Alec
I wake up to my phone ringing, and when I look at the time, I see it’s already ten in the morning. I rarely sleep in this late, but between the late night at the club and then last night at the music festival, I was exhausted. The phone stops ringing then starts again. When I look at my caller ID, I see it’s Lacie. She’s probably calling to see how the concert was.
“Hey, Lacie.”
“Alec.” When she doesn’t say anything else, I’m immediately on alert.
“Lacie, is everything okay?”
“Oh God, Alec,” she cries out. “No, everything is not okay. Your father has been in an accident.”
I sit up, trying to focus on what she’s saying, but my entire world feels like it’s being shaken.
“He didn’t make it,” she adds, and I was wrong, my world hasn’t been shaken—it’s been blown to pieces.
“What happened?” I whisper, the lump in my throat too big to allow me to speak properly.
“It’s all my fault. I told him I was hungry.” She sobs through the phone. “We hadn’t been by the store, so we didn’t have anything to make for breakfast.” She cries harder. “He offered to go pick us up breakfast at the diner. The paramedics believe he had a heart attack while he was driving, and by the time the ambulance got there it was too late.”
“Fuck!” I feel the burning behind my lids and know I’m crying. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the hospital. I-I don’t know what to do,” she admits softly.
“I’ll be right there.” I jump out of bed and quickly throw some clothes on. I step out of my room and the house is quiet. My hand presses to Lexi’s door to tell her what happened, but I quickly back away, instead heading down the hall to the living room. Chase is passed out on the couch, and I consider waking him up but don’t. If I have to say the words out loud then they’ll be true. My dad will really be dead. And right now, I’m still in denial.
The entire drive to the hospital, I come up with a million different scenarios where my father is still alive—from Lacie being misinformed, to my dad playing a sick joke on me. But deep down I know none of the scenarios are going to pan out. I can feel the heaviness in my chest. My dad is gone.
I arrive at the hospital and find Lacie sitting in a waiting room chair by herself. Her head is resting in her hands, her quiet sobs racking her body. Sitting next to her, I slide my arm around the top of her shoulders. She looks up, her eyes swollen and her cheeks blotchy.
“Oh, Alec,” she cries. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. If I had known that—”
I shake my head and pull her into my embrace. “Don’t do that. It’s not your fault. People leave the house every day. Don’t blame yourself.” I see this happen all the time. A husband leaves the coffee pot on by mistake, or a wife forgets to turn a burner off. The house burns down, and they blame themselves, blame each other. It doesn’t matter, though, who did what. It happened, and no matter who you point your fingers at, it’s not going to change the outcome.
“They said they’re doing an autopsy to confirm how he died, and once they’re done…” She can’t finish her sentence, her cries now coming too hard for words to form. She holds me tighter, and I rub her arm in a soothing gesture in an attempt to comfort her.
When she finally stops crying, I notice her breathing has evened out. I dip my head slightly and see she’s cried herself to sleep. The nurse sitting at the desk across from me gives me a sad smile.
“Sometimes our bodies and minds just need a small break,” she says. I nod in understanding. I haven’t shed a single tear since I arrived, and I’m almost positive I’m still in denial. My mind and body are numb, refusing to acknowledge my dad is gone.
Instead of calling anyone, I drop my head back against the wall and just sit here while Lacie sleeps. When she wakes up, we’re going to have to deal with this. We’ll have to speak to the medical examiner, have my dad’s body moved to a funeral home, then, we’ll have to plan a fucking funeral. We’ll have to tell each and every one of our family members, friends, and his employees that he’s dead. But for right now, while Lacie is asleep, I can pretend for a little longer that my dad isn’t gone.
Lacie eventually wakes up, and when she does, for a brief moment, I can see it in her eyes that she’s confused. She’s wondering if this was all a horrible nightmare. She’s looking around and wondering why she’s in my arms and not my dad’s. She’s disoriented, curious as to why we’re sitting in a hospital waiting room. I can see the moment when she remembers. Her throat bobs as she swallows thickly, her top teeth biting down on her bottom lip. Her eyes widen and fill with devastation, and her head tilts slightly to the left in a silent attempt of asking me if what she’s remembering is indeed real.