise me that. If I have to go with her. . . I'll end up leaving you. I can't hurt anyone like that. Especially you."

"Brooke-"

"No, Christopher."

"Don't do that," he says more fierce fully than I expected that it take me a way back. "Absolutely not. Your not giving up. I won't allow it."

I look up from his chest at his face. He's so much taller than me I have to crane my neck to see him. "Jinx," I shake my head. "You don't know what you're saying; Lord, you don't know what you're getting yourself into!" I am sure that he thinks I'm hysterical and going crazy by now. I have started to make those awful hiccup sounds that sound like I'm choking, since I'm crying.

"I'm saying that if you honestly think your going with that lady then I want you to at the very least have a good summer; I'd like a good summer, too. You're the only friend I have ever had here at this awful place; I want to spend a lot of time with you."

I shake my head violently.

"No. No, no, no," I mutter through my teeth. "No, no, n-" , I'm cut off by him saying to me, "Lord, Do you ever shut up? I'm not going anywhere."

"Jinx, are you sure? Because you can't be sure. I'm super aggravating, and I have, like, breakdowns some times. You shouldn't have to deal with me. You shouldn't what to! What if my dad doesn't win custody and I end up with her or- or worse a foster home!"

He nods and I lay my head on his chest. I listen to his heart beat for a minute before I speak. "Okay," I mumble. "I'm scared," I tell him honestly. Then, I realize what I've said to him again. I just keep pounding the boy. I don't want to tell him the real reason I'm scared is because I don't want to hurt anyone, defiantly not him, so I tell him, "I don't want to go with her."

I can't let us get too close. If I do then he will hurt, and I will hurt, and I just can't...

"I'm not," he says.

And I absolutely, positively don't see how he isn't.