Page 220 of Pretty Little Lies

Nothing happens.

“Dad,” I say again as nausea builds in my gut because this—he wouldn’t do this to me.

He can’t.

“Miss, you can’t be in here.” I see a woman approach out of my peripheral, but I refuse to pry my focus off my father. “Miss?—”

“Pronounce him dead at five thirty-six?—”

“No!” I scream, sprinting toward the bed and feeling the helpless dread that courses through me. “No, no, do it again!”

“Miss,please—” Someone grabs my arm, but I yank it free, locating a small sliver of space where I can see Dad’s face.

“Dad!” I plead. “Dad, wakeup. Dad?—”

“Honey,” someone says somewhere. “He’s gone.”

My body immediately begins to shake uncontrollably because that’s not possible.

It’snot.

He wouldn’t leave me. He promised. He said he was going to get better. I was going to feed him hamburgers. I told him I would. I’ve been doing it for days.

“I’m so sorry, Bay.”

No.

My eyeballs burn as I stare at Dad, and I want them all out but here all at the same time because I can’t do anything. I can’t save him.

“Dad,” I try to say more calmly. “C’mon, stop it. You need to pull through this. Ineedyou.”

“Honey, he’s gone?—”

“Stopsaying that!” I scream at whoever just said that to me. “You need to do more. He can’t be gone. There’s no way he’d fuckin’ leave me!”

The room fills with an eerie silence, and it’s then that I’m alone.

That it’s final.

That Dad…heisgone.

My cell buzzes in the back pocket of my jeans and my brain immediately registers to Levi.

I can’t tell him, but I need him here. He needs to help Dad. He needs to make them do something.

Hitting the green button, I bring the phone up to my ear. “Levi…I need you?—”

“Bay, I need you to get up here,” he says urgently as I hear a male barking out something in the background about getting off the phone. “I’m up at St. Clair Shore Sheriff’s Department with Muncy. He’s fuckin’ setting me up.”

SIXTY

bay

Whoever saidit only gets worse before it gets better can go fuck themselves.

No one who’s lived through theworst,underwent it, and survived.

There’s no way.

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