Page 111 of Becoming Us

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“Who’s going to take care of me?” It sounded uncomfortably small.

Is anyone going to care? Were we really never going to talk again? How was that even possible?

The crack inside me had grown jagged, its edges cutting deep.

Everything was falling apart. Everything.

The door hissed open. Footsteps stopped just behind me.

I let go of his hand, startled.

A voice sounded beside me—one of the nurses. “Sorry, honey. I can give you a minute.”

I shook my head. “I’m done.”

Without looking back. Without stopping.

I turned and left the room.

I had tried to go out. Find a drink. But I couldn’t stomach being around people. Not with all that noise inside my head.

River had kept texting.

What are you doing?

Come by mine.

You’re no fun anymore, hotshot.

No. I wasn’t fucking fun anymore.

So I went back home. To our empty house. I wandered through the rooms, aimless. Peeking into my parents’ bedroom. The kitchen. My limbs felt heavy, disconnected—like I was walking through someone else’s memories. Eventually, my feet led me to his office.

The door creaked open. I closed my eyes tight, inhaled deep, and stepped inside.

Everything in here smelled like him.

I sat in his chair and let my head fall onto the cool surface of the wooden desk.

This is really happening.

He was never coming back. I was never going to see him in this chair again. Never going to smoke with him, laugh with him, lie side by side on the rug and argue about music—him always dragging it back to the damn 80s.

You’re also never going to hear him be sick again. Never watch him waste away into nothing. Never wonder when the worst was going to come—because we’re already here.

Yet he lingered. Everywhere.

My dad was part of me. Integral. These past few months, I barely knew where he ended and I began. We shared so much. I just wanted him to be proud. I just wanted him to behere.

I didn’t know who I was without him.

I thought it had been just the two of us—but it had all been in my head.

He lied. Why lie?

It’s me, isn’t it?

I’d done something wrong. I had to have.

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