Mateo Caputo: Unseen Underground Read online

  Mateo Caputo

  Copyright © 2021 Abigail Davies.

  All rights reserved.

  Published: Abigail Davies 2021

  www.abigaildaviesauthor.com

  No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form without written consent from the author. Except in the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a piece of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, places or events are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and have not purchased it for your use only, then you should return it to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Editing: Paige Sayer

  Proofreading: Judy’s Proofreading

  Cover Design: Pink Elephant Designs

  Formatting: Pink Elephant Designs

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Abigail Davies

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  MATEO

  “Mateo Caputo?” I glanced up from my English workbook at my name being called. All it took was one look into the eyes of Miss Redren to know why she’d come to my first class of the day. I hadn’t even been in school for an hour.

  Her brows rose, the sympathy in her eyes shining bright. I hated that look. It was the reason I didn’t tell anyone what happened at home, not since that first time when I was six and they’d sent someone out to the apartment to check on me. Mom had gone into a tailspin which meant a month-long depression that she medicated with alcohol. I’d made a mistake back then, one that I wouldn’t repeat.

  Without looking at any of the other students in my class, I grabbed my things, stood, and made my way to her. Whispers echoed around me, but I didn’t pay them any attention. We were a collection of sixteen-year-olds, but they’d never truly know what life was like for me at home.

  I walked a pace behind Miss Redren as we headed toward the main office. She beelined for the receiver placed on her desk and sighed. “It’s your mom, she said she needs to talk to you.”

  My stomach flipped as I slowly reached for it. For a millisecond, I hesitated. What would happen if I didn’t answer? What would she do if I ignored the call and did what a normal sixteen-year-old did and went to each of his classes.

  I shook my head. It didn’t bear thinking about what would happen if I didn’t answer. So I took the phone, held it up to my ear, and asked, “Mom?”

  “Where are you?” she slurred out.

  My heart raced in my chest. She was drunk—again. “I’m at school.” I closed my eyes, feeling a tension headache coming on. She’d called the school, so she already knew where I was, but that didn’t occur to her because she was too out of her mind. Like always.

  “You have to come home.” I winced as I heard the screaming baby in the background. It had been a month since my mom had given birth to my little brother, and since then I hadn’t done a full day at school. “He won’t shut the fuck up.”

  I huffed out of breath and let my head drop back. I couldn’t keep going like this. I couldn’t come into school each day worried about the baby she’d had but didn’t want. I couldn’t keep trying to be like everyone else my own age because I wasn’t like them. I had responsibilities that I hadn’t asked for.

  Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I stared back at Miss Redren. I knew this was the end, and from the way her brows furrowed and shoulders slumped, so did she. I had no doubt she fielded more calls from my mom than she actually told me about.

  “I’ll be home in twenty,” I told my mom down the line, then handed the receiver back to Miss Redren.

  “You’re leaving again?” she asked, her voice small and tentative. There was no judgment in her tone, but I knew she was disappointed. When I’d first started high school, I’d been at the top of my classes, but now, I was barely passing. It’d take too much work to catch up, and if I was honest, I knew I didn’t have the time. Add to that the fact that the weekend job I was working wasn’t enough to cover the cost of milk and diapers, I felt like I was falling into a dark hole with no flashlight to show me the way out.

  My mom had brought another life into this world. A helpless baby that she wouldn’t take care of. But I wouldn’t let him have the life I’d had. If I was doing this, then I would do it properly. I would make sure he’d finish school. I’d make sure he wasn’t scared to go home each day. I’d make sure he was safe.

  “Yeah.” I swallowed, getting ready to say what I knew was inevitable, but her wide eyes stopped me. She could sense it, and right then, I couldn’t think about it. I had to do what was right for my little brother, even if that meant sacrificing what I wanted. “I…” I backed away a step. “I’ll see you.” It was open ended, not giving the truth of the situation, but deep down I knew what I had to do.

  As I walked out of the high school I’d attended for the last two years, I turned, taking one last look at the building. The steps leading to the main door were empty. Silence surrounded me, and for a second I wondered whether I could make it work. Maybe I could ask for help.

  No.

  I shook my head and spun around. I wouldn’t ask for help, not again. I could handle this. I could take care of my little brother. I could be there for my mom and make her better. I could make her see that this wasn’t the life she should live. I’d be the support she never had.

  My head was a whirr of thoughts as I hightailed it home. Music was blasting as I was ten feet from our apartment on the first floor, mixed in with the wailing cries from the currently unnamed baby. She hadn’t even bothered to call him anything but “boy.” Yet another reason I was needed at home and not at school.

  I pushed inside, screwing my face up at the smoke filling the room, and darted right to the baby.

  Strangers filled the apartment, people I didn’t know, and I knew then that I couldn’t waver anymore. I couldn’t leave this baby alone with her while I was at school all day. I needed something else, I had to be the adult in a situation that I never should have been.

  I had to drop out of school.

  CHAPTER 1

  LUNA

  I pulled the last box from the rental car and spun around, determined to start a new chapter in my life. It wasn’t until I was halfway across the makeshift parking lot that I halted on the concrete ground littered with weeds sprouting through the cracks.

  It was scary, for more reasons than I could comprehend.

  I was eighteen, fresh out of high school, and with what most people would assume a limited life experience.

  Most people were wrong though.

  Very wrong.

  I’d witnessed and been part of more things than anyone could dream of.

  I’d watched my parents take so many drugs that they’d had to have their stomachs pumped.

  I’d witnessed them overdosing and tried to bring them back from the brink.

  I’d been both the victim and
a perpetrator of theft.

  I’d lied.

  I’d cheated.

  But it was so that I could survive. Each day had been a war I waged, not sure where my next meal would come from. And now we were all here, moving into a new apartment, taking the first step in our new lives.

  My gaze drifted to the third floor and to the door in the middle of the walkway. The green paint was peeling, one of the numbers was upside down. All it needed was a missing screw, a job Dad has said he would do, but I still had my doubts.

  Both Mom and Dad were on one of their clean spurts, no drugs, no alcohol, no parties in the middle of the night. It had been three months so far—the longest they’d ever gone—but that didn’t mean I was getting my hopes up. I’d done that once when I was twelve, and I’d promised myself I never would again after they relapsed.

  I just hoped this time was different.

  “Hey, lady!” a small voice shouted. “Why are you standing there?”

  I glanced down in the direction of the voice and raised a brow as a boy stopped next to me, turning to look where I was. His dark-brown hair was a little long to suit his face, his straight nose led up to knowing eyes. Eyes that seemed to grasp me and not let go. He couldn’t have been more than seven, but the way he stood told me he didn’t live the life of a normal seven-year-old. He was wise beyond his years, something that I understood.

  “I’m looking at my apartment door,” I told him, shuffling a step closer.

  “Why?” He tilted his head back and stared at me, waiting for an answer. But I wasn’t sure what I was meant to tell him. I didn’t know why I was standing here staring at my door, but what I did know was that I wasn’t ready to go into my apartment just yet. I needed a minute—just a little time to collect my thoughts.

  “Because…” I bit down on my bottom lip, glancing around the building. The apartment building had four floors, but it wasn’t one of those fancy ones that you saw on the TV shows. No, this was the kind that most low-income families lived in. The entire building was like a giant L shape with all of the stairwells and hallways leading to the apartments outside. You only had to stand outside the front door and you could see almost the entire block.

  It was different, quieter, at least, so far anyway.

  I couldn’t remember ever living anywhere but in the chaos I’d been brought up in, but now we were here, ready to start new lives. I just wasn’t sure whether to be on my guard or let the hope that was desperate to bubble up inside me come to the surface.

  It was only toward the end of my senior year that my parents had gotten clean again, and instead of me preparing to move away from home to go to the college I’d gotten a scholarship for, I was getting ready for us all to move.

  I wasn’t sure whose idea it was at first, but once it was out on the table, we all knew it was the right thing to do. Moving away from the area where the temptation was always there would help not only them, but me too.

  It wasn’t like I didn’t know my mom and dad loved me, in fact, I knew they did. But it was hard to believe it when I would watch them destroying themselves all for a small bag of powder. They’d tried their hardest though, and more times than not, only one of them would be completely sober, but this time, they both were.

  We knew no one here, it was a true fresh start, and now all that was left to do was move in and start our new lives. I shook my head and held in a laugh. I was eighteen, an age where I was meant to be moving away from my parents, and yet, here I was, grateful that they’d moved with me.

  The boy poked me in the side, pulling me out of my own thoughts, and I looked back down at him.

  “I think I want to paint my door,” I told him, deciding that I needed to distract myself.

  “What color?” he asked, seeming genuinely curious.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. What color do you think?”

  “Blue.” He grinned up at me, showcasing a missing front tooth. “You can never go wrong with blue.”

  I tilted my head and glanced back up at my door, imagining it painted dark blue. “I think you may be right.” I paused, smiling down at him, the first genuine smile I’d had since I’d gotten my acceptance letter. “What’s your name?”

  He pushed his shoulders back, puffed out his chest, and announced, “Riccardo. But my little sister calls me Cardo.” He rolled his eyes, coming across way older than he had to be.

  “Nice to meet you, Cardo.” I crouched down, placed the box next to me, and held my hand out to him. He didn’t hesitate to grasp my palm and shake it with all of his might. “How old are you?”

  “I’ll be eight in seventy-three days.” I grinned, remembering a time when I wouldn’t say how old I was but instead would tell people when I would be turning another year older. It somehow made you feel more accomplished than simply saying your actual age.

  “Nice.” I let go of his hand and stood. “Any plans to celebrate?”

  He shrugged, turning back to face the apartment building, his gaze drifting to the wide-open door on the first floor. “Not yet. I’ll probably just watch cartoons and eat cereal.”

  “Sounds like the perfect day to me, Cardo.”

  His head whipped around so fast he stumbled to the side. “Yeah?”

  “Yep,” I replied, popping the p on the end. “I wish I could watch cartoons and eat cereal.”

  “You’re an adult.” His voice sounded so confused. “You can do whatever you want.”

  I didn’t answer him because I didn’t want to burst his bubble. It was the same bubble I’d grown up with, one where I imagined being an adult and getting away from the life I was raised in, but I somehow found myself glued in place with no out in sight.

  “True,” I answered instead, trying not to think about it. I huffed out a breath, deciding that there was no time like now to go up to my new apartment. “Well…I better head on up there,” I murmured, not sure if I was talking to myself or Cardo.

  The silence stretched between us, neither of us moving from the spots we were in, and I wondered if he didn’t want to go home either. What was running through his little mind? What was waiting for him behind his apartment door?

  “Cardo?” a small voice called a second before a little girl appeared in the doorway to the open apartment door. She held on to a small stuffed bunny, grasping it tightly to her chest, her face unsure whether she should step outside of not.

  “That’s my sister,” Cardo said, his voice low. He took a step away from me, his attention fully focused on her and what I could only describe as bed hair. “Coming, Chiara.” He lifted his hand as he glanced back at me. “Bye…” He frowned, probably trying to remember what my name was, but I hadn’t told him.

  “Luna,” I whispered. “My name is Luna.”

  He nodded. “Bye, Luna.”

  “Bye, Cardo.”

  I didn’t move my gaze off him as he walked over to his apartment and took his sister's hand. Her lips pulled up into a huge grin, her eyes lighting up, and I knew he was a hero in her eyes. You didn’t have to ask to know he took care of her; you could see it clear as day.

  He closed the door behind them, the click of the lock ringing out, and that was my signal to go up to my apartment too. I’d wasted enough time standing outside, now it was my turn to go inside and face whatever waited for me.

  I wiggled my nose as I walked up the stairs leading up to the third floor, trying not to think about all the things that happened in this open stairwell. The stench of urine burned my nostrils, and I cursed myself for not wearing a scarf this morning. Not because it was cold, but because it would protect me from the stink invading my nose.

  I shivered as I made it to my floor and looked down at where I’d been standing with Cardo. It was the perfect line of sight to see my apartment. My hand grasped on to the door handle, my chest heaving on a deep breath, and I finally opened it, walking into what was meant to be my safe haven.

  Dad stood in the hallway, staring down at the few boxes of things we owned. It wasn�
�t much, but at least it was ours.

  “That’s the last of them,” I told Dad, placing the last box on the floor. He focused on me, a giant grin on his face that seemed to be permanently stuck there.

  Something rumbled low in my stomach at the sight of it, a dread that I couldn’t explain. I was trying to be hopeful, I really was, but I just couldn’t manage it. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, exactly like it always had.

  My gaze tracked Dad as he moved toward Mom and wrapped his arm around her waist. I couldn’t help but stare at them as they looked at each other. Their love was clear, not just with the way they gazed at each other, but with their actions. They may have been addicts for as long as I could remember, but they’d always been together, tackling everything as a team.

  They were solid as a rock, and maybe that was why I’d stayed. Maybe them still being together built hope in me that I hadn’t even realized was there.

  “I’m…” I cleared my throat as the words got stuck, gaining both of their attention. Mom moved some of her dark-brown hair that was cut in line with her chin from her face as she gave me her attention. “I’m gonna go and unpack.”

  “Okay.” Mom smiled, the simple gesture saying so much more than any of her words could. It told me she was sorry, but also glad she was here. It told me that she knew what she’d put me through and that she was trying harder to not do it anymore. It was an unspoken apology, one that I wouldn’t fully acknowledge, because I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to continue on the path I was trying to create so that I became nothing like them.

  I loved my parents, but I had to be the complete opposite of them. I couldn’t let myself fall down that rabbit hole, which was why I still hadn’t attended any kind of party. The kids in my senior class were always trying to get me to come to the latest blowout, but I always refused, knowing that if the temptation was there, I had the kind of genes that I wasn’t sure would be able to stop me.