“Yeah.” I point toward the motionless door. “This waiting game sucks. If there’s something you need me to do, just tell me.”
Miller juts up his lip, his brows raised with surprise. “Cool. Thanks.” His expression has him looking totally his age.
“I do have to ask though, how old are you?”
Miller rolls his eyes. “I’m twenty-one.”
Now it’s my turn to be shocked. “Holy shit, no way.”
He folds his arms across his chest. “Come on, get it out. I know. I know.”
Here I thought the kid was maybe still in high school, and it turns out he’s older than I am.
“You must have good genes,” Claire chimes in.
The latest talk seemed to wake her up a bit from her dozing in and out.
My heart nearly lurches out of my chest when the door we’ve stared at for hours now opens. A stern-faced man with gray hair walks through, a clipboard clutched in his grasp.
I desperately try to read his face. To determine what he’s going to say before he says it, in some pathetic attempt to brace myself for whatever the outcome is.
On one hand, I could be fatherless. The man I only just met could be dead as a result of a bullet from his own brother. I’ve gone my entire life thinking my dad wanted nothing to do with me or my mother, I guess having him in my life for a few days is better than nothing. He’ll be dead but I’ll know that I was wanted—that he didn’t abandon me, and that he was a decent man.
On the other hand, he could very well be alive. My dad could be living, breathing, and still potentially capable of being in my life. There’s so much left that we’ve yet to do. Endless firsts between a father and a son—things I never got to do with him because of our weird circumstances. There’s still time to make up for all of the lost years between us. To take back what was robbed from us.
I hold my breath and wait for something, anything to rid me of this hell I’ve been locked in.
The doctor glances anxiously at each of us, like he’s not sure which person to focus on for this news. “Mr. Bane did not make it through surgery.”
He’sdead?I must not have heard him correctly. Maybe the excessive gunfire and explosions fucked with my ability to hear, not to mention my pounding heartbeat thudding loudly in my ears.
I jump out of my seat, Claire joining me at my side. Josey and Miller stand huddled around this newcomer who wields more information than we do.
“He’s dead?” Miller asks the question all of us have on our minds.
The doctor nods, a formal sadness on his face. “I’m sorry.”
A collective silence fills the room.
“The bullet damaged his ribs and nicked his lung. We were able to remove it and repair what we could, but the damage was too extensive. We couldn’t get the bleeding under control.” He shifts his glance around again, still uncertain who he should be speaking directly to.
He continues to say words, but it all becomes a blur.
I reach to grab onto Claire’s hand, allowing her touch to calm my aching heart. I didn’t realize how incredibly scared I was to lose this man. I thought there was hope. I was sure that he would make it through this. That one day, this would fade into our past. But that’s not how the world works. No, time and time again, it reassures me that bad things happen to good people.
My chest tightens, strings pulling and tearing at a loss so fresh. It was one thing when I thought he didn’t want to be a part of my life, to think he didn’t care. But to know he did, and to lose him, it hurts worse than I could have imagined. Tears well in my eyes but I force them away. I will not break. Not here. Not now. Not like this.
It can’t be possible, but it is.
He’s dead.
My dad is dead.