Life's A Cappella by Yessi Smith

turned away before he could read what I was sure was written all over my face— I loved him.
    We drank to her in silence, each of us absorbed in our own thoughts. But after No Woman No Cry, Tonya decided it was time for us to dance and told me to turn Bob Marley off. She helped me to my feet once Don Omar started to sing from her phone. She took the man’s position and held me by the waist, guiding us in a fast paced dance that consisted mainly of us swinging our hips wildly.
    Not to be outdone, Trent turned me to him, and in his arms I danced. He twirled me and even attempted some poorly executed dips. But I laughed. I felt freer than I had in days. I tried to hold onto that happiness so that I could revisit it when the sorrow began to creep in again. I tried not to think about my apartment, which was once my fortress, but now felt like a prison. I tried not to think about all that I had lost in the last ten days. Ten days, that’s all the time that had passed since Officer Gonz had shown up at Trent’s apartment. Ten days.
    I drew myself away from Trent and searched for my purse. With every step I took towards it, I felt my throat clamp up and my heart beat harder, faster. I closed my eyes as I bent down to pick it up. Inside I would find my salvation. With a quick swallow of two tiny magical pills, my insides would calm. In a few minutes, I would feel absolutely nothing at all, I assured myself as I sipped my wine.
    I could feel Trent’s eyes on my back and saw his disappointment when I turned towards him. I hated the way he looked at me and slowly walked to him. On impulse, I hugged him and waited until he returned the embrace. I looked up at, pleading for him to understand.
    “I need them right now,” I tried to explain. “It’s not a permanent thing. I swear, Trent.”
    Trent shook his head at me, hesitating before speaking to me. “If it was just a couple a day, I wouldn’t be worried. But you’re becoming dependent on them.”
    “One week doesn’t make me an addict.”
    “Erin, your mom—”
    “My mom?” I hissed, interrupting whatever he wanted to say. He had the audacity to speak to me about my mom when his own mom was also an addict. It didn’t matter how long she’d been sober. Once an addict… “You think I’m like my mom?” I didn’t want to hear his response. No, I wanted to laugh or spit at him. I wanted to slap him, but refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much his words had hurt me.
    “That’s not what I meant,” he said through clenched teeth.
    I didn’t respond to him. I just glared at him, daring him to continue talking.
    “Your mom is dead,” he said slowly, watching me intently, but I shrugged my shoulders at his words. I wanted to be indifferent about this whole shit storm I called life. “And while you’re busy hiding from reality, your little sister is in foster care.”
    Shayna, I thought. I’d almost forgotten about her. No, I’d wanted to forget about her, I corrected myself.
    “You have a responsibility to her,” he continued.
    “Don’t talk to me about responsibilities,” I told him as calmly as I could. “You can sit on your perfect little throne with your perfect little family and your perfect little vacations. But don’t you tell me what I have to do.”
    “Perfect?” he scoffed. “That’s right, Erin. My life was perfect and you had such a crappy life,” Trent told me sarcastically. “But this isn’t about me or my family. It’s about you. You can change your name and your address, but you can’t escape your past, especially when it’s still staring you in the face in the present.”
    “Escape my past? Do you even hear yourself?” I shouted at him. “I’m not the one pretending. I know what my mom was. I came to terms with that a long ass time ago. But you? You sit there and pretend your mom is something she’s not.”
    “Don’t bring my mom into this,” Trent said, his voice so low I could hardly hear him.
    “Fine,