Tonic

This story was originally written for a fiction contest called "Glass". All submissions needed to be a maximum of 500 words long and had to involve glass of some kind. This is what I came up with. Enjoy!

                                                             Tonic

 “Where’ve you been?”

I hear the soft clink of glass meeting granite, and I stop immediately in front of the kitchen doorway.

Cringing, I turn my attention to dark figure hovering by the kitchen sink. She wasn’t facing me, but the light above the sink illuminated her face in the window before her. Disheveled brown hair framed her sunken face. Cold, dark eyes with bruise-like circles underneath glared at me from the glass. I turn my eyes away from the window to avoid her gaze, and lower them to meet the two bottles of Bombay Sapphire on the counter.

“I was studying with Jeannette for our A.P. Biology midterm,” I murmur. My eyes focus on the gin. The bottle closest to her was almost empty, and the second hadn’t been opened yet.

“Liar.”

She turns around clumsily, the glass in her hand spilling over onto the rug at her feet. Using her free hand to steady herself against the counter, she raises her glass pointing a finger toward me. More gin splatters to the floor. “You don’t think I can’t tell when you’re lying?! You were at Jason’s you little skank.”

I step forward “Mom,” I say calmly, reaching out toward her, “I told you this morning I had a study session. Give me the glass.”

She recoils back as if I’ve slapped her. She slams her glass into the sink and it shatters with a pop.

“You know what? You’re just like your father! You lie, you sneak around, and you’re stupid enough to think I don’t know about it!”  I stand there in silence, letting the words like jagged shards dig their way into my skin. I move toward the counter.

“Mom, you’re drunk,”

“And you’re a giant disappointment!” she spits at me.

 I explode.

I grab the almost empty bottle of Bombay by its neck, and bring it down hard on the counter’s edge. Blue glass fragments shatter in a starburst over the floor. The alcohol sprays in all directions, soaking the socks on my feet. I grimace as the cold liquid seeps through the gray cotton. My mother grabs the other bottle and pulls it tightly against her chest with a surprised whimper. Her eyes reflect nothing but intoxicated shame. I point what was left of the bottle at her.

“Dad’s gone! He left. Mom, look at me. Me? I’m still here.”

Without a word, she staggers out of the kitchen, hugging her gin.

Standing among the jagged edges of broken glass, I stare at the bottle neck in my trembling hand. I peer at the small, brown-haired girl in the window looking back at me. She has the same dark eyes as my mother, though her eyes aren’t defeated yet.