Cheating Gods of Death (Sequel to L: Find A GirLfriend)

Dreaming

Dinner was weird again. I began to fear that it was the only way dinner was going to be (at least with Ryuuk haunting us).

I realized, sitting across from my father as Mom placed a fresh cup of scalding, sugared, Colombian darkness in front of him, exactly what sex could mean for them. He wasn't an overly pleasure consumed or masculine person by any stretch, but he did in fact do it. I don't think Mom would have done it for her own benefit- he doesn't strike me as a specifically good lover. Then again, I chose not to dwell on it for my own sake.

I would say that it was a favor given by her to make him feel like a man... but that would be stupid. It wouldn't fit.

He had begun to act even more similar to before the coma. More typing, faster typing, and how he's resumed being awake at all hours of the night. When I used to haunt the house on my own (or with Mum, a night owl herself), I now spend confined to my bedroom to avoid a confrontation. That confuses me in itself, why would I be afraid?

The hostility I felt as an undertone to the actions I played out with Dad was gone. Spite is nothing more than a word, it is not exchanged. Never was exchanged at all.

Suddenly, I noticed how he had begun to fade away. The skin on his face was no longer luminescent white, but dying and frail like old lace or blanched coral. His joints had suffered obviously, the skin clinging to the very surface of them, but not too profoundly to produce alarm. Where the IV was stuck, there was still a faint and fading collection of blood from his delicate vein. Five years of abuse with a tube nearly fully recovered in four months or so. His eyelids were tired and unfeeling, taking the hits from feeling too heavy but unable to close. Igneous mica eyes sat in the midst of it, untouched by the disease and shining their brilliant inclusion of every color of light but the one reflected on the glassy surface. The disease in question? Aging. 

I stood staring at him that evening even after I had finished dinner, and was amazed how nothing but “Chacarron Macarron” seemed to be playing in his head as he sat outwardly oblivious to the fact that I was staring at him. Taking a final sip of the coffee, he lifted his eyes to pierce directly into my own, and I found myself recoiling back from the imaginary shock of the “contact”.

 “Do you have something you wish to discuss?”

 "No, I don't.”

I turned to leave, but tripped up over one of the legs of a chair without falling over. A testament to my life constantly marked by my inadequacies under the slightest give of pressure in the wrong timing.

He rose from his seat, also, and proceeded to approach me from behind.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes.”

I had to turn my head to look at him, fingers deftly reaching out to touch my shoulder- or my face, I couldn't be certain.

“George, there's something I want to show you-”

The phone rang, slicing off the end of that sentence. It was Jared.

“Hey, man. Where have you been?”

“I don't know, I've been practicing with the team, playing, you know.”

“Yeah. Anyway, there's a party at one of Gabby's friend's houses Friday. We wanted to know if you'd come.”

“Uh, yeah, I'll be there. Where?”

“6773 Compton's Turnpike Road. Beside Audrey's house, you know the one. It's Katelyn Wicker's house.”

“When should I get there?”