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I carry her to the bed and when I’m covering her, my phone vibrates on the nightstand. It’s the hospital.
My fingers flex. They wouldn’t call at this hour if it wasn’t something important. I take my phone and step outside to answer it.
“Nathaniel Weaver speaking. Is everything all right with Kingsley?”
“Yes.” There’s glee in the nurse’s voice. “Mr. Shaw just woke up.”
30
Gwyneth
Dad woke up.
Dad. Woke. Up.
I still can’t believe it and keep mentally shaking myself during the entire ride to the hospital.
I think I’m dreaming.
That’s what I did when he first had the accident, I slept upside down and dreamt about Dad tilting his head and telling me that sleeping in that position isn’t healthy.
Then I woke up and he wasn’t there, but there were tears in my eyes.
So that’s what I think during the entire ride. I think that this is a dream—I’ll eventually wake up and Dad will still be in a coma.
My nails clink together and I dig them into my skin. Pain means it’s not a dream and that the call Nate got was real.
That my father is back.
We don’t talk the whole way. I just listen to my NF and Twenty One Pilots playlist and count the minutes until we get to the hospital.
Anytime he opens his mouth, I raise the volume until he gets the memo and stops trying to speak. I don’t want to talk to him, I don’t want him to spout more words that will cut me open. Because you know what? Fuck him.
Fuck his coldness.
Fuck his assholish tendencies.
Fuck it all.
I know about his history and what turned him into a hard man, and I get that. I do. I was abandoned, too, so we’re similar in that way. We understand what it’s like to be left behind by the same people who should be there for us. We understand how those feelings shape who we are. I have an empty brain, a notebook, and use unhealthy obsessions to cope, but I don’t go around hurting others.
I don’t go around telling them that, no matter how much they try, I’ll feel nothing for them.
Being hurt doesn’t give him the right to hurt me.
Before, I bided my time and stupidly believed that he’d come around. That one day, he’d feel a sliver of what I feel for him, but I’ve only been chasing a void.
An impossibility.
So yeah, fuck him. Now that his name is officially on the list, I’m going to be desensitized to him.
Or that’s what I tell myself.
Anyway, I just need to focus on Dad and the fact that he woke up.
When we reach the hospital, however, the doctor, an older man who has a clean-shaven face and a dimpled chin, tells us Dad is unconscious again.
My legs nearly give out, and I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts. “But…but…the nurse said he woke up.”
