Page 72 of Delinquents Turned Fugitives
“Dad,” I called out, staring at the red rims under my eyes in the bathroom mirror.
Seconds later, Dad materialized next to me. “Kiddo. I’ve been worried about you.” He wore a collared shirt, and brown slacks. But he didn’t even bother with sweaters or fedoras today. I didn’t know if it was because he’d forgotten how he liked to pester me with his nerd clothes or if he really had been so concerned that he hadn’t magicked them up.
I didn’t deserve his concern. I deserved his wrath.
I gripped the sides of the counter top until my knuckles grew white. Rage and regret both surged up inside me, tasting sour and stinging my soul like someone had just squeezed a lemon over every little hurt I had. And that person was me.
How could I tell him his soulmate was gone?
And that it was my fault?
I blew out a deep breath as I stared into his brown eyes, eyes that were scrunched in worry. The fact that he remembered me today was just as heartwarming as it was heart wrenching. I’d called him here to tell him. But seeing him made me clench. I didn’t want to. But he knew me just now, which meant I couldn’t use that final excuse to delay telling him the truth.
I nearly bit through my lip as I tried to force the words to the surface. They kicked and screamed and struggled to hide inside my throat but eventually I got out, “Dad. I’m glad you’re okay too. I didn’t know what would happen.”
“Well, I’m a ghost. Practically indestructible.” He did an obnoxious little shoulder dusting. On any other day, it would have made me shake my head and grin tightly at his faux attempt to be a cool kid.
Today I just stared plaintively at his eyes, willing him to forgive me before I spoke.
“Dad.” I didn’t get out more than that before it felt like someone was taking a baseball bat to my heart. I had to close my eyes in order to spit it out. I couldn’t bear to see the look on his face. “Mom’s dead.”
My eyes flicked open to see Dad staring at me in confusion.
Oh fuck? Had I lost him? Had he lost his memory in the split second it took me to brace myself and get those words out?
He opened and closed his mouth several times. He shook his head.
“Dad?” I asked, a little afraid to ask anything else.
His hand reached out and sank into my shoulder, my skin freezing at his touch. I felt a contraction in the cold; it grew smaller, like he was trying to squeeze my shoulder. But then it was gone.
I heard Dad gasp and my eyes flew to his in the mirror.
I watched in horror as my dad started to disintegrate before my eyes, his form becoming pockmarked by holes that started as pinpricks of light but grew bigger and bigger, eating away at him so that I could see the shower curtain through his belly, through a hole in his arm.
“DAD!” I yelled, whipping around, fear gusting through me.
“Hailstorm,” Dad’s voice sounded far away.
“What’s happening?” I reached out and tried to latch onto his ice-cold hand, but it melted under my touch.
My dad’s eyebrows rose as he stared at me in shock. “It’s warm. I feel warmth. I think … I’m crossing over.”
Horror mowed me down as my father disappeared before my eyes.
