Page 80 of The Heartbreak Blitz

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 beatsof 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 theoperation. 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 hewantsto lose weight.

Right now, my father is a dying man, and he doesn’t seem to care.

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