He stared at me for a long time. “The world should have given you every opportunity. They should have seen that different makes you beautiful.”
I winced and turned away from him. “I’m not beautiful, Dad. This is life-and-death. I choose life for you. Every. Single. Time.”
His stare was cavernous as he nodded, and then he disappeared down the hall.
The next morning, I found him dead in the bathtub. The note he wrote read:
You’re beautiful. I choose death so you can live. I won’t tell you to stop working with them. I know you’re in too deep. Make me proud, Katalina. Show them you were meant to stand out or get out from under them.”
3
Rome
Rome,
My father passed away three weeks ago, hence the new address.
Not that you care. Not that you’ll write if you read this. But I had to tell someone. Is it selfish to worry that he was my last hope in connecting with this world? Ever since he passed, I only feel something when I think of him. The pain in knowing he took his own life instead of letting Parkinson’s take it for him is crushing.
Did you know he did it just because of me? Because he didn’t want me to see Jimmy anymore to get his meds.
I would have done anything for him.
Any. Single. Thing.
And now I have nothing to do because he’s gone.
Nothing to feel either.
They placed me with a foster family, and I thought I’d care that the man who claims he wants to be my father visits me in the middle of the night.
But I don’t feel a thing, Rome.
And I wonder, can you get better, can you start to feel again with nothing to live for? Or do you just continue living . . . for what . . . I don’t know.
Katie
PS Cleo lived for power. Or maybe love. She died because she lost them both.
PPS I don’t read much of anything anymore.
Igot her letter way too late. The date was postmarked months back, and the edges of the envelope were bent and covered with mud.
Still, I recited the address as I pounded it into my phone and drove straight there, hoping to find her, hoping to find the man who must have been taking advantage of her.
I banged on the door with the chain I took with me at times wrapped around my knuckles.
A tall skinny man with dark circles around his eyes answered. “Damn, calm down. What you want?”
“I’m looking for Katie.”
“I didn’t tell her she could have anyone over,” he drawled.
It was all the confirmation I needed. Taking a step forward, I swung at him, and the chain links shattered his jaw. He flailed back, screaming in surprise. Clattering came from a hallway behind him.
Katie stood there, a ripped black shirt hanging from her shoulder and jeans that showed too much of her waistline hugged her hips. She’d filled out and lost weight too. Her high cheekbones were hollowed out, just like the gaze she now shot at me.
“You need to leave.” Her voice was raspier than I remembered and completely devoid of emotion.