Page 70 of On the Line

“JesusChrist,” I curse slowly, my heart slamming hard against my chest. “You scared me.”

My dad doesn’t say a word, his face half-cloaked in darkness. The beep of machines and the patter of rain against the window are the only sounds in the room. He doesn’t even move, just continues to stare. I’d think he was dead if not for his intermittent slow blinks.

Sick of the silence, I fill it with a half-hearted question. “How are you feeling?”

Still, he doesn’t respond. Irritation percolates behind my chest, growing more and more frustrated the longer he doesn’t speak.

Slowly, he licks his busted lip. “Your mother was my first love, did you know that? And I was hers.” His voice is hoarse like someone sucker punched him in the vocal cords.

They probably did.

I blink a few times, letting his words slowly drift in my head like snowflakes laced with poison. What the hell is he on about?

I nod, hands clasped, elbows resting on my thighs. “Yeah, I knew that.”

He turns his head forward, now staring at the ceiling. “We were high school sweethearts. And oh … she had such a bright future ahead of her when we first met. She was going to become a lawyer.” His head falls back toward me, his one good eye shiny and wet. “Did you know that? She was going to make a difference, your mother. She was going too—” He chokes on a cough, it crackles in his throat. It looks painful by the way he keeps hacking and wincing.

I lack the empathy to care. I just sit silently and watch.

He wheezes and slumps back into his pillow as if his coughing fit took everything out of him.

My nape prickles as if I’m sensing an invisible danger. I get the sudden urge to leave.

“But then she got pregnant at seventeen.” His eyes back on the ceiling. “I convinced her to keep it.”It… He means me. “Convinced her to marry me. She dropped out of school after that …” His gaze finds me in the dark. “Never was the same after having you. Started looking at me like I ruined her life. Like I took something precious from her, when all I did was love her. Then she got hooked on meth after Huxley was born. She would’ve never cheated on me if she was right in the head.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” I say through a clenched jaw.

His lungs whistle when he breathes. “Because us McKennas ruin everything we touch.” Weakly, he raises his hand. The IV cords tangle loosely as he points a crooked finger at me. “You think you’re different because you left young and got out of Pecket?” He smiles, it’s malicious, and it tears at my skin the more I look at it. “Stop being a fucking fool, boy. Deep down you and I? We’re exactly the same. You have the same blood running through your veins. Don’t be surprised if one day, you end up just like your old man.”

I’m shaking with rage. I stand up, fists tight against my sides.

“Fuck you,” I spit. “At least I take care of this family, you worthless piece of shit.”

I leave the hospital before I surrender to the overwhelming urge to wrap my hands around his scrawny neck and strangle him half to death.

28

OZZY

The rain soaks my shirt while I walk through the hospital parking lot. It’s cold against my skin, but it does nothing to extinguish the anger burning inside of me. It feels like my chest is about to crack open and if I’m not careful, I’ll bleed out before I get to my car.

My vision is blurring, my breaths shortening, and I’m shaking by the time I unlock my car. Slamming the door closed, I let my head fall back on the headrest, squeezing my eyes shut, struggling to get air into my lungs. My hearing is dimming, the thrum of my own heartbeat overtaking the sounds in my ears.

You’re having a panic attack.

I squeeze my eyes shut even harder, hitting the headrest with the back of my head again and again.

Breathe Ozzy. Fucking breathe.

My mind feels like it’s about to get ripped out of my brain. It’s like an outside force is trying to throw me out of my own body while simultaneously trapping me in.

So fucking trapped.

Stuck. As if this state of being is now my forever.

My palms start to sweat and I clench them around my thighs to stave off the shaking.

Although it feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do, I start to breathe in from my nose, and out from my mouth. I need to slow my heart rate down. I peel my eyes open and start to name things I can see. Name things I can touch.

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