Catchfly: Seeing Stars

Chapter 51: The Waiting Game

January 11 – 6:08 PM

Time seems to freeze as I run through the hospital. Sienna follows me. She drove me while I called mom in the car, and her presence is still much needed, because when I get to the reception desk, not a word comes out of my mouth. I'm reeling in fear when a nurse tells us where to go. I go running again. My eyes fly by the plaques next to the doors. 200. 202. 204. 206.

I halt by the open door. An anvil seems to fall on my chest, crushing my bones, quelling my lungs, and pushing down on my heart, but not far enough to destroy it. It just stays there, suffocating me. Just almost killing me.

He lies there, unconscious. A tube goes into his mouth, another one into his nose. His face is almost unrecognizable, bruised and swollen in places that seemed impossible before. He doesn't even look like my dad. He doesn't even look alive.

"What happened?" I yell out.

Mom jumps at my presence. She stands up from his bedside. Her face is wet with tears, but I can't even look at it. I sprint to dad's side. I want to reach out to him, but then my hands freeze mid-air. What if I hurt him?

"What happened to him?!" I squeal, tears streaming down my face. I gulp when I realize the tubes are helping him breathe, he can't do it on his own. My hands shake above his arms, lying numb on the bed. His hands look as beaten as his face does. Each one of my tears falls into the other, I can't stop.

"...Grandma told us everything." Mom's voice breaks. Her eyes pinch away from my dad. She chokes back a sob and meets my eyes.

"...He tried to hurt you, sweetheart." Mom whispers painfully. Tears roll down onto her hand. The anvil presses down so hard I stop breathing. My mind runs a million miles an hour, taking every turn it comes across, so I can barely even comprehend what she's saying. My throat burns, begging me to let air pass through. Cyrus is first to appear in my head. But I skip past it when I realize what she means.

Grandma told them everything.

"He–" Mom's voice goes so high she has to stop herself. She breathes in shakily. "Hayden drove to his house in this haze of anger. He didn't even know if he was in town, but..." She looks at dad. I shake my head, over and over. Ricardo did this.

My dad's right eye is swollen. There's a gash over his nose. His cheekbones are dark, starting to bruise by the bone. His jaw is cut open, his forehead is thickened almost unnaturally. Even the side of his neck is bruising. And that's just what I can see. I don't want to know what he looks like underneath the blankets.

"What'd he do to him?" I whisper unintentionally.

Sienna is holding herself in the corner, eyeing my father in tears.

"They, um..." Mom wipes the skin underneath her eyes. "They examined his bruises. The doctors think he hit Hayden with something solid like a... pipe. Or a bat."

My stomach folds together. "...Even on his face?"

Mom nods as her lips begin to quiver. "They told me he started at his legs and worked his way up."

I look away, pinching my eyebrows together. No.

"Hayden didn't pass out until he got to his head. He suffered a lot of internal bleeding. They're keeping him under anesthetics to give his body some rest."

My eyes flicker to mom. "But he was awake when they brought him in?"

She hugs herself in solace. "Apparently he couldn't stop screaming when they brought him in."

My legs give up on me. There is a chair to catch me as I drop down. It feels alien for me to hurt this much physically when there is nothing wrong with me. Like I can't take any more emotional blows, so my body decides to absorb some of the pain differently.