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Lo rubs the back of his neck. “We’re not going to force her into something, but we’ll…introduce other stuff and see if she likes it.”
It’s not like we haven’t already. She tried soccer and huffed and puffed and then quit.
I sniff and nod at Lo. I know we have to keep trying, especially if it’ll make her school life easier.
Lo asks, “If things—if they get worse, what would happen if we switched her to Ms. Nalah’s class?”
“I don’t recommend it. Not this year. The entire kindergarten class shares a recess. They all know each other, and they’ll ask Luna why she was moved out of my class. Just wait, please. It’s still early, which was why I wanted to chat now instead of later in the year.”
We say our thanks and then finish up the conversation. When Lo and I climb into his Audi, we just sit there for a while, not able to start the car. Not able to drive home. Our bodyguards wait in the SUV behind us, probably questioning the hold-up.
Tears prick my eyes again. “We weren’t ever called weirdos…” I just see her future unless something changes, and it contains more heartache than we ever pictured. “You were an asshole. I was…shy.” Luna’s not shy. She’s outspoken and loud. Her opinions and imagination fill a room and don’t fit into a certain mold. She’s different, but why is that so bad?
“She’ll be okay.” Lo nods to himself like he has to believe this statement. He turns the key, the Audi blinking to life.
I repeat his words. Over and over.
{ 45 }
November 2025
Manhattan Medical Hospital
New York City
LOREN HALE
I run down the hospital hallway. Chest on fire. Legs numb. My body rages so far ahead of my brain. Ahead of my emotions.
Ahead of me.
I only slow when I reach the hospital door. Ajar, but no noise filters into the hallway. Go in there, Lo.
Walk the fuck in there, Lo.
Why did you stop, Lo?!
Fear chokes me by the throat. I tug the collar of my crew neck. Move your goddamn feet. I stop waiting around for this feeling to disappear.
I step carefully and slowly inside. It feels like I’m walking on glass, cutting deep in my soles. Slicing open my feet. As soon as the hospital bed comes into view, I stop walking.
Stop moving.
Stop looking at him. But I can’t tear my gaze away from the scene in front of me.
My father lies on the firm mattress, sheet-white, eyes sunken. He stares hauntingly at the ceiling, his lips the same pallid color of his skin.
He already looks dead.
I choke on a strangled noise, caught between grief and anger.
His head tilts limply towards me. I’m not comforted by the sight. He’s still alive but just barely. Jonathan Hale teeters between life and death.
I lick my dry lips. All I want to do is grab ahold of him, wrench him back to me, to this life, and to this world.
I still need you. I want to scream at myself for thinking this goddamn thing. I still need you, Dad. Did I ever really need him? Somewhere inside me, I truly believe I did, and I can’t let go of that.
My eyes cloud. In front of him, I instinctively shield my face with my hand. I wait for him to say it, “Stop fucking crying, Loren.”
I still hear it in my head. I always hear it. Even when he’s different. Even when I know I’m different.
I still hear it.
“Come here, Loren.” His coarse tone slices me up, but I hold onto the familiarity.
My throat is swollen closed. I swallow hard and manage to step forward. Pain radiates up my shins and legs and arms. Just at the single movement. My body screams for me to stop. So I stop.
I don’t go after the pain. I don’t ask for it. I don’t want it.
I don’t even believe I deserve it.
I point an accusatory finger at my dad. The man who’s dying right in front of me. “Why didn’t you tell me? You said you were on a fucking vacation—to Hawaii?” I nearly spit. Grief and anger rattles my bones. I’m his son. I’m the one that gives a shit whether he lives or dies.
And he didn’t tell me.
I should’ve known it was all bullshit. He gave me too many details about the resort, about his “lady friend” he planned to fuck all weekend. It seemed too elaborate to be the truth.
Maybe I just wanted to believe the story. He sounded happy. My dad on some getaway trip. To relax. To suntan. To have a goddamn fling.
“A lie,” he says, as though it’s nothing. He points to the stiff chair by his stiff bed. “Sit.”
I grimace. “Jesus Christ, Dad. Don’t say it like it’s fucking nothing. You lied. Okay? You lied to me.” I jab my finger towards the floor. “The nurses said you’ve been here for a whole week.” Rage pushes me forward. “Why didn’t you call me?!”
I breathe heavily, already knowing the answer before the question escapes. He’s Jonathan Hale. He protected me from the knowledge of being a bastard. He protected me from an ugly rumor about him molesting me. And he protected me again.
From the torment of watching him slowly die.
“Sit.” He points to the chair again, the gesture tugging his IV cords and shifting the metal stand.
I make it to the chair. I collapse on the seat. I just might sink all the way to the ground through the floorboards and down, down, down to the dirt in the fucking Earth.
I have to hunch forward, forearms on my thighs. It hurts to look at him. Hurts to be here. But I stay and I try to look.
I’m scared if I don’t, he’ll disappear. My chest caves at the sight of him. I blink, and tears fall. “Dammit,” I curse, glaring at the ceiling.
Why is this happening?
“Loren.” He says my name with frailty I’ve never heard. “Will you call your brother and sister? I want them here.”
I knew he would. “They’re on their way.” My leg jostles and my shoulders sway from side to side, pent up with so much…
My amber eyes rise to him again.
He never reaches for my hand. Never pulls me closer. He’s never been that kind of father. But his presence is so large it fills the room. His spirit is bigger than his body.
I don’t have to ask what happened. I spoke to the doctors over the phone. At his request, they called me first. For the past couple of years, he’s been suffering from chronic liver rejection. It’s common for liver transplant recipients to have some type of rejection, but chronic—it means this has been happening for a long period of time.
He was only admitted to the hospital when his liver started shutting down.
He’s too low on the transplant list. No donors in sight. Ryke already donated once, and he can’t again.
What the hell has he been going through for two years? He knew he’d die. He knew that all hope was shot. I’m so goddamn angry he never said a thing. He went through this alone.
I can’t wash the malice out of my harsh eyes. “You should’ve told me.” I’m your son.
He laughs briefly like I’m just a kid.
I’m thirty-five. I’m not just a kid.
But I am his.
“I should’ve told you…” He lets out another weak laugh and shakes his head. “And have you tiptoe around me? You want to put me out to pasture like cattle—fine. You have the chance now.” He extends one of his arms. “Bury me.”
I cringe. “Jesus Christ. Stop it.” My eyes flood. “You’re going to be okay.”
His dry smile fades. “You’ve never been a dreamer, Loren. Don’t start now.”
His words should piss me off. I should be enraged, but they remind me that he knows who I am. He raised me. He was there for me. For a really long time, it had been just me and him. I can’t forget the fact that he chose me. I was the bastard, but he never flung me out like trash.
There is love so deeply rooted between us. Beneath all the dark and the black and the tar that bleeds our souls. There is love. It exists, and I realize I’m about to lose it f
orever.
Don’t go, I want to tell him.
I hear his reply in my head, you think I want to?
“There must be some way to get you another transplant.” I fight for him.
His sharp, withering glare tries to destroy me. I don’t let it. My own cutting look rivals his, and I think, I learned from the best.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You saw the list. Even if I could find one, it’d be unlikely my body would accept it. Say goodbye. It’s why you’re here.” His lip twitches. “Do what everyone does when confronted by someone on their deathbed.”
“What’s that?” My words sour in my mouth. My other leg starts jostling. Stopstopstop. I can’t.
My dad rolls his eyes, annoyed that I haven’t caught on. “Shower me with praises. Tell me how great a father I was. Yada, yada, yada.”
I open my mouth to speak, but my throat closes again. It hurts. Being here. Sitting here. My brain is a thousand tons of get-me-out-of-here. My gaze lowers to the sheets of his bed.
Dammit.
Dammit.
I wipe at the tears that roll down. “You were…” I struggle. I’m struggling. More than I can even express—I’m drowning right now. I shift in my chair. I clench the armrests, my knuckles whitening.
Slowly, I lift my head and meet his sunken eyes.
In a single look, we share a thousand truths. He wasn’t a good father, but he was the only one I had.
“You were alright.”
The corner of his lip rises. “Just alright.” It’s not a question. He knows his faults. I don’t wait for an apology. Not for all the harm he caused me, for the verbal abuse that paved the way for harsher, crueler things in my future. I don’t wait for one because like he said—I’ve never been a dreamer.
Did I ever imagine Jonathan Hale apologizing as he dies on a hospital bed? No. Never. Not once.
I don’t expect it.
I don’t even care for it.
