Catchfly: Seeing Stars

Chapter 52: Insignificant

January 16 – 3:49 PM

I stare at the stars dancing on the ceiling of the hospital room. Waves of blue and purple streaming through them. The projector is zooming quietly. The rest of the room is dark, I drew the blinds and shut the door. I squeezed myself next to my dad, lying perfectly still as he is. I try to breathe in the same consistent tempo as him– as the intubation is doing for him. But it seems inhumane for someone to breathe so consistently all the time. You hold your breath when you're scared, or surprised. Your breath fastens when you're moving, or panicking. You breathe deep when you're sleeping, or calm. Our body responds to the way we feel, the way we live. Dad's static breath responds to the way he lives– which is barely.

I turn my head away from the stars, to look at him. Sometimes his eyelids move, but I've learned not to let that get my hopes up. The nurse told me it's his brain activity, his reflexes that make him do that. Mom believes it's him fighting to wake up. Preparing to, for when they take him off the respirator tomorrow. When he has to breathe on his own again.

Looking at the stars doesn't help me. I can't even pretend to be small or unimportant right now, because the most important thing in the world is lying right next to me. There's no putting things into perspective anymore.

"I'm sorry, dad." I whisper. "It's my fault you're lying here. I'm too much like them, like Joel and Evelyn. You taught me better." My eyes drop from his face. I could get mad at grandma for telling my parents about my interaction with Ricardo in the first place, but she doesn't deserve that. She was only trying to do what's best, and that's all I've been trying to do, too. What I'm still trying to do.

"I don't know if you can hear me. Avery said sometimes comatose people respond to hearing familiar voices, so I have to try." I glance over at him. "Dad, if you can wake up tomorrow, you have to." A whimper breaks through my words. I ignore my trembling lips.

"Mom needs you. I need you. You should see grandma, she's so sure you'll wake up. It'll shatter her if you don't. She won't be able to take it, not after grandpa."

I reach down for his hand. As I squeeze it, it's hard to ignore the clip on his finger that measures the oxygen level in his blood. I gulp and switch off the projector.

✾

My heart is pounding behind my ribs as I leave my car parked about a yard away from his house. I want him to see it's me, and I'm afraid he won't know if I arrive in my dad's car. Even though he should recognize it by now. My dad drove up here in it last time.

He might not even be at home. Maybe he left town after what he did. After he beat up my father until he fell unconscious; after he dropped him in his car, leaving it by the side of the road. It took an hour before someone drove by and recognized my father. They thought he was sleeping at first until they got closer and saw what his face looked like. Then they thought he might be dead.

I feel the shock that lives in New Bern any time I walk through town, any time people ask me how my dad is doing– but I feel no anger from those people for what's been done. No one can afford to be angry– not at a Rayas, not here. Ricardo probably didn't bother to find an alibi or even to erase his DNA from my father. He knows he'll remain safe and sound, knows he's powerful enough. No one goes after him, because he'll go after them instead. It's just the way it works.

I hold my breath as I walk up to his house. My legs are wobbling. Every instinct in my body is telling me to turn back, but it's too late for that now. I yank my hands out of my pockets, baring them so he doesn't get any ideas about me being weaponed. My dad gave me a taser when I turned sixteen, which is about the age I started going to parties and coming home in the dark. But I didn't bring it with me. I'm not exactly planning on getting close enough that I'd be able to tase him. I don't think he'd even give me the chance to.