Chapter Thirty-Nine
Claire stumbled through the front door, a nauseous Bender hanging onto her for stability. "I swear, if you throw up on me, I will kill you."
John gaged, feeling the vomit rising. "Bathroom." He croaked, rushing with Claire to the toilet to empty his gut.
He felt Claire brushing stray hairs from his forehead, her free hand rubbing little circles on his back. "Mom's gonna kill you." She sighed, right as her mother opened the bathroom door.
"Everything okay in here?" She wrinkled her nose as the smell of vodka and vomit stung her nose. "Oh my…" She grabbed a washcloth, wet it, and held it to John's sweating brow. "What happened?" She asked, lifting her head to look at her daughter as John wretched again.
Claire looked down at her knucklehead of a boyfriend. "Jessica spiked the punch." She took the washcloth from her mother, holding it to John's head when he came up for air.
Her mother shook her head, a glare setting on her face. "That bitch." He growled, flushing the contents of John's stomach before he puked again. "I never liked her."
Claire nodded, slipping John's arms out of his tux, hoping to save it from the vomit and sweat that was pouring from John's body. "He's gonna have to start over, isn't he?" She hated thinking about his struggle to get sober, his temper always seemed to get worse after he was sober for a while.
Clarissa nodded, wiping John's chin off with some toilet paper. "I wish he didn't have go through this." She let John lean into her body, wrapping her arms around his exhausted form.
"Sorry." He whimpered, his body shaking with the alcohol and muscle strain from throwing up.
The girls rubbed his shoulders, trying to comfort him. "I know, baby." Clarissa soothed, slowly lifting him to his feet. "Let's get you to bed."
Claire took his hand, walking with them upstairs. She opened his bedroom door, pulled his bed sheets back and helped him lay down. "Why're you putting him on his side?" She asked her mother, noticing how she placed a wall of pillows along his back and stomach.
"So that he doesn't drown if he throws up in his sleep." She shut his light off as she exited the room. "I wish he hadn't had to live through what he did."
Claire nodded, hugging her mom letting a few tears escape her eyes. "I hate this." She cried. "I hate that he has to deal with this. I hate that Jessica did this to him."
Her mother pulled her away for a moment, the words she spoke hitting her heart like a knife. "He did it to himself." She stated, looking her daughter in the eye. "He's the one who drank the punch and decided to drink more even when he knew that it was spiked."
Claire nodded, turning to face her Dad as he walked down the hallway. "What's wrong?" He asked, glancing into John's room.
Clarissa let her daughter go to her room before telling her husband. "Jessica spiked the punch and John relapsed."
Thomas started for the phone, dialing Jessica's parent's phone number. "Hello, this is Thomas Standish." He paused as the person on the other end spoke. "I'd actually like to bring it to your attention, that your daughter seems to have spiked the punch at the dance tonight." He stopped again waiting for them to finish. "Well, you see, the child we took in a couple months ago, drank quite a lot of it, and is now so drunk that he's incapacitated." He paused again. "Mrs. Jenkins, I would appreciate if you not use that language with me." He took a frustrated breath. "He is not a bad influence on my daughter or yours." His voice started to rise. "Just because he comes from an addictive family, does not make him a drunk." His face started to turn red. "I think it is your daughter who needs to be punished, not ours. Goodbye Katlyn." With that, he slammed the phone down, hoping that Jessica's mother hadn't hung up yet. "I swear to God." He turned to his wife, his rare temper fading. "That woman is the spawn of Satan himself."
There was a harsh cough from John's room, the bark that always came after he sang too long mixed with the roughness from the vodka burning his already raw throat.
Clarissa turned to her husband. "Poor baby."
He nodded, closing John's door. "I just wish that he would learn." He remembered the pock mark on the boy's arm, sighing at the long road ahead of him. "We'll have to help him more."
His wife gave him a sad look. "It's up to him for the most part." She could remember watching her own mother go through the AA program, knowing how hard it would be for a kid. "It'll be a lifelong battle for him, and we're not always going to be there." She hated to admit it, but it was true. "He has to decide to clean up on his own."