His voice took on a brusk tone. “Your brother is an adult. He can speak to me whenever he wants.”
Frustration welled up in me. This was more important than any stupid argument the two of them had been carrying out over the past few months. I didn’t care if they were still pissed off and holding grudges about whatever had been said when Ez had committed his crime. This had to end.
“Heneedsyou, Daddy,” I insisted. “He’s really sick.”
The other end went silent, and I continued on. “He’s been throwing up every day, and he’s really weak. He’s always getting some kind of infection. He nearly passed out this morning! He’s not getting any better.”
Daddy’s voice was sad. “There isn’t much I can do.”
“You have to convince him to go get help!” I burst. “He’ll listen to you!”
“He’s not ready,” Daddy said gently. “And he needs to be, if he’s going to face this.”
“He’s going to die.” I sniffed and rubbed my face. Fuck, I was so tired of crying all the time. It was really getting old.
“We all accept our illness in our own time. You can drag him to the doctor, but you can’t force him to get treatment,” Daddy said. “As terrible as this disease is, it’shis. His to deal with, his to decide how to handle. All we can do is support him.”
It was the same conversation I’d had with Opal last semester, and nothing had changed. I wanted things to be different.
“But you know how bad it can be,” I insisted. “How can you just… watch him go through this and accept it?”
“Because I know how it feels, and it’s hell, Ava, to put it bluntly,” Daddy said. “Forcing him to face the obvious is just going to put him through more pain, and his body isn’t giving him a choice, so we have to.”
“This denial is going to make his condition worse unless we do something,” I said.
“He doesn’t want to admit it, and I understand why.” Daddy’s voice was heavy with guilt.
“Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault.” I tugged on the phone cord anxiously. “All you can do is convince him what he’s doing is stupid and could get him killed.”
“I’ll try to intercede, but I don’t know if he’ll take my call. We haven’t spoken in… months, really.”
“What about Mama? She can do something,” I pleaded.
“I don’t know, Ava. Ez is scared. We all are.”
I shared his fear, yet I wasn’t about to give in. I knew this was terrifying, but we had better treatment options for Combined Magical Suppression Syndrome now than we did for my dad when he was young. If we caught it early, we could deter some of the damage that the condition did to Ezekiel’s body, before it was too late. He didn’t have to live with the same pain that Daddy did— but he had to start treatment now.
I was silent for too long, and Daddy said, “Peanut, are you doing okay?”
My lip wobbled— damn me. “I don’t want to get into it.”
“You know you can always talk to me.”
“What’s there to talk about? I— I broke up with him.”
Wasn’t exactly truthful, but admitting the alternative was too agonizing, so I didn’t.
“Breakups still hurt, even if you’re the one who made the call,” Daddy said. “Even your mother and I have disagreements sometimes.”
I scoffed. I didn’t want to be reminded of my parents’ incredible love story. I betthey’dnever broken up. It made me feel bitter. “Sure you do.”
“There’s more to our past than you know,” Daddy reassured me. “I can understand how you feel better than you think. You just have to tell me how you feel.”
I took in a harsh breath. “The truth is... I’m angry, and I hate him, and I never want to see him again, but I’m stuck here, so I’m forced to. It wasn’t going to work out, anyway. What else is there to say?”
“Are you sure you two didn’t talk yourselves out of it?” Daddy asked gently. “There might be another way.”
“We condemned a whole race, Daddy. We started a genocide all over again.” I rubbed my temple.
