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‘Love you too,’ I mouth right back before turning to dad. “I don’t understand how this happened,” my inquiring mind wonders. “You were eating healthy. We bought the good stuff and you’ve even been going on runs every now and then. You’re as healthy as a horse.”
Dad cringes and Noah chuckles under his breath making me wonder what the hell I’m missing. “Yeah…,” dad murmurs. “Those healthy meals I take on the road with me are usually forgotten about and replaced with a burger and fries which are washed down with a Coke.”
My mouth drops open, completely and utterly astonished. “Excuse me?” I gape. “Are you serious right now?”
Dad nods and the fact that he looks just a little proud of his wrongdoings isn’t lost on me. “Yeah. I toss that shit in the dumpster by the gas station.”
“And the runs you’ve been going on?”
Dad looks across the room to Noah as though they have some sort of inside joke before he turns back to me with a sheepish expression. “Pub,” he admits. “To be honest, I’m surprised this heart attack managed to hold out this long. I was expecting this to happen years ago.”
Fuck me.
I shake my head as the anger boils up within me. “Do you have any regard for your health?” I demand. “What if your heart had completely given out and you had died? Am I going to be the one that has to explain to Ari that the daddy she only just found has gone to heaven, didn’t care about looking after himself, and sticking around for her? What about when I’m at college? Is she going to go back with her mom? Tell me, dad, what songs do you want played at your funeral? You better start writing this shit down because apparently, you could fall off the face of the earth at any time now.”
“Come on, Squish,” he says, awkwardly trying to sit up a little more. “You’re being a little dramatic. I’m not going anywhere. It was just a little heart attack and it’s not like it was a bad one.”
My emotions become way too much for me to handle and instead of climbing up on dad’s bed and killing him myself, I barge my way back out the door with Noah’s mumbled, “Shit,” heard bouncing off the walls behind me.
I pace up and down the hallway. How could he be so stupid? Living off burgers and fries while spending all his spare time at the fucking pub. Does he not have any regard for his health? Does he not give a shit about the mess he’d leave behind?
Fuck. That selfish bastard.
“Hey,” Noah murmurs, dropping down onto one of the hard, plastic chairs that line the hallway as I continue pacing. “Give the guy a break. He’s just shrugging it off to save you worrying. He knows how bad it is.”
I stop to gawk at my boyfriend. “Were you not just in the same room? He couldn’t give a shit as long as he has his burgers and fries at the end of the day. What am I going to do?”
Noah pats the chair beside him and I stare at it as though it’s going to bite me. No thanks, I’d prefer to continue pacing until I’ve created a grove in the floor. Not putting up with my shit, Noah reaches out and curls his fingers around my wrist before tugging me down into the chair beside him. “Sit your ass down and breathe,” he tells me. “That man in there is terrified and your emotions are too wound up to even see it. You need to calm down and help him through this by finding a way that allows him to respectfully keep his dignity.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“He’s throwing sarcasm at you so he doesn’t have to deal with the fact that he’s hurting right now,” Noah explain. “My guess is that he doesn’t like you seeing him like this and he’s doing his best to hide it from you too, and you’re buying right into it.”
“No, he’s just acting like an immature child,” I spit.
“True, but if you just had a heart attack, wouldn’t you want to give everyone a hard time?”
“No,” I grumble.
Noah shakes his head. “Liar.”
I roll my eyes and let out a breath before looking blankly at the wall ahead of me. “I nearly lost my father today,” I tell him and as soon as the words are out, my biological mother is suddenly popping into my mind. I’ve never met the woman and having nearly lost Dad is making me realize how damn short life is. Why have I been putting off getting to know her? I could be missing something great. What kind of person does that make me if I don’t even give her a chance to explain herself?
