Page 76 of Honeymoon Phase
“Fuck, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” I pull my arm out from behind her, shaking my head with irritation for even saying that out loud. She literally can’t sleep because of her past trauma, and I just dumped my own on top of hers.
“No, please,” she says, scooting closer to me and placing herhand on my leg. Her eyes are grave on mine. “I want to hear about this, Luke. I’ve wanted to ask about your dad for a long time but never felt like I had the right to after...”
After you barely responded to my texts when I told you he died.
After you didn’t even show up for the funeral.
After your name wasn’t even signed on a bouquet of flowers from the lumberyard that your dad’s office assistant probably ordered.
Her not being there for me was cold and detached and hurt more than I’ve ever told her. And I never told her because I’m weak... and...
I love her.
You can forgive a lot when you love someone.
She swallows nervously, her entire body tense as she sits crisscross, giving me her full attention. “What happened exactly? Can you tell me about it?”
I inhale a deep breath. I haven’t spoken about this in the three years since we lost him. It’s not exactly a fond memory to relive and I find that talking about it just resets my grief.
But looking at Addison, my best friend, my wife... I feel like I need her to know this part of me. I need the woman I’m in love with to know the hurt that I’ve endured in order for her to see me. All of me. And even then, she still may not want me or love me back.
I swallow the knot in my throat and close my eyes. “We were here on Fletcher Mountain... just me and Dad. He was helping me adjust my cabin’s solar panels because a storm had screwed up their alignment. I ran to go get a tool from his truck, only to come back and find him collapsed—his lips already blue.”
Addison inhales sharply, pressing her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God, Luke.”
I wrinkle my nose and avoid eye contact with her. The look on her face too much for me to manage with all of the emotions swirling in me. “Being a volunteer firefighter for Jamestown prepared me medically for that situation. I knew CPR, so I got to work on him.
“But nothing prepared me for the emotional mind fuck that played through my head when I had to...” my voice cracks as the sensation roils through my body “...feel my own father’s sternum break under my hands.” I hold my hands up, looking at them like they’re fucking monsters. Breaking a sternum during CPR is normal, but breaking my own father’s? I am a fucking monster.
“And the part I’ve never told anyone because I’m so ashamed and disappointed in myself, is the unexpected gag reflex that happened to me when I had to blow air into his mouth. It’s so fucked...”
I drop my elbows to my knees and bow my head, feeling the horror of that day all over me again. Like it was yesterday. CPR is not something anyone should have to do to their own father. It’s why hospitals don’t let doctors operate on family. It’s not right to see a family member like that. It’s fucking haunting.
“Oh, Luke,” Addison croaks and I look up to see her eyes filled with tears, streams falling down her cheeks with every blink. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, me too,” I grind out, my own eyes welling as the pain on her face matches the pain in my soul. “Especially because it was all for nothing. I tried to resuscitate him for eleven minutes and when he showed no signs of improvement, I made the decision to carry him to my truck and rush him to the hospital in Boulder. In my mind, I thought an ambulance would have taken way too long to get up the mountain and this was the smarter choice.”
A flash of him slumped in my back seat hits me all over again. The man weighed more than me by at least twenty pounds,but I don’t remember him feeling heavy. I was consumed with adrenaline. Panicked to be on this mountain alone with my dad, who was literally dying right in front of me.
“He was pronounced dead soon after they admitted him. Just like that.”
Addison huffs out a noise of discontent. Her whole body curled up into a ball as she watches me through the tears in her eyes. “You did everything you could.”
“I guess,” I huff, yanking my hat off and tossing it on the coffee table. I run a hand through my hair, ruffling it off my head a bit. “But it took months for me to stop questioning every decision I made. Months for me to stop counting myself to sleep. It crushed my whole family obviously, but no one bore the burden of the memories I had. I was alone in that.”
And I couldn’t talk about it with any of them. With anyone.
Everyone was in shock.
Everyone was grieving.
Everyone was rallying around Mom, trying to comfort her in any way she needed. And I was so fucking alone.
Day after day.
Night after night.
And my best friend was nowhere to be seen.
