Page 54 of Unearthed Dreams
Tubes and wires snaked from Billy’s still form, making him look smaller somehow. Diminished. The steady beep of monitors filled the sterile air as I sank into the chair beside his bed. His face was slack, peaceful in a way it hadn’t been in years—no confusion, no anger, no desperate searching for memories just out of reach.
A bandage wrapped around his skull, stark white against his bald head. His chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, each one a reminder that we were counting down now. Days. Maybe hours.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure what for. For not being there? For failing to protect him like I’d failed to protect his daughter? For all the times I’d resented taking care of him when he couldn’t even remember who I was?
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and watched Billy breathe. In two years, I’d never seen him this still. Even in his worst moments of confusion, there had always been movement—pacing, fidgeting, trying to escape whatever prison his mind had become.
“Your daughter…” My voice cracked on the word. “She loved you. Even though she never knew you. She used to make up stories about who you might be, what you’d be like.”
The words felt hollow in the antiseptic air, but I couldn’t stop them.
“She always hoped you’d be kind.”
“And you were kind, Billy. Even when you didn’t know who I was, even when you were confused and scared... you were kind.” My voice was rough, barely a whisper. “You’d offer me coffee every morning like it was the first time we’d met. Tell me stories about the bar when you were young, before everything went wrong. Same stories, over and over, but you told them like they were new every time.”
The machines kept their steady rhythm as tears burned behind my eyes.
“I wanted to hate you, you know? When she died. Wanted someone to blame.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “But youwere just as lost as she was. Just as broken. And somehow... somehow you became the closest thing to family I had left.”
A nurse appeared in the doorway, moving through the room to check monitors, adjust tubes. I sat silently until she left, the words I couldn’t say in front of others crowding my throat.
“I pushed someone away today,” I admitted to Billy’s unconscious form. “Someone good. Pure. Everything Kelsey wasn’t.” A bitter laugh escaped me. “Everything I’m not. And you know what’s fucked up? I did it because I thought I was protecting her. But really... really, I was just scared. Scared of letting someone else in. Scared of losing them like I lost Kels.
“She writes books, Billy. Romance novels. Dragons and magic and happy endings.” My voice cracked. “She makes me want to believe in that stuff. Makes me think maybe I deserve...”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t know how.
The steady beeping of the heart monitor skipped, then settled back into rhythm. Like Billy was trying to tell me something.
“She’s quiet, but not in a weak way. More like... like she sees everything, understands more than she lets on. And when she does speak...” I smiled despite myself. “She makes these little observations that cut right through all my bullshit.”
A memory flashed—Charlie curled up in my bed, laptop balanced on her knees, looking up at me with those stormy eyes.“You’re not as complicated as you think you are,”she’d said.“You just hide behind complications because feeling things scares you.”
“Fuck.” I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “I really fucked up, didn’t I? Pushing her away when she just wanted to help?”
The machines beeped their steady rhythm, like a metronome counting down the moments I had left with the closest thing to a father I’d known in years.
“She makes me want to be better,” I whispered. “Makes me think maybe I could be. But now...” I gestured at the hospital room, the tubes, the monitors. “Now everything’s falling apart again, and I don’t know how to?—”
My voice broke. Billy’s chest rose and fell, each breath a little shallower than the last.
“I don’t know how to do any of this without fucking it up.”
The fluorescent lights hummed as my thoughts spiraled darker. Maybe this was a sign. Maybe when Billy was gone, I should just... go too. Sell the bar, leave Sable Point. Let Charlie find someone her age, someone uncomplicated, someone who deserved her gentle heart and quiet strength.
Trevor’s face flashed through my mind—young, hopeful, everything I wasn’t. The thought of him touching her made my jaw clench, but wasn’t that exactly what she needed? Someone who could hold her hand in public, take her on real dates, give her the kind of love story she wrote about?
The bar had been Billy’s life, not mine. I’d only stayed because... because what? Guilt? Obligation? Some twisted need to atone for not saving his daughter?
“Maybe it’s time,” I said to Billy’s silent form. “Time to let it all go. The bar. The town.” My voice dropped to barely a whisper. “Her.”
My phone felt heavy in my pocket. One call to a realtor. That’s all it would take to start the process. Someone else could run Callaghan’s. Someone else could serve the regulars their drinks, listen to their stories, be part of this town’s tapestry.
And Charlie... Charlie could write her books, chase her dreams, find love with someone who wouldn’t taint her light with their darkness.
“What do you think, old man?” I asked the quiet room. “One last cowardly act before I go?”
Chapter Nineteen
