Down London Road Read Online Free PDF

attitude for some reason stuck in my side like a knife. And yet there was no one else to blame but myself.
    I chose this path.
    I turned on my side, pulling the duvet up to my chin. I didn’t think I was unhappy.
    I didn’t know if I was happy, though.
    I supposed it didn’t matter as long as the end result was that Cole was happy. Our mum was pretty rubbish at being a mum – and fourteen years ago I’d promised myself to watch out for my baby brother. As long as he grew up with self-worth and I had the means to get him whatever he needed to start out right in life, that was all that mattered.



3
    Staring at the electricity bill in frustration, I decided I’d have to look at it again when I wasn’t so tired. I’d had a few hours of sleep before I had to get up for Cole in the morning, which I always did because I liked to see him off to school. And then I’d come home and spent the day cleaning the flat, rousing Mum long enough to help her get washed and dressed, and then I’d left her watching some daft talk show while I went off to do the food shopping.
    I squinted at the electricity bill. I doubted I’d be able to figure it out; I could never understand how the tariffs worked. However they were calculated, they put me out of pocket. ‘Assholey scumsuckers,’ I hissed, throwing the bill on the coffee table and ignoring the startled look from Cole, who was still wearing his school uniform. Ever since he got old enough to start emulating me, I’d watched my language around him. I hated slipping up.
    If I pretended I hadn’t said it, then maybe he would too.
    I flopped back on the couch and closed my eyes against the light in hopes that it would ease the headache behind my eyes.
    I heard Cole shuffling around, followed by the sound of a drawer being opened seconds before something small landed on my chest. I peeled my eyes open and glanced down at the tiny missile.
    Nicorette Gum.
    I felt my mouth quirk up at the corner and looked up at Cole from under my lashes as he stared down at me. ‘I don’t need the gum any more.’
    Cole gave me the grunt and shrug that were becoming all too familiar this year. ‘You swore a lot when you were trying to quit smoking.’
    I arched an eyebrow. ‘I quit over three months ago.’
    He gave me that damn shrug again. ‘Just saying.’
    I didn’t need a cigarette. I needed sleep. Okay, sometimes I really
wanted
a cigarette. The desperation had finally gone – that jittery rawness inside my body where every nerve ending felt like it was screaming at me for a cigarette. I swear I could have ripped someone’s face off for a cigarette during those first few weeks after quitting. I’d like to say that I was motivated to quit smoking because it was the right thing to do. But no. I’d seen some of my friends attempt to quit and had not fancied going through the ordeal of it. I had enough going on in my life without adding squashing an addiction to the list. No, I quit smoking for the one thing in the whole world that meant anything to me, and right now he was folding his tall body back on to the floor, where his own comic book drawings were scattered in front of the television.
    Cole had asked me to quit years ago when he first found out that cigarettes ‘were bad’. I hadn’t done it then because he’d never really pursued the issue, being that he was seven years old and more interested in
Iron Man
than in my bad habits.
    Then a few months ago his health class was shown a pretty disgusting video of the damage smoking did to thelungs and the consequences … such as lung cancer. Now, Cole is a smart kid. It’s not like he didn’t know that smoking killed. Since every cigarette packet had a bold print label over it that said SMOKING KILLS , I’d be pretty worried if he hadn’t known.
    However, I don’t think it had occurred to him until then that smoking could kill
me
. He came home in a belligerent mood and flushed all my cigs. I’d never seen him react so strongly