Page 35 of Bully's Second Chance
Shit.“How much longer do you think he has?”
She shrugged. “Weeks. Possibly only days. It’s hard to tell at this point.”
“How long did it take t—”
I couldn’t even ask the question, but she knew what I meant. “I was one more shock away from calling it before he came back to us.”
“Jesus,” I said breathlessly.
I bowed my head and choked back my tears. I felt that knot in my throat hold my voice hostage as Adelaide placed her hand on my shoulder. She squeezed tightly, her fingers trembling against my suit coat as we both sat there in silence.
Well, except for the machine beeping that was keeping my father alive.
He had lost so much weight since I had last seen him, and it wasn’t like he had weight to lose. His lips were so chapped that they were scabbed over, so I pulled some Vaseline out of his bedside table drawer and painted it onto his lips. I grabbed some lotion and ran it over his face and his hands. I ran it up his arm, trying not to vomit at how chaffed and scaly his outer layer was becoming.
A sign that everything was failing him all at once.
“Have you made preparations?” Adelaide asked.
I snickered. “A while ago, yes.”
“And he has a will?”
I rolled my eyes. “Not like we could fix that now if he didn’t.”
“But does he have one?”
I nodded. “Yes, Adelaide. He does.”
“Good. Then, all we can do is wait.”
It made me angry to hear that sentence come from her mouth, but I knew she was only telling me the truth. She had spared me for so long that I wasn’t sure she had it in her any longer, and I couldn’t blame her. Adelaide had gotten attached to my father over the past four years. The way they used to talk before the pain robbed my father of his voice almost reminded me of two people who had been courting one another for a long time.
In another world, I wondered if Adelaide and my father were getting married. Enjoying their retirement with each other. I wondered if she was moving in with him in some parallel dimension where they got to live the back half of their lives in happiness instead of the misery life had dropped into their laps.
I clung to that idea of happiness as my father started coughing, struggling to breathe—coughing up phlegm.
And it got so bad that Adelaide had to sit him up and put an oxygen mask over his face. “There you go, Mr. Levy. Deep breaths. In, and out. Just like that. There we go.”
I stood quickly and kissed my father’s forehead. “Love you, Dad.” Then, I made as quick of an exit as I could before I let tears roll down my cheeks. “Fuck!” I roared.
I stormed down the hallway and weaved through the upstairs until I came to my room. I burst through the French doors and headed straight for my private balcony, but not before I reached my fist back. With a war cry falling from my lips, I slammed my fist into the wall, watching as it tore through the crisply painted drywall and cushioned itself in the mounds of insulation stuffed behind the walls of my estate—a place that had quickly become my prison.
“Goddammit!” I bellowed.
As I slipped out onto my balcony, I flopped down into a lounge chair. I hung my injured hand off the side of the chair and felt my blood dripping down my fingertips. I closed my eyes and let the sun batter my face. I drew in the deep, fresh air of fruit trees growing in my backyard.
And out of nowhere, Lily’s voice sounded beside me. “I’m just going to clean up your hand, okay?” she asked softly.
I didn’t dare open my eyes. I didn’t dare look at her. Because if I did, I was liable to do something that would ruin us forever. So, I kept my eyes shut, and my jaw clenched while she cleaned and bandaged my hand.
But, when she was done, all she did was take up residence in the lounge chair beside me. “Wanna talk?” she asked.
“No,” I said flatly.
“All right, then we can sit here.”
But, my mouth got the better of me. “I heard you talking to Dad about your family the other day.”
