Empire of Desire(Empire #1)(18)

Damage.

Decay.

Dirt.

Distress.

Disgust.

Depression.

Disease.

And my most dreaded of all. Deadly. Dead. Death.

I couldn’t really cope with it, no matter how much I tried. It gets stuck every time I say it, pushing against my vocal cords and slashing my voice down. So I made that letter D my bitch. I wrote each word a thousand times. I wrote death, a few thousand.

My wrists screamed, my heart jackhammered in my throat, and I nearly stabbed myself and bled out on the floor.

When Grandpa died five years ago, I didn’t collapse or cry. I just got all my shit together and was there for Dad as he and Susan slashed each other down.

So I was over it, right?

Wrong.

My eyes open as the true reality of death slowly forms in my awareness.

The possibility that my father could die.

As in, my only family member. The only person that kept me together and flipped the world the middle finger while he raised me on his own.

A salty taste explodes in my mouth and I realize it’s because I’m drinking my own tears.

Ever since I desensitized the letter C and its words—cry included—I don’t do that anymore. Well, I don’t do it much.

But it’s like these tears have a mind of their own. They’re not due to the word itself. This isn’t my irrational reaction to a random word. This is pulled from a place so deep within me, I have no clue where it’s located.

It doesn’t matter that my neck hurts and my body is all stiff from the uncomfortable position I slept in. All my psyche is able to process is that Dad could be gone.

I’ll be all alone without my father.

The man who painted the world in bright colors and then laid it at my feet.

The man who scowled at the world but only smiled at me.

Now, I won’t have anyone to sing me Happy Birthday off tune. No one will hug me goodbye every morning or have dinners with me every night.

There won’t be anyone who’ll slowly open my door late at night to make sure I didn’t fall asleep at my desk again because I got so consumed with whatever project I was working on. No one will bring me my favorite green tea infused with vanilla when I can’t sleep.

He won’t be there to pull me inside when I dance in the rain because I could catch a cold.

He’ll just disappear like he never existed. And unlike when Grandpa died, I don’t think I can survive this.

I can’t go back to the house we called ours and pick up nonexistent pieces of myself.

How can I when everything in there bears witness to how well and hard he raised me and how much he sacrificed himself for me?

I didn’t even consider moving out after high school. People my age want to get away from their parents, but I didn’t. It’s where home is.

A sudden shiver jolts me upright when the jacket that’s been covering me falls down my arms and to my lap.

My fingers trace the material and I’m surprised they don’t catch fire. It doesn’t matter that I don’t remember him putting it on me, or how I even ended up lying in the chair. The smell gives it away. A little bit spicy and woodsy with an undertone of musk, but it’s still strong and manly and so much like him.

The man I hugged and whose chest I cried into.

The man whose shirt I probably messed up.

He didn’t touch me back, didn’t console me, but having him there, even immobile, was enough for me.

He still had his body tight and rigid like the day of the kiss. He still refused any contact with me, just like back then, but that’s okay.

He covered me with his jacket. And maybe I can keep it like I’ve kept a lot of him with me.

Like his notebook, his shirt when he once forgot it, his hoodies from when he runs with Dad. Most of them were my father’s, but if Nate wore them even once, then they became his. Don’t ask me why. It’s the law. Then there’s a scarf that he gave me because it got cold. A book about law. Make that plural. A pen. Okay, pens, plural again.

And no, I’m not a stalker. I just like collecting. And by collecting, I mean the things that belong to him.

But he’s not here now.

And there’s a hole the size of a continent in the pit of my stomach because now I’m thinking he’s abandoned me and I need to deal with these jumbled feelings on my own.

I came on too strong again, didn’t I? Now, he really thinks I’m an unstoppable pervert who’ll keep touching him whenever I can.

I wasn’t supposed to. I wouldn’t have if he hadn’t touched me first and told me those words that just triggered everything. The fact that I needed to deal with it to get over it.

But he was supposed to be there for when I did deal with it. He shouldn’t have left me another memento of himself and then disappeared.

I stagger to my unsteady feet, rubbing at my face with the back of my hands and wiping them on my denim shorts before I neatly lay the jacket on my forearm. It needs to be all prim and proper like him. Though I probably smudged it with my snot and tears earlier.

Yikes.

My fingers graze the bracelet he gave me as I tiptoe around the corner, searching for a very familiar tall man with eyes that could send someone to hell.

Specifically me.

Still, I forge on because I can’t do this on my own. I can’t stare at Dad’s bruised, lifeless body and remain standing. No amount of lists or desensitizing or empty brain syndrome could have prepared me for this.