“Tell your dad how you feel.”
“Sorry?”
Mom stands, brushing herself down and fixing her hair, preparing herself to head out there and pretend things aren’t a fucking mess. “You don’t think he can get better, right? You want nothing to do with him. Us.” Her voice cracks. “So go in there and tell him how you feel. What do you have to lose?”
I’m in a daze as I walk slowly toward Dad’s room under Mom’s instructions. I’ve never talked to her so honestly before; I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone like that before. The doctor is leaving as I reach the door to Dad’s room. “Family?”
“Son.”
“Your father is very lucky,” he says, patting me on the back as he passes.
Lucky.
Dad doesn’t say anything as I enter the room and take a seat beside the bed. The machines he’s hooked up to beep rhythmically, letting me know that somewhere in there, there is a heart.
The silence is deafening. It makes me think of Aurora and how she’d never stand for it. She’d fill it with something ridiculous and her cheeks would flush pink and I’d watch her, soaking up every single drop of her sunshine. I wish I hadn’t answered Ethan’s call. I wish I was playing tetherball or football or something, anything, in the place where I don’t have to deal with this.
“You look like you have something to say,” Dad says, his voice hoarse. He looks like shit; he’s bruised and scratched, wires everywhere.
I have so much to say. Every bad thought I’ve ever had about myself. Every risk I didn’t take because I was scared. Every conversation I cut short, too scared for people to see the real me. Every relationship I didn’t chase because I didn’t want to mess up and let someone down.
“You’ve broken our family and I don’t know how we can fix it.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long time and the man I know to be angry and bitter looks small beneath the harsh hospital lights. “I know.”
“For a really long time I hoped that the dad I loved was in there somewhere, trapped, but there. I don’t think he is anymore. You’re not the man who taught me to skate or ride a bike. I don’t know you.”
“I know.”
“I’m scared to have the things I want in case I fuck them up, because you’ve made me believe I’m a fuck up—and I hate you for that. I hate you for being everywhere and nowhere all at once.”
“I understand.”
“You’re like a weed. There isn’t one aspect of my life you haven’t implanted and ruined. I couldn’t even get through the summer without you corrupting it. I don’t speak to you. I don’t even read your messages anymore and you’re just there in my head constantly.”
It comes out fast and frantic, but I mean every word and I’m pissed at myself for holding them in for so long. My chest eases with every syllable, the weight holding me down for so many years lightening.
“You deserve better, son.”
He looks so weak in the bed, battered and bruised, listening to me vent. “Yeah. I do. So does Mom. Sort your shit out.”
Dad doesn’t shout after me as I stand and leave. My body works on autopilot, muscle memory kicking in to get me as far away from him as possible. Ethan can say I’m burying my head in the sand, but I’ve been more honest with Dad in one conversation than anyone has been with him in years. Our family is broken right now and papering over the cracks doesn’t help any of us.
I don’t register what’s happening or where I’m going until my truck stops in front of my house on Maple Ave. The familiarity is an immediate comfort and I decide to have a break and process before getting back on the road to camp.
The door isn’t locked when I try it and when it swings open, the last thing I expect to find is Henry’s bare ass while he’s balls deep in someone on the living room couch.
Chapter Sixteen
RUSS
The front door swings open, revealing a now fully-dressed Henry; I push off from my truck, avoiding eye contact as I walk past my friend into our house.
I’ve seen Henry’s ass before, it’s kind of a given when you’re on a hockey team. Locker rooms and sharing hotel rooms; it’s nothing new.
That was new.
“I’m sorry, man,” I say, throwing myself into the recliner and not onto the couch I’ll never be sitting on ever again. “I should have given you the heads up; I didn’t think you’d be here. Is your guest okay? I didn’t see her if that makes her feel better.”