The Imposter by Marin Montgomery (ebooks online reader txt) 📕

I bet he was a classmate. Unless he was from another school district, which is common with so many small towns. But if they went together, maybe there’s a picture of them at a dance or prom. First thing tomorrow, I’ll do some digging to see if I can locate any old yearbooks or photos.

Fighting exhaustion, I’m a lousy combination of nerves and contemplation.

Now that I’ve moved the red cooler inside, it’s safely tucked underneath a pile of clothes and toiletries. Right now, it contains the perfect solution for my current state of mind.

With quivering hands, I manhandle the bottle out of its hiding spot. After unscrewing the cap, I drink it straight, not bothering to hunt for a chaser. It burns through the lump in my trachea and settles next to the knot in my stomach.

I used to think I’d inherited my father’s alcoholism, but it looks like I can’t lay blame there anymore. During my college days, I started drinking to battle a combination of depression, loneliness, and isolation. As much as I’d wanted to disappear from here, it was hard being in a new state and not knowing anyone. It also helped numb the pain at losing him.

By the second semester, I had flunked out, choosing to either party with my newfound friends or drink by myself while they were in class. After I got arrested for public intoxication and then, another time, woke up naked in a fraternity with no clothes on and no recollection of the night before, I knew my downward spiral needed to pause. I ended up transferring to community college to get my grades up so I could finish my bachelor’s. During law school, I managed to keep my drinking to a minimum, immersing myself in the law’s intricacies and studying, my new addiction.

Until about six months ago, I was able to have a glass of wine or a cocktail and stop at one.

But then I fell off the wagon, drowning in my unhappiness.

And one became three, and three became seven . . .

A loud roar snaps me back to reality, and staring down at my hands, I find myself in the darkened room, barefoot and sitting cross-legged, against my childhood bed.

Swiveling my head, I realize it’s the sound of my mother’s tailpipe, clunky and choking for air. When I glance down, the bottle in my hand is empty, and my tongue wags in the opening for one last drop.

I want more.

I paw through my luggage but can’t find another bottle.

In my lethargy, I’m trying to determine if I should ask my mother to take me to the gas station. I could pretend I’m craving something sweet.

I could drink wine. Then it wouldn’t be a total lie.

With a frustrated sigh, I search for my car keys with difficulty because I haven’t turned the lights in the room on in my impenetrable fog.

After I give up that useless hunt, I hear the front door slam downstairs, signaling her arrival. I’m curious to know where she went tonight. I stare at the digital clock on the nightstand, and the red numbers swim in front of my eyes.

Blearily, I rub them.

Frozen in place, I listen for my mother’s usual bedtime routine, consoled on some level it hasn’t changed. For some reason, I find it comforting after all these years.

The faucet creaks on. She’s washing her face.

Then something drips; the pipes still leak.

Her medicine cabinet squeals. Now she’s applying her nighttime moisturizer and lotion.

Then one last flush of the toilet.

Calming, like a bedtime story, it always has the same ending. My mother’s gliding into bed and her own dreams. She’s not going to leave me behind, only slip away for the evening. She won’t ever leave me the way I left her.

I drag myself into bed and slide beneath my covers. I used to be a heavy sleeper, but getting to that stage where I drift off—that’s tricky. I’m at a point of physical and mental exhaustion and should be dead tired, which I am, but unable to get out of my own head, I toss and turn, the fitted sheet a straitjacket as it bundles me in its cotton arms.

I’ve still got to acclimate to my new surroundings. I’m not used to sleeping without the air at a stable sixty-eight degrees, and being upstairs, this room’s stifling hot.

This house was built eons before central air-conditioning was a thing, and window units are all we have, and for some reason, there’s no longer one in my room.

Even with the window open, the outside air isn’t moving, as if it took its last gasp before it reached the entrance. My back’s drenched with sweat, my skin sticking uncomfortably to the tiny tank top I’m wearing.

As I’m about to go downstairs and try the couch, the click of the doorknob stops my tossing and turning, and I lie motionless, wondering if I imagined someone at the door.

A creaky hinge signals my imagination hasn’t run away from me.

My mother doesn’t come upstairs much, and my automatic assumption is that she’s checking on me. The pitter-patter of uneven footsteps crosses the room, and when she walks over the rough floorboards, the hardwood gives a distinct creak.

Pressing my eyes shut, I pretend to be asleep, like when I was a child and the tooth fairy would come to trade a few dollars for my tiny teeth.

Her weight settles beside me on the bed, and the mattress sags temporarily underneath us. Heavy breathing makes her sound like she just ran a marathon, or maybe she’s overheated, just like me.

I doubt climbing the stairs helped her discomfort.

A hand reaches out to touch the back of my neck.

Suddenly ice cold, I’m now the opposite of feverish. An ominous feeling settles deep in the pit of my stomach.

The fingers creep down my shoulder, past the gift I gave myself shortly after my twenty-first birthday, a small tattoo of a butterfly.

Signifying new beginnings, it’s a reminder of how far I’ve come.

Now the spindly lumps are trailing down my