Chapter 22
22
Charley
“ D o they know how long he’s going to be in for?” Kenna asks.
The cat is out of the bag. My skin crawls while everyone looks at me. It’s as if I’m standing here naked, all the while cursing myself for feeling this way. They can’t see inside my house. Or have seen my father. Or can actually see my bare skin. “They’re running more tests. They need to make sure he’s well enough to be home. Plus, getting him settled with some medication.”
What I don’t tell them is that my dad hasn’t seen a doctor in years and that they’re very worried about his weight. There was talk of total-body shut down. Of the heart working so much harder than normal to do basic things. There was a lot of talk about another, bigger heart attack. Even a stroke.
He’s tried to check himself out of the hospital multiple times, and if he could walk on his own, he’d probably already be gone.
Cade puts his arm around me, and I snuggle into him. He rubs his free hand up and down from shoulder to elbow, and I realize I’ve been hugging myself.
My father’s diet came up a lot—the doctor chastised me for giving him food, like I’m the one stuffing it down his throat.
My dad is a bear with the staff. He wants to eat regular foods, but they have him hooked up to an IV.
It was all so overwhelming that I nearly asked Molly to come in with me to deal with it. Dad refuses to listen. At one point, I went to the bathroom to cry because this feels like such a turning point. Or it could be. If Dad would do what they’re telling him to.
“Are you coming to the away game tonight?” West asks.
Cade’s arm squeezes me a little tighter. I hadn’t told him this yet. “Actually…” I peer over at him. “I told Coach about Dad and asked if I could sit this one out.”
“I’m sure he said it was fine,” Kenna jumps in.
“He did. He and Dad used to play football here together.”
“Wait, what?” Cade asks.
“Yeah.”
“What position did he play?” West asks.
“Defense. A tackle or something. Not sure.”
Cade looks off into the distance. He keeps his arm around me, absentmindedly tracing his thumb over my skin. The conversation fades away toward the rest of the table, the music at Richie’s Diner and the rush in my ears drowning it out.
I hate that the words I said to Cade yesterday seem to be hanging between us. I don’t know why I freaked out that badly. Something in my head said that my perfect boyfriend shouldn’t be near my damaged father. Like if Cade found out about him, it would end everything. The old fear of letting someone into my life came roaring to the forefront with a vengeance. Especially when he called me out and said I reminded him of the old me.
I don’t want to be that person with him, but it was scary how quickly it took over me. Almost like I stepped backward into a different person and there was nothing I could do about it.
“Sorry about the game,” I whisper to Cade.
“It’s understandable,” he whispers back, pulling me to him. “I just wish I knew before now.”
He’s quiet after. Usually, Cade is the life at the table. Well, volleying for life at the table because most of the football players have big personalities. But today, he’s sullen. He’s not the happy-go-lucky guy I know. Unease creeps over my skin, wondering if I did this to him.
“It’s the last game before break. You must be so excited to go home.”
“Yeah,” he says. “It should be fun.” He spins the cup of water upright on the table, the ice clinking around in the glass. “I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me.”
“Cade,” I say in surprise, fear shooting through me like a bolt of lightning. My mouth works, but he keeps looking at me expectantly. “I can’t. I would love to, but I can’t. I don’t know what’s happening with my dad, and I don’t know how he’s going to be. Plus…you know I can’t leave him for long periods of time.”
“But you were talking about doing things differently?”
“He just went in the hospital.”
“Who better to take care of him than professional medical staff?”
“Cade…”
“I thought you’d like to meet my friends and family and have a really good Thanksgiving meal around a bunch of people.”
I force my lips together to try to stop a chuckle from coming out, but it doesn’t work. “You thought I’d love to spend Thanksgiving around a bunch of people, not to mention a bunch of people I don’t know?”
He nods slowly.
I smile, playfully poking him with my elbow. “You’re the one always telling me I’m anti-social.”
“But you haven’t been that way in weeks.”
He’s right. I’ve been making friends. I’m here at Richie’s right now with everyone, but again, something in my mind tells me to put on the brakes. I shake my head. “You’re right, I’ve been doing a lot better because of you, but that doesn’t mean I can leave my dad. Especially not now.”
“What if you’re stuck in the hospital for Thanksgiving? At least consider it. It would only be for a few hours. I can drive you back that night. Plus, my family is like me. They wouldn’t make you feel awkward, and my friends are dying to meet you.”
A cold sweat starts across my forehead. I brush my temples, trying to relieve the feeling.
“I’m not trying to pressure you.” Cade grazes his fingertips across my side. “I honestly thought it would be an easy decision if your dad was still in the hospital. Plus, I wondered what kind of Thanksgiving you normally have. We have the whole traditional feast. We banter and joke and play games.”
That does sound nice. Thanksgiving usually consists of me heating up pre-prepared mashed potatoes and sliced turkey. I haven’t quite gotten up the courage to make an entire turkey by myself, and I’ve been cooking it for him since I was about twelve, so it seems like our tradition now.
Even if it is pathetic. And it is.
“That sounds really fun.” I watch as his gaze darts to my smile, then up to my eyes. “And I want to meet your family and friends. I don’t know that this is the right time, though, considering my dad. But if I’m stuck in the hospital, I promise to think about it.”
He shrugs. “I guess I’ll tell them to cancel the extra plate.”
“Cade, you didn’t…”
He grins. “No, I didn’t. I would never do that without verifying with you first, but I liked seeing your face.”
I hit him with my elbow again. “That was mean.”
He grunts, shielding his ribs from another attack. “I missed your smile and wanted to see it again.”
His gaze searches mine, and he’s right. His little joke fills me with warmth again. I move in, stare dropping to his lips momentarily. “You are a sweet-talker.”
He cups my cheek, pressing his lips to mine. It’s a short, sincere kiss. Not the kind of passionate ones we share in private, but for some reason, I’m so thankful for this one. For the way his lips linger. For the way I get to breathe him in. It reinforces our connection on what’s been a terrible twenty-four hours.
“Get a room.”
He tears his lips from mine. Scowling, he peers up, and I follow his eyes.
“Is that a hockey player?” West asks.
“Well, that was embarrassing.” I giggle slightly, feeling uncomfortable now. A pit opens in my stomach and I wish it would swallow me whole.
Cade grips my leg, still staring at the guy. “Hey, you should fuck off.”
The guy is at the counter now, waving his hand dismissively.
Cade twists, peering at me, then to where I’m seated, like he wants me to move over.
“Whoa. Hey.” I stay where I am. “What are you doing?”
“Yeah, come on,” West says. “He’s being a dick. Ever since people started showing up to their games, they think they’re the big guys on campus.”
Cade eyes me, but I eye him right back. “Why? Who cares?” I whisper.
He swallows. “Because I know how much it takes for you to do that sort of thing in public, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some asshole make you feel bad about it.”
The guy at the counter is handed a bag and turns to walk out of the restaurant, smiling widely for Cade as he does.
“I don’t care what he thinks. He’s probably been hit in the head too many times.”
But embarrassment still washes over me. Not just about the kiss, about this whole thing because plenty of people in the restaurant are looking at us now.
“I don’t feel like fighting today. Please,” West begs. “Plus, we have a game tomorrow.”
“Fine. I’d like to go to the bathroom, though,” he grits out, still waiting for me to move.
I hesitate a second, wondering if he’s only trying to make it past me to get to the stupid guy. This is so unlike him. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say an angry word to someone. He usually uses humor to deescalate situations, not start them.
Cade keeps looking at me, so I scoot over, letting him out of the booth. He walks toward the bathroom, and I exhale. Good .
“He seems a little on edge,” Kenna remarks.
“You noticed that too, huh?”
The stare, the way his words cracked out of him like a whip. My stomach tightens into knots. Not only is it not like him, but it sounds like what I had to listen to yesterday from my dad—swearing at the nurses, trying to pull his IV out.
A chill runs up and down my spine, but I shake it away. That’s ridiculous. Cade is nothing like my dad.
The rhythmic beats of my dad’s heart monitor goes off. Coupled with the sterile, stifling air in the room, it’s difficult not to be on edge. I take my seat, and my dad only glances up.
“How’s it going today?”
“They still haven’t fucking fed me.”
I’m not touching that with a ten-foot pole. He’s been told so many times that the IV is keeping him nourished. “Did the doctor say anything new?”
“I haven’t seen him.” He throws his hands up in the air.
Lying in the hospital bed like this, he looks worse than he does at home. I don’t know if it’s taking him out of our regular environment, or the fact that he did have a heart attack, but he looks poorly. “I’m worried, Dad.”
He rolls his eyes. “You should be talking to these doctors for me. Telling them that I’m fine and that there’s no reason we can’t go home.”
“Dad, I’m scared for you,” I say, raising my voice. It’s hard to be in a family when your voice isn’t heard at all. That’s one of the things that I love about Cade so much. He listens. “I don’t know if I can take care of you. They told me I enable you.”
“Feeding me is enabling me? Do you hear the way they talk?” His face gets red, spittle forming in the corner of his lips. “Eating keeps me alive, and they just want me to stop? I’m going to die if I stay in here, not the other way around.”
“Your weight?—”
He twists his head to glare at me. “Is fine!” He works his blankets around and drops his hands to the bed. “You sound as bad as them.”
I hold a breath in my chest, building up the courage. Dad doesn’t know this, but the nurse stopped me outside and told me how difficult he was being today. How she’s sincerely worried about him and that they’re going to call in a bariatrician—a doctor who specializes in obese patients.
“I don’t think you want to understand the gravity of the situation because you’re scared. Well, I’m scared, too.” My voice cracks, the telltale sign that tears are on the horizon. “If whatever we’ve been doing isn’t working, we have to do something else.”
“You want me to die, too, then? Great. Fantastic. Kill me just like your mother.”
I stand, and my father’s beady eyes drill a hole right into me. Hands curling into fists, I can’t take it anymore. “Oh, for God’s sake, I didn’t kill my mother. And you’re killing yourself. You’ve been killing yourself slowly since Mom died, and I can’t stick around any longer to watch you do it. You can go home if you want, but you’ll be taking care of yourself.”
“Then you can find your own place to live.”
“And who’s going to kick me out, huh? Are you going to physically throw me out of the house? I wish you could, but you can’t. And you know what, it doesn’t matter. I have places to stay. I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted anymore.”
“That football player?”
“Cade,” I tell him. “His name is Cade Farmer, and he’s the best man I’ve ever known.” I take a steadying breath. “But I could also live with Grandma Molly. She’s invited me to stay with her. I’m surprised she recognizes me since you wouldn’t let her see me for years.”
Tears well in his eyes. Good. I hope I am getting to him. From what the nurse said, he needs a reality check. This is me fighting for him. I can’t let him treat me the way he has any longer because giving in to him has been the issue all along.
“You’re going to stay here a while longer until you see a specialist. Surgery might be on the table.”
“I’m not having surgery.”
I want to throw my arms up. The doctors would like to put a stent in his heart, but they’re not sure he would survive the operation. He needs to lose weight, and he needs to be on several medications to make him stable enough to get the surgery.
To save his life, he might need weight loss surgery, too, but he won’t be able to get that until he proves he can lose weight on his own. That he wants to lose weight.
Right now, my father is a dying man, and he doesn’t seem to care.
“So, you’d rather not be here? You want to leave me with no parents instead of one?” My voice cracks again, and I choke on a sob as the area behind my eyes heats. “I don’t know what I ever did to make you hate me. What I really did. Not some messed-up version of what happened in your head. I’m sorry she died, okay? I’m so sorry. But you had me. And you had her parents’ help, but instead, you locked us away in that house and decided the both of us were going to rot there, just like everything else.
“But I’m not rotting beside you anymore. I have people I need to fight for, and I want you to fight, too.”
Dad’s hand lashes out, knocking into the tray that holds the TV remote. It upends, sending its contents flying. “You don’t think I’ve wanted to? You don’t think I sit in front of that TV every day and wish things were different? I can’t do anything anymore. I can barely walk.”
“Then fix it!” I brush angry tears off my cheeks. “You told me my whole life I killed Mom when you know damn well I never did anything. You’ve been killing yourself since I was a little girl, and you don’t take any responsibility for it. Well, I’m done letting you get away with it. I’m done.”
The nurse runs into the room. She takes me in first, then Dad, and finally the upended tray. She pats my arm on the way through and rights the tray.
“I didn’t want to live without her,” my dad says, sobs coming now. I wait, eyeing him, wondering if they’re real or not.
They seem different this time. Louder, uncontrollable.
“I wish I could feel sorry for you.” I lift my chin to make sure I don’t waver. “But in your grief, you made me miserable. You cared about yourself more than me, and I think we both know what Mom would’ve thought about that.”
His cries turn to wails. The nurse grabs my shoulders and leads me from the room. I feel stiff, empty. She takes me to an unused room and sits me down in the chair next to the bed. “I’ll get you some water, sweetheart. That was incredibly brave.”
The dam breaks, and I heave out ragged breaths. “I do feel bad for him,” I manage to get out.
“He knows. We all know. He needs someone to give him some truths right now, and you’re the person to do it. I know it’s difficult.” She wraps her arms around me. I cry into her shoulder. “Shh. His sickness is a tough one. Deep down, he loves you very much, but he’s addicted to food. It’s serious. It’s hard. Unlike drugs, he physically needs it to survive. He can’t go cold turkey. He can’t forget about it because it’s constantly there. Commercials. Outside our door. In our house. Being eaten by other people. They feed his cravings. It’s going to take some work and dedication to fight this. You just have to keep giving him reasons.”
She pulls away, giving me a sad smile. I thank her, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, and she reaches over to grab me a tissue before leaving to get me a cup of water.
I can’t wait until the bariatrician comes in. I want this so bad for my dad. For me.
But I also know I can’t want it for him, and I can’t let myself be there if he chooses to die rather than get better. I can’t. It’s like a slow suicide and he’s the one pulling his own trigger.