Secret Lucidity(22)

He’s gone.

And I’m in pieces—too weak to mend this wound on my own.

Life is cruel. It won’t budge for me no matter what I do.

I want my world to go back to what it was. It’s not fair that I have to suffer, that I have to go on without a parent, that I have to manage this pain.

“Cam!”

I coil away from his voice, but he’s too close. Down on his knees in front of me, Coach Andrews lays his hand on my back, and I flinch away.

“Don’t touch me!” I beg, terrified to be this close to my emotions. “Go away, please. Just go!”

He does, closing the door behind him and yelling at everyone in the building that practice is cancelled and to go home. As they go on with their simple lives, mine falls apart.

Razors start sawing away at heartstrings and arteries, flooding me in misery and depleting my heart of the blood it craves.

And right here, with no more strength, the last tether is cut, and I break.

I completely shatter.

My cries are ugly, their sounds unrecognizable as they bleed out of me. I hunch over with my eyes clenched shut, and I beg for my dad to come back to me. I’m desperate, so I release an agonizing wail, hoping if I cry hard enough, God will take pity and return him to where he belongs—here with me.

Tears coat my cheeks, the pain they carry with them seeping back into my pores, refusing to leave my body just so it can torment me some more. My throat flames, igniting when I drop my hand down to the ground and cry out—broken and alone. I’m nothing but a lost lamenting girl, wanting nothing more than to have her daddy back as sobs wrack my body, sending tremors up my spine as I grasp on to each breath.

I don’t know how long I’ve been crying, but when my sobs drift into weeping hiccups, I realize I’m not alone.

Arms cocoon me, and my face is pressed against damp cotton. I’m surrounded by warmth, and as much as I want to fight him off, a bigger part of me wants to cling to him. I want to take the comfort he’s offering, a comfort I’ve been deprived of, a comfort my mother won’t give me. With my hand, I fist the fabric of his shirt and bury my head against his chest as he rocks us back and forth.

“You’re okay,” Coach Andrews whispers above me, but I don’t believe him and shake my head, denying his claim. His fingers push through my hair as he cradles the back of my head in his hand, asserting, “You’re going to get through this.”

“How?” My voice scratches through my knotted throat.

He leans back, and when I raise my head and look up at him through blurry eyes, flint strikes steel, sparking an ember to life somewhere inside my desolate heart.

“You just will.” He sweeps his thumb across my cheek, collecting my sadness and allowing it to absorb into his skin.

“I don’t believe you.”

Brushing a few loose strands of my hair away from my face, he takes a hard swallow and his neck flexes from the effort. “I know you don’t, but I promise you, you will.”

I drop my head and take in a deep breath, inhaling the spice of his cologne. The smell feeds a neediness inside me—a neediness I was unaware existed. Suddenly, the longing to be nurtured and coddled takes over. Maybe it’s because he understands this pain when none of my friends do. He’s the one who isn’t rushing me to be normal again.

There’s an urge for him to never let me go that creeps beneath my skin. I know he’s my teacher, I know these feelings aren’t appropriate, but I feel them anyway. The fact that I’m tucked in his arms right now should be enough, but it isn’t. I’d rather be clinging to him. It’s the desire to feel safe and protected when I haven’t felt it in so long. Maybe it took me finally crying to be able to recognize that I need someone to lean on, that I can’t do this on my own, that I’m not as strong as I once thought.

“Have you talked to anyone about this? About what happened?”

“No one would understand.”

“Your mom?”

I shake my head, unwilling to share the truth about her.

“Come here,” he says before standing. He takes my hands and helps me to my feet. “Will you talk to me?”

His sincerity makes me want to cry some more, but for a totally different reason, so I do. And without any hesitation, I walk straight to him and rest my head against his chest. It takes him a moment to close his arms around me, but when he does, I’m able to breathe easier. When my whole world has been shaken to its core, somehow this man makes it a little bit steadier.





WITH MY FATHER’S BROKEN FRAME in my backpack, I hide in the girl’s locker room while I pull myself together.

I cried. Finally, for the first time since leaving the hospital, I really cried.

And now that I have, I feel lighter. It’s not as if a boulder was lifted off me—more like a tiny atom, but it’s enough for me to notice. It’s also enough to deplete me. This day, everything about it, has stripped me layer by layer to the point I now feel as if I’m nothing but brittle bones.

When I walk out to the football field, I take a seat on the bleachers to wait for Kroy, pull out my cell, and dial my mother. This time, instead of it going straight to voice mail, it rings. She doesn’t answer though, so I hang up, relieved she’s alive enough to charge her battery but furious that she had to add more stress to this already nightmarish day.