Chapter 38

38

ZACH

Thursday felt like a carbon copy of Wednesday. In fact, all the days since I'd arrived in Omaha felt like a monotonous blur of endless worry layered between periods of staring at my computer screen in a vain attempt to stay caught up on homework, runs to local fast food establishments, and watching over Drea, willing her to wake up. The doctors had begun weaning her off the sedatives but said it could still be a few more days before she was fully out of it.

The only thing that kept me sane was Jason. He spent time visiting with Mandy and his parents, of course, but the rest of his time was spent by my side. He didn't say much and didn't ask me to either. He was simply…there. It meant everything.

The nights were anything but monotonous. Each evening, we'd escaped to his house in Astaire, sometimes exploring each other's bodies and other times simply cuddled up like bears in hibernation. The intimacy I had with him was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. The relationships I'd had with girls in high school—the feelings I'd had for them—seemed childish and insignificant compared to how I felt about Jason. With him…the intensity of my emotions, the width and breadth of them…were bigger than the both of us.

We sipped coffees as we rode the elevator to the ICU on Friday morning. We'd showered together that morning, jacking each other off until we'd painted our bellies with cum before washing it all down the drain. We'd traded lazy kisses until the water had started to run cold, then toweled off and dressed before returning to Omaha.

We stepped out of the elevator with hands clasped, pulling up short at the sight of Mrs. Whitt waiting to head down. Her eyes darted to our joined hands then back up again. A slow smile spread across her face as she said, "Good morning, boys. I was just heading out to grab some breakfast. Do you want anything?"

"No. We're good. Grabbed a bagel with our coffees." He held out his coffee with his free hand in confirmation.

She nodded. "Great. Back in a bit."

We watched as the doors closed and then turned toward each other.

"Did you just come out to your mom?"

"Maybe? She definitely clocked us holding hands, right?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

He looked a little shell-shocked.

"You good?" I asked.

"Yeah. I don't know what I expected, but that wasn't it." He chuckled, then rubbed a hand through his short crop of hair. "I should probably talk to her later. Just to be sure."

"I don't know. She seemed pretty happy about it."

"Probably just confirmed what she already suspected New Year's Day." He squeezed my hand. "Come on. Let's go see how the girls are doing."

We walked down the hall but paused just outside the girls' rooms. Yesterday, they'd started allowing Mandy out of bed for short periods using crutches. They were optimistic she might be released tomorrow, barring any major setbacks, and I knew the Whitts were looking forward to having her home. I'd overheard Mr. Whitt mention he was going to spend some time later today getting the guest room on the main floor ready so she wouldn't have to go up and down the stairs to her second-floor bedroom.

Jason shot a quick glance into Drea's room, where we could see my father sitting with his head back and eyes closed. Jason gave me a quick peck on the lips, then squeezed my hand. "Text me if you need anything."

I squeezed his hand back. "Say hey to Mandy for me."

"Maybe you can come say hi a little later."

"Yeah, maybe." I offered a sad smile, then released him and opened the door to Drea's room.

Dad's eyes opened immediately, letting me know he likely hadn't actually been sleeping. He gave me a small smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Did you eat anything?" I asked.

"I grabbed a breakfast sandwich from the cafeteria this morning. The coffee down there is heinous."

"Truly awful." I felt bad sipping my coffee right in front of him. "I'm sorry. I should have brought you some."

"Not a big deal."

I fiddled with the hem on my hoodie—well, Jason's hoodie. Turned out I really had done a shitty job packing and hadn't brought appropriate clothes for winter in the Midwest. Jason had loaned me an Astaire High football hoodie that was way too big on me. I didn't mind. It smelled like him.

"Any updates on Drea?"

"The doctors did whatever it is that they do and said her brain function looks good, but it's really up to her to wake up on her own. She's showing some good signs of responsiveness to light and sound but hasn't opened her eyes yet."

He blew out a breath. "I know all the signs look promising, and the doctors seem confident she'll come out of this, but I can't help but worry she'll take a turn or something will go wrong." He scrubbed his hands over his face. "I can't lose her. I can't lose another person I love." His voice cracked on the last word, nearly breaking my heart in two.

It was hard to see him like this. Dad had always been stoic, rarely showing emotion, even after Mom died. To see him consumed by so much fear and worry was heartbreaking. Yet there was a small part of me that wondered if he'd be nearly as distraught if it were me lying in that bed.

"I think she's going to be okay. I have to believe that. She's the fiercest, strongest person I've ever met."

"Just like your mother," he said softly, causing me to turn my head sharply.

"You never talk about her. About Mom."

He blew out a breath. "It's…hard. She was…everything to me."

"What about us?" I blurted. "If she was your everything, where does that leave room for me and Drea?"

He closed his eyes, pain etching itself into his features, the lines and grooves around his eyes and mouth deepening, making him look older than his forty-five years. "I know. And I'm sorry. I just…when I lost her, I sort of shut down. I've never been good at expressing my emotions. I've never been good at letting them out. So I just locked everything up tight. It was the only way I knew how to keep going."

"I get that, Dad. But you said ‘when I lost her' when it should have been we . We lost her. You left me and Drea to process the grief of losing our mother on our own."

I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. I could feel the old anger and resentment bubbling to the surface, though I tried to tamp it down. I hated that we were having this conversation now. In this place with Drea in this condition. But now that the door had been opened, I wasn't willing to close it. "Sometimes it felt like I lost both of you."

It was his turn for those eyes to flash to mine. He opened his mouth and closed it, clearly at a loss as to what to say.

Feeling brave and maybe a little bolder than I had any right, I laid it all out there. It felt like it was now or never. "You've been hard on me my whole life, but these last couple of years, it's felt nearly impossible to please you. I lost my biggest cheerleader, my most vocal supporter. Win or lose, Mom was always there, encouraging me, high-fiving me, putting me back in my place when I needed it. I lost all of that in a flash, and then, to add insult to injury, you doubled down on your criticisms. Nothing I did was good enough. If I scored one goal in a game, it should have been two."

I paced in front of him, agitated and too worked up to remain seated. To his credit, he didn't interrupt. "UCLA was a terrible pick for college. You don't like my hair. My shirt isn't right. I don't say the right things. I don't hang out with the right people. I'm sure you'd love to know I'm dating Jason." I stopped in my tracks, turning to face him. "Yep, I'm dating a guy. I'm bi. How does that fit into your mold of the perfect son?"

Jesus . How had we gotten here? One moment, we'd been talking about Drea being a fighter like Mom, and the next, I was unloading nineteen years of anger and hurt and resentment all over him. Then, like a cherry on top of a really twisted dessert, I came out. Just blurted out my sexuality in the middle of my sister's ICU room. What had I possibly been hoping to achieve?

I couldn't look at him, but I couldn't quite look away either. I took three deep breaths, trying to cool my heated temper, and when he still hadn't responded, I said, "You know what? I think I need a breather. I'm going for a walk."

I moved toward the door, my strides long and quick with my desire to escape.

"Zach." The softness in Dad's tone had me pulling up short, hesitating with my hand resting on the door handle.

"If you want to take a breather, that's fine. I think we could both use it. But I don't want you to walk out of here thinking I have a problem with you and Jason. He's a good kid. And I'll always be grateful he was on-scene with Drea. I don't care that you're with him."

I nodded once, swallowing past the lump in my throat, then walked out.

The thing about calling my dad out on his treatment of me was that it didn't make me feel any better. He'd been hurting all week. I'd worried over him almost as much as I'd worried over Drea. And I'd still taken the time to shove all my resentment in his face when he was at his lowest. Not only that, but I hadn't given him a chance to respond before walking out and leaving him alone.

I'd been tempted to go to Jason as soon as I walked out of Drea's room, but I decided I needed some time alone. I'd spent almost every moment with Jason this week, which had been amazing, but using him as an emotional crutch wasn't fair.

In the time it took to ride the elevator to the main floor, I deflated like a balloon. Gone was the self-righteous indignation I'd burned with moments before, and in its place was a burning desire to know why . I knew my father loved me. So why had he been so critical? So distant? So cold? I hadn't given him the chance to explain.

I walked to the cafeteria and bought a couple bottles of the sparkling water I knew my father liked, thinking they'd serve as a peace offering upon my return.

As I approached Drea's room, thinking over what I might say to my dad, I noticed the movement of hospital personnel inside the room that had my heart beating faster and my footsteps picking up the pace.

Sliding the door open, I walked in to see a nurse and a doctor standing over Drea. The doctor seemed to be speaking to her, but I couldn't hear what she was saying. I glanced at my dad, hoping he could fill in the blanks, but he was bent forward in his chair, obviously trying to see what was happening.

Cautiously, I walked over to stand next to my father, not wanting to be in the way but needing to know whether I'd just walked into something good or bad.

Absently, I handed him the sparkling water. "What's going on?" I asked, my voice just loud enough for my dad to hear.

"She opened her eyes," he said without looking at me. "It was just for a few seconds, and she didn't seem aware of where she was, but they were open."

His voice held a tinge of hope that had tears pricking the corners of my eyes. When he grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight, a couple of those tears escaped unchecked down my cheeks.

The doctor and the nurse remained for a moment longer, then turned to debrief us, saying this was normal and would likely happen with more frequency over the coming days. That it was a good sign of progress. We thanked her, and they exited the room, leaving us alone once again.

My father was still holding my hand.

I looked down, then back at him only to find him staring at our hands as well. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice quiet. His eyes flicked up to mine. "I'm sorry," he repeated, "for being so hard on you. For making you feel like you weren't good enough."

I sat in the chair next to him but still didn't release his hand. I didn't want to break the connection.

"Can you help me understand why?"

"I don't want to make excuses."

"I respect that. But I really think it would help to know."

He sighed. "Tell me about Jason. How did that happen?"

"You're changing the subject?"

"I promise, I have a reason for asking."

Finally releasing his hand, I opened my sparkling water and took a sip. "Right after Thanksgiving, when the team was flying back after that loss against Clemson, my roommate mistook Jason for my boyfriend, and I guess it got me thinking about the possibility. Next thing I knew, we were kissing on New Year's Eve."

"Did you know you were bi before this?"

"No. I had no clue."

"Are you in love with him?"

I was surprised he asked, though not because I hadn't thought about it myself. I'd been giving it a lot of thought this week, actually. "I think I might be. It's kind of new. But I know I haven't felt this way about anyone else I've dated."

"Did you know it only took me a week to fall in love with your mom?"

"I knew you only dated for about a year before you got married."

He took a sip of his sparkling water. "It was your Aunt Amy who introduced us."

I knew this. Mom had told me. "Aunt Amy was a law clerk in your office, right?"

"Yeah. I was young, just a year out of law school, and there were several of us in our mid- to upper-twenties who worked in that office. We liked to socialize outside of work. Your mom was working at the bank across the street, and Aunt Amy invited her to meet us for happy hour. One drink turned into two, and then drinks turned into dinner. We talked for hours, and I was up so late that I almost overslept the next day.

"I'd never met anyone who could get me talking about anything and completely lose track of time. But with her…it was like everything else in the world melted away. That first night, I hadn't even noticed when everyone else tabbed out. I'd been entirely focused on her.

"We saw a movie the next day. Went to a baseball game the day after that. There was brunch and bowling and another night at happy hour. She had this exuberant personality and a radiant smile. I wanted nothing more than to spend every moment soaking up her energy. By the end of the week, I knew she was it for me. I told myself to wait at least six months to propose, but I only made it two, just for her to accept the proposal and then ask, ‘What were you waiting for?'"

I was captivated by the way he spoke of her, as if she had been the single most important thing in his life. And I supposed she had been. That was what he was trying to tell me.

"Marrying her was the best day of my life, or at least until you were born, and then Drea a few years later. If I thought I loved her before, my feelings couldn't compare to the joy of watching her become your mother. While I fumbled with diapers and feedings and bedtime routines, your mom handled all of it like she was born to do it. And I don't mean that in some misogynistic bullshit way, implying it's the woman's job, but in a way that honors her skill as a mother. She always knew what to do. And as you kids got older, what to say. I was very much in my element as a lawyer, but I floundered as a father. Your mom tried to help me, tried to coach me. She inspired me to be better."

He rolled the bottle of sparkling water back and forth in his hands. I didn't think he was even aware he was doing it. "And then she was gone. My best friend, my partner, my wife …gone. It felt like someone had reached into my chest and yanked out my heart right there in front of me. I was devastated. And there you and Drea were, shell-shocked by her loss. And you weren't little. I think I might have been able to handle it if you'd been little, but you were teenagers. And as much as I tried to be the kind of dad you deserved, the kind of dad she'd be proud of, parenting a teenager was an absolute mystery to me.

"You talked back. You rolled your eyes. Sometimes, you outright defied me. And that was all while your mom was still here. When I— we —lost her, I was so scared you were going to go off the rails, I got even more strict. More insistent that you conform to my way.

"It was all in an effort to control the outcome. I had no control over your mom's death, so I think this was my way of overcompensating. If I controlled your lives, maybe I could save you from her fate."

I thought about what it might be like to lose Jason. To have him ripped from me. It hurt to breathe just thinking about it.

"I think I can understand some of that, Dad, but there are a couple of gaping holes in your premise. You suggest that applying control was an effort to keep me safe, but that's not exactly what you did. The type of control you exerted was pressure. It wasn't a strict curfew or an insistence that I only drove certain places at certain times—those things would make sense after losing Mom the way we did—what you did was demand I dress a certain way, get straight A s, score the game-winning goal. None of those were meant to keep me safe. You just wanted the perfect son, and I was never gonna meet that standard."

He glanced over at Drea. "Your sister said the same thing to me right before Thanksgiving. She said she was afraid that if I didn't stop being such a dictator—her word—you wouldn't ever come back. We actually argued over it. She said a lot of things that were really hard to hear, but after she stormed out of the house and went to Mandy's, I had no choice but to think about what she'd said. I even called Aunt Amy, who laughed in my face for being so obtuse—also her word—but then gently pointed out all the ways I'd been too hard on you. She helped me see just how deep it had gotten."

That would explain some of the changes I'd seen in him since I'd left for school, but it still didn't make sense to me. "That still doesn't explain it though. I'm glad someone pointed it out to you. But I still don't understand why ."

"I don't know how to explain it," he said with a sigh, frustration lacing his tone. "Your mom was so good at the mothering thing, and instead of trying to mimic what she did, mostly because I didn't know how , I tried to muscle my way through. If I applied pressure and exerted control, I could keep you on track to be the person she wanted you to be. You could chase your dreams and be successful."

I snorted an exasperated laugh. "But, Dad…all Mom ever wanted was for me to be happy. To be me . She wanted me to be successful, but she never defined what that success would look like because it wasn't up to her to decide. It was always my version of success. She wanted me to chase my dreams, not anyone else's. She pushed and nudged here and there, but it was only because I was a kid and she was trying to help me course correct. She never tried to push me onto a path I didn't want in the first place or to be someone I wasn't.

"And I think you missed something critical in the first place. You said the greatest day of your life was when you married Mom, at least until Drea and I were born. But even then, what gave you joy was watching Mom become a mother. It wasn't the joy of becoming a father yourself. It's like you were always happy to be on the sidelines and watch her shine, but you forgot to be invested in being a good dad as well. Supporting her in being a good mother isn't the same as being a good father."

He winced, but I continued, needing to make my point. I knew what I was saying was hurting him, but it needed to be said if there would ever be a path forward. "It feels like I grew up with two different dads. The one who was distant and sort of took a backseat to parenting and the one who tried to micromanage everything. Neither of those was the dad I wanted."

I ran my hand through my hair again, then looked him in the eye. "I want a relationship with you, Dad. I want to know you, and I want you to know me. I want you to ask how my game went rather than point out all the ways I could have been better. As if I don't already know those things. As if I don't already have coaches for that. I want to come home for breaks and sit on the dock with a cup of coffee and catch up on life. I want to laugh with you. We never laugh, Dad."

He'd turned his face away from me as I was talking, so I couldn't get a read on him. I couldn't tell if he was angry or upset or if he'd really even heard me. It was tempting to jump back in, to fill the silence, but I kept quiet, waiting to see how he'd respond.

After a moment, he scrubbed a hand over his face and rose, turning to face me. "I think it's my turn to take a breather."

I rose to stand so we could speak face-to-face. "Dad, I'm sorry, I just?—"

He put a hand out to stop me. "You obviously had a lot you needed to get off your chest. And my first instinct is to shut you down and tell you how wrong you are. But that would be the hurt talking, and I don't want to do that anymore. So I'm going to run home, grab a shower, and check on some things at the house." He nodded toward Drea. "You'll call if anything changes?"

"Yeah, of course."

He squeezed my shoulder, then turned and walked out of the room.