Chapter 4 #2
“I promise it’s not a big deal. I just have a lot of shit happening, and now with my dad getting worse and everything, and the season already a shit-show, I don’t think I have it in me to talk about it.”
He gave me a sympathetic hum as he turned us and began walking down the hall.
A pungent scent of old people and anesthetic hung in the air.
It stung my nostrils and made me want to stick my head out of a window.
I never really considered what would happen to my parents as they aged, but I never pictured this.
I never pictured my mom packing up and fleeing the country, leaving Jonah to clean up her mess.
And I still felt a little bit like an asshole for allowing him to shoulder it all. But the feeling wasn’t intense enough for me to offer to do more.
And maybe that made me a monster, but I could live with that.
“What are you doing after your game tomorrow?” Hugo asked, coming to another stop. I had a feeling we were right outside of my dad’s room, and I was pretty sure Hugo was giving me a moment on purpose.
Which was why I loved him.
“I have plans with one of the rookies. He and his sister are taking me to a bar.”
“To find a boyfriend?”
I kicked at him, and the edge of my shoe caught his shin, making him laugh. “Don’t be a dick.”
“Pardon. You know I was just joking. I’m glad you’re making other friends.”
“You make me sound pathetic. I have friends who are not the disaster trio or their boyfriends.” I sniffed and squeezed the handle on my cane, rolling the tip between my feet. “But Gavin’s a good dude.”
“Ah, yes. Gavin Alvise. I’ve been watching him. He was in the Paralympics two years ago, yes?”
“Mm. I guess. I haven’t been paying much attention.” Blind hockey was new to the Paralympics, and I’d declined the invitation the last two times they asked. It was too much pressure, and my time off was fucking precious to me. “Anyway…”
“When is your next day off?” Hugo asked.
“Sunday. Well, we have an early afternoon game, but it’s at home.”
“Okay. I will pick you up, and we will eat good food and talk.”
My anxiety settled a little. “Thanks.” I knew what came next. It was time to go in and see him. It was time to hear his voice and acknowledge that he was in a bed and probably very frail and wouldn’t know who the fuck I was.
“Can you lead the way?” I asked. I didn’t actually want him as a guide. I wanted him as a friend. As a physical comfort.
Hugo seemed to understand what I meant, and he took my hand instead of offering me his arm, squeezing my fingers. When the door opened with a small squeak, I stepped past the threshold and braced myself for what was about to come.
The moment was anticlimactic. I was kind of expecting my dad to get agitated, to demand to know who this new, weird-looking stranger was in his room. To maybe think I was an old childhood friend or his brother who’d died when he was eleven, like he’d done to Jonah a few times.
Instead, there was my brother, who pulled me into a hug, then Boden, who showed me to an empty chair.
And then there was silence.
“So. This is it? This is what happens all day?” I eventually asked.
Jonah sighed. “I mean, I guess. Sometimes, when he’s cognizant enough, he goes on walks, and they have crafts and a dining room where he can eat with other people. But he hasn’t been doing that lately.”
I took a moment to answer. “So, when he wandered off…”
“I guess it was one of his more lucid moments. He was looking for Nikos.”
Nikos was Alexio’s brother. I liked that guy. He and his wife were two of my favorites of the new people who had come into our lives now that Jonah had started humping the NHL’s grumpiest D-man.
Which maybe wasn’t fair to him. They were in love or whatever, blah blah fucking blah.
But Niko made me food, and his wife knitted me socks, and they didn’t mind when I was feeling particularly dickish. I hadn’t even tormented them with goblin porn, which should have said everything.
“Was he hurt?” I finally asked.
“No. But they put extra security on his room. There’s an alarm on the door now, which will alert the nurse’s station if he leaves.”
“That’s something, considering what we fucking pay for this place.
” I was just a tiny bit bitter about ponying up ten grand a month, which was only half of what this facility cost. Not that I couldn’t afford it, but I didn’t love spending my money on a man who’d helped make my entire childhood miserable.
I shifted in my seat, feeling a little on edge. I didn’t really know what the fuck I was supposed to do. “So, we just…sit here? I mean, is he awake?”
“No. He got agitated earlier, so they gave him something. I should have called,” Jonah added.
I wanted to say yes, he should have. But I didn’t need to be given any more excuses to avoid coming out here.
“If you want to go, you can. I can pay for the car—”
“No.” I bit my lip. “Has Caleb been by?”
“I think I need something from the vending machine,” Boden said loudly.
“I’ll go with you, mon amour,” Hugo added.
Yeah. Really fucking subtle, guys. I didn’t call them out on it. I simply waited until I couldn’t hear their footsteps any longer before turning toward Jonah’s voice.
“Spill. I haven’t talked to Caleb in like six weeks.”
“He got kicked out,” Jonah said from behind a sigh. “He came in and got into an argument with Dad, and they asked him to leave. Like…permanently.”
“Christ, his temper.”
“That’s rich, coming from you. You’ve been biting everyone’s head off for the last six fucking months, bud.”
He wasn’t wrong. But I was the patron saint of, like, I don’t know, being quiet and docile in a hospital compared to Caleb. “At least I didn’t get kicked out of our dad’s medical facility.”
“Give it time,” Jonah said.
Yeah. He was still kind of pissed at me for my whole part in this. Or, I guess I should have said, my not-part in this.
“I can come around more, you know. I…I know I’ve been difficult—”
“No. It’s fine, and there’s really no point.
He doesn’t remember shit. The last conversation we had, he thought I was a doctor.
” Jonah went quiet. “And I’ve been talking to my therapist, and she said people like us tend not to get any real resolution out of trying to make amends with parents suffering these kinds of memory issues. ”
I bowed my head. “I don’t think there are amends to make. He was a shitty dad, and the only way he could fix it was to go back in time and be less shit.”
“Yeah.” Jonah cleared his throat. “Anyway, I appreciate that you showed up at all.”
That was patronizing as fuck, but I think I deserved it. Jonah and I used to be inseparable. There had never been secrets between us. Now, there were several.
Part of me wanted to at least tell him about Vanya. I wasn’t ready to speak Hunter’s name into the air, but I really wanted someone to know what Vanya and I had done. How it made me feel.
How it was different.
“How are things going with Alexio?” I asked instead.
“Fine. And if you’re going to try and feed me some bullshit about how all relationships fail—”
“No,” I said, cutting him off. “I like him. Even if he has a weird, almost sexual attraction to his fucking car.”
Jonah burst into laughter. “Yeah. That’s between him and his therapist. But he said it was nice to hang with you and Vanya on the road. He said you and Vanya—”
“What?” I snapped. “Vanya and I what? Because whatever he said is probably a lie.” It was panic talking, but as much as I wanted to trust Vanya had kept his mouth shut, I didn’t.
“Jesus, bud. Relax. He said that you two seemed to be getting along better. God, what did you do to him now? You need to be nice to him, Micah. He’s delicate, and his feelings are tender.”
My throat went hot, and I fought the urge to lunge at him and punch him in his fucking mouth. But was that actually my fault? Had I been such an asshole that the default was to assume I had fucked everything up?
“What else did Alexio say?” I demanded.
Jonah was silent for several seconds, then said, “He said you two seemed like you were actual friends this time around.”
I sank back into the chair and rubbed my face with my hands. I couldn’t take this. I couldn’t tell him about Vanya, but I also couldn’t bring myself to stay silent. It was all too much. “I’m gonna go.”
“Of course you are,” he said with a sarcastic snort.
I bristled as I stood and unfolded my cane. “You told me to go! You said I—”
“I know,” he cut me off. “See you around, I guess.”
“Doubt it.” It wasn’t a blind joke either. Jonah and I would be on the same ice but too far away to really be aware of each other’s presence. He’d be known to me every time my team scored and every time he stopped a shot.
But that was it.
And maybe the progress I thought I was making with him right after Dad was moved here was all bullshit.
“It’s not personal,” I told him. “I just have…things.”
“Secret things,” he said, his voice soft but bitter. “Things you can’t tell me about.”
I swallowed heavily. “I just need more time.”
“How much longer before you decide I’m worthy to be let back into your life, Micah? When do you decide to start giving a shit about me again?”
“It’s not about you.” My anger was rising, and I didn’t want to say something I was going to regret. “I can’t do this right now. I’ll call you.”
“Whatever you say,” he called after me, but this time, I didn’t let his words stop me.
I followed the maze of hallways, lost until a nurse was kind enough to guide me to the front, and it was by some miracle alone—or maybe they all just knew better—that no one came to fetch me from the curb.
For a moment, I allowed myself to sink into an uneasy, uncomfortable, very fucking lonely silence. And the worst part of it all was I couldn’t run any longer from the fact that all of this was my own doing.