Never Ever ✔️

chapter 32

Varun clutched Gia to his chest as she cried in outrage at being repeatedly stabbed while her father stood by and allowed it. The nurse said something to him and handed him Gia's updated shot record. He thought he nodded and mumbled something in return. He wasn't sure. There was a numbness in his head that was plugging his ears and fogging up his thoughts. It crept down his throat, through his chest, and pooled in his hands.

He slipped Gia's pink shirt over her head and pulled her pants on, covering the three Tweety Bird Band-Aids on her stubby legs before putting on her pink boots and buttoning her coat with fingers he couldn't feel. Then he picked her up again, his thoughts screaming while he consoled her with soft words.
He didn't go to the lab.

He walked through the clinic on wooden legs, his eyes straight forward. It was the day Natasha died all over again. He had the same sense of being outside of himself, of watching his life unfold from a two-way mirror. He crossed the parking lot and unlocked the Car without remembering a single step. He buckled Gia into her seat the way he'd done the day her mother left them. Ri had run to the store and purchased one, so he didn't have to drive home without Gia buckled in. Gia's other car seat had still been upside down in the creek in Emigration Canyon.

Gia's seat faced forward now, and her legs were longer. He'd buckled her in hundreds of times since that day. He'd kissed her cheeks a thousand more times than that. He kissed her now, an automatic response to her tears, and she grabbed his beard, curling tiny fingers into his face to keep him close.

"Dee-uh sad," she cried. Gia's sad.

"I know, Bug. I'm sad too," he choked. And suddenly he was. Terribly, terribly sad. Distraught. Dismayed. Devastated. The grief blew through his disbelief and seared the fog in his head, in his heart, and in his limbs. He clenched his teeth at the sudden, ferocious return of sensation.

"Daddy sad?" Gia asked, still clutching his face.

"Yeah. Daddy's sad."

"Daddy cwy?"

His face was wet. His eyes were streaming. The flames continued to grow, and the heat continued to gather, and it was all he could do to extricate himself from Gia's little hands so he wouldn't scorch her too.

He hurried to the driver-side door and climbed in, shaking and sick, afraid to drive, afraid to sit still. He thought of calling Reet. She would make him feel better. She would look after Gia while he burned. But he couldn't run to Mer every time life got hard. He was Gia's father, and she was his responsibility, not Ri's.

"I'm Gia's father," he choked, and realized he'd spoken out loud. Was he?
He couldn't call Reet. Then he would have to tell her what had happened. He would have to explain. He would have to face a terrible possibility.

"Daddy go?" Gia asked from the backseat, her shots clearly forgotten. She didn't understand why they sat in a cold car. She didn't understand why he cried. She didn't know his world was on fire.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, Bug?" he whispered.

"Dee-Uh hungy."

He turned and looked at her, sitting so patiently in her car seat, the tears still drying on her cheeks.

"Gia's hungry?" he asked.
She nodded and then smiled, showing him her small white teeth.
Feed, clothe, comfort. He could do that. He would do that. He pulled his seatbelt on and turned the key.

.................................................................

"Varun?" Reet called, shutting the door behind her.