Page 6 of Deeper

“Please! Please! Please!” I plead for something, anything. That I’ll wake up and learn this is all a bad dream. I ask for hope that Dad will come scoop me up off the floor and tell me everything is going to be okay. I try to use logic to will away the ache that’s already taken up residence in my heart.

But none of that happens.

Warm hands touch my skin, and I’m pulled into the embrace of my best friend. On the floor, Aria holds me. Her touch isn’t the one I was begging for, but she clutches me tightly and silently cries for the man she saw as a second father.

“I love you.”

I choke on my own sorrow.

“You’re going to be okay.”

I don’t know if that’s true.

“We’ll get through this.”

My mind shuts down.

“I’m always here for you.” Her words are meant to soothe, but there is nothing that can quiet this sort of suffering.

I can hear my mother’s sobs, but she doesn’t make a move to come and be with us.

I hear the front door open and close, and then Mom speaks for the first time since she dropped the news, “Aria, that’s your parents. I called them before I came in here.” Mom moves from the bed and crouches next to me. She extends her hand to me on the floor. “Get up, baby. You need to get up.”

Without thought, I take her hand, and Aria directs me back to the bed. I sit, my eyes fixed on the floor. Everything just shuts down. My mind goes blank, and my body barely functions. I sit and wait for my next direction.

“Rylan, I’ll be right back. Stay here, and I’ll come right back for you.” Aria’s words barely register.

I sit—not because she told me to, but because I’m not sure I can do anything else. Mom follows Aria out of my bedroom.

Then, I’m alone. Alone in the bedroom I grew up in. The room Dad would come into and check on me late at night, a place that has always been safe and comforting. It doesn’t feel like either right now. It doesn’t feel like anything.

Numbness has taken over the pain that I wished away. This emptiness is so much worse.

I attempt to rid myself of the nothingness.

I stand, and robotically, my feet move, leaving my bedroom. I take the stairs slowly, averting my eyes from the kitchen. I can’t bear not to see him sitting at the table, waiting for me. Aria’s mom’s voice comes from that direction, and I know that’s where they all are.

Once down the stairs, I turn and face a closed door. One foot moves over the other, and I continue forward. My hand twists the doorknob, and once the latch clicks, I can’t move fast enough. I need to be closer to him. I need my dad. Quietly, I shut the door behind me and take a deep breath. The smell that hits me is all wrong as I continue closer with fresh tears cascading over the dried wakes of tears already lost. I reach the side of the bed and see his face.

He’s my dad, the man who has taken care of me my entire life. He’s my home.

I sit next to him on the bed, and my hands shake as I reach for his. He looks peaceful, like he’s only sleeping, but never once in my life have I woken up before him.

Sirens wail in the distance, getting closer.

“Daddy?”

He doesn’t stir like I expect him to.

“It’s me, Rylan.”

Nothing. Not one movement of his chest or flutter of his eyes. It’s then that I notice how stiff his hand is in mine. He isn’t asleep, despite how peaceful he looks.

“I don’t know how to live in my world without you. Please don’t leave me.” But, deep down, I know he’s already gone.

The sirens grow louder as the bedroom door opens, and without looking, I know it’s Aria. Best friends have that sort of ability.

Her presence and strength fill the room as her hand grips my shoulder. “Come on. We have to go, Rylan.”

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