The alphas pen pal, p.7
The Alpha's Pen Pal, page 7
“Hey, kiddo!” Scott called when he saw me, and I skipped to his side, a smile tugging on my lips as he hugged me.
He was twenty and was already running a successful graphic design business out of his home.
Tiffany gave me a soft smile and patted me on the head as I let go of Scott. She was twenty-three and worked the night shift as an ER nurse at a hospital in town.
The smell of the roasted chicken and vegetables Mom cooked for dinner reached my nose. My stomach growled, causing everyone in the room to chuckle.
We settled into our seats. I sat between Scott and Tiffany, and Dad dished out food for everyone, the casual conversation flowing between the adults.
I mostly tuned them out, swinging my feet under the table as the music I was dancing to earlier played in my head. I had to force myself to not hum the tune out loud. I focused on finishing my dinner so I could get back upstairs and continue dancing.
“Dad, you know how I feel about ‘alternative medicine’ doctors! They’re all charlatans, just trying to make a quick dollar by using terms like ‘natural medicine,’ when in reality it’s just a mix of random herbs that don’t actually heal or fix anything!” Tiffany declared.
“This woman was different, Tiff!” Dad argued. “She had credentials and certificates all over her walls!”
“Daaad,” Tiffany groaned, her head falling into her hands.
She shook her head as she continued speaking. “Dad, people can just buy those and print them. Unless they’re from an actual accredited university, it doesn’t mean shit!” She covered her mouth and glanced at me. “I mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“She gave me these new vitamins,” Dad said, ignoring Tiffany. “She said they’re supposed to help heal cancer cells before they begin multiplying in your body.”
Tiffany looked over at her brother for help, but he stared at his plate, staying out of their argument. My heart, however, leapt up to my throat at his words, a tightness forming there.
“You have cancer?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“No!” Dad said, reaching across the table to grab my hand and squeeze it. “I just like to make sure I’m taking proper care of my body so I don’t get cancer.”
I nodded, and the worry I felt slipped away, replaced by happiness to be sitting there, eating dinner with my family.
“Are you still writing to your pen pal? What was his name? Presley?” Scott asked me, changing the subject, a teasing smile on his face as he looked at me.
My cheeks heated, and I pressed my hands to my face to hide my blush.
“Wesley,” I mumbled in reply. “His name is Wesley.”
“Right, right, Wesley,” Scott said, nodding.
I swallowed down my embarrassment. “Yes, I still write to him sometimes.”
“Sometimes? Try at least once a week!” Dad barked out with a laugh. “I’ve never spent so much money on stamps in my life!”
“Dad!” I cried, my embarrassment coming back.
I buried my face in my hands, my blush spreading to the tips of my ears.
“It seems our Havie has her first crush.” Tiffany chuckled.
“What?!” I shouted, my head snapping up to stare at her. “No! No, no, no! We’re just friends!” I insisted, my arms crossing and uncrossing in front of me vehemently.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Haven,” Tiffany said. “It’s perfectly normal for you to have a little crush on him. He’s a nice boy, and I can tell from the picture mom showed me he is a pretty cute kid.”
“This is not happening,” I muttered to myself under my breath as I looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Mom, tell them to stop, please!” I begged her, but she laughed along with my dad, Scott, and Tiffany.
“All of you, leave her alone,” she told them anyway, even though she was still giggling.
“Sorry, Havie,” Scott said, ruffling my hair with his hand. “We’re just teasing. And you’re so cute when you blush.”
I shoved his hand off of my head with a groan.
“I remember I had a crush on Stevie Bernard when I was in 4th grade,” Tiffany said as she cut a bite of her chicken. “He was my first boyfriend,” she added with a sigh.
“You had a boyfriend in 4th grade?!” I squeaked.
She laughed. “I mean, he asked, and I said yes. We wrote notes and brought each other gifts on holidays, and then we ‘broke up’ when he moved to another school.”
“No boyfriends for you,” Dad said, pointing at me with his fork. “Not until you can drive.”
“I’m not interested in boys,” I told him, shaking my head.
“Well, no girlfriends either,” he amended.
“No! I mean…” I sighed. “Never mind.”
I went back to my meal, ignoring their stares, hoping they’d change the subject to something that didn’t involve me.
“So, Mom, as much as I love regaling you all with tales of my hilariously entitled clients, I know there was a reason you called Tiff and me here other than to listen to me talk about work,” Scott said as the conversation dwindled.
Mom and Dad exchanged a glance, then Dad nodded and left his seat to go into the kitchen. Tiffany glanced at me, and Scott took a drink from his water to hide his smile.
“Haven,” Mom began, and I turned to look at her, shoving my shaking hands under the table to hide them. “Haven, this probably won’t come as a surprise to you, but we have something we’d like to ask you.”
My heart pounded in my chest, knocking against my ribs with a force I’d never felt before. Butterflies swarmed around my stomach, and my throat tightened as if being squeezed by a vise. I had been waiting for them to ask for months now, but even knowing it might happen didn’t prepare me for how I would feel when it actually happened.
Dad came back into the dining room just then, holding a cake box, a hopeful smile on his face. “We already think of you as part of our family, but we wanted to ask you…”
He set the box down in front of me, and in purple writing on top of the white frosting, they’d written: Will you officially be our daughter?
I stared at the cake, unable to do anything else. My hands still shook under the table, and the butterflies still flew around my insides. My heart threatened to burst through my chest, and my throat clenched, rendering me speechless.
I tried to swallow, but the action felt foreign to me. I closed my eyes and counted to ten, taking long, slow, deep breaths before I opened my eyes again to glance at the cautiously hopeful faces of my family.
My family. They were already that, had been that for me for longer than I’d truly realized, but they wanted to make it official.
The tears streamed down my face, but I didn’t bother with trying to hide them. I was too happy, too excited, too overjoyed to care.
I nodded at them, choking out words. “I want that. I want that so badly.”
I wasn’t sure if they could understand my words because my voice was so emotional. But my nod seemed to be enough because they all began to cheer and clap in excitement.
Tiffany pulled me out of my chair and spun me around in a hug. “I’m so excited to finally have a little sister!” she exclaimed, and I giggled even with my tears still streaming down my face.
They passed me around to each other, each of them hugging me, all of us laughing and crying tears of happiness. I’d never felt so loved and accepted as I did at that moment. Even all the moments combined over the previous year and a half couldn’t compare.
“Jack! The cider! You forgot to grab the sparkling cider!” Mom yelled over the commotion, and Dad smacked his forehead before heading back into the kitchen to grab the cider.
“Where are the champagne flutes?” Dad called from the kitchen as he rummaged around the cabinets, moving dishes, pots and pans and Tupperware around as he looked for the fancy glasses.
“They’re in the same cabinet they were in the last time you asked me!” Mom chuckled as she rolled her eyes at the three of us. “I swear, your father has lived here for over twenty years, and he still can’t remember where anything is!”
The sound of glass shattering and a body hitting the floor had our laughter coming to an immediate stop.
“Jack?!” Mom called out to him, her voice tight.
Her tense body walked towards the doorway to the kitchen and froze in the entrance.
“JACK!” she cried out, disappearing through the opening.
Time slowed down. Tiffany ran after Mom, her eyes wide with fear. I tried to run after her, but Scott grabbed me around the middle, pulling me back towards his body so I couldn’t leave the room.
I fought against Scott, trying to get to the kitchen, to get to my dad so I could see him and make sure he was all right. But his hold on me was tight, keeping me in place while also trying to comfort me.
His mouth moved as he talked to me, his other hand brushing through my hair as he hugged me against his chest, but all I could hear were the sounds coming from the kitchen. Mom’s sobs echoed through the house, mixing in with Tiffany’s gasp of surprise and then her calm words as she tried to soothe Mom.
“Scott!” Tiffany shouted, her voice clear but shaking. “Call an ambulance!”
He moved his hand from my hair to grab his phone out of his pocket, and I took that opportunity to wiggle out of his loosening grasp since his focus was on the phone call he needed to make.
He yelled, “Haven, no!” but I was already around the table and through the doorway before he could get his hands back on me.
He cursed under his breath and followed me. I stopped in my tracks in the middle of the kitchen, my breath catching in my chest as I stared at the heartbreaking scene in front of me.
My dad was sprawled out on the floor of the kitchen, a small pool of dark red blood forming on the sparkling white tile as it leaked from a wound on the back of his head. The right side of his face looked almost like it was melting; it was droopy and did not match the left side.
His eyes moved around in every direction, the movements of them not in sync with each other. He was unresponsive to Mom and Tiffany, who both sat near him, trying to get him to talk or react to their voices.
I froze in place. My feet were super glued to the floor, unable to move forward to my family or turn and run out of the kitchen to the safety of my room. I didn’t know what was happening to my dad, but I knew it couldn’t be anything good.
My happy tears became tears of sadness as the bright future I’d had a taste of moments before dissolved right before my eyes, leaving behind only distress. Distress and fear of what would become of me in the aftermath of this tragedy.
CHAPTER 10
HAVEN
The waiting room at the hospital was cold. Cold, white, and clean, and filled with the scents of disinfectant, stale coffee, and anxiety.
I sat in my chair with my book bag, scanning the room, watching the waiting family members of the other patients in this wing of the hospital. I also watched the nurses as they came and went from the unit.
The amount of people in the waiting room dwindled, and the darkening sky outside signaled the approaching end of visiting hours. And, yet again, they had not allowed me to go back to see my dad.
“Come on, kiddo,” Scott said as he walked towards me from the restroom. “It’s time to head home.”
“Mom?”
He grimaced. “She’s staying here again. I guess they’re giving her a few more nights of it before they tell her she can’t anymore.”
I nodded, grabbed my bag, and followed him out to his car.
It had been the same routine for several weeks. School, hospital waiting room, home, repeat. Except, “home” kept changing. Some nights it was Scott’s house, some nights Tiffany’s, but never my actual home.
I clutched my book bag to my chest the entire drive to Scott’s house. Inside, I had not only my school supplies but also my blanket. Unfortunately, all my letters and my music box from Wesley were still at my house because I couldn’t fit them in with everything else.
But I had taken to bringing my blanket everywhere with me. It brought me comfort to know it was close to me. Plus, I never knew for certain whose house I would stay at each night, and I needed my blanket to sleep. I usually played Wes’s music box when I went to bed too; however, I had learned to do without it over the weeks.
Scott’s house was clean and minimally decorated. He had a spare room that he and Tiffany had put a small bed and dresser in for me, and there was a matching set in the spare room at her apartment, too, since I had to stay with them while Mom stayed overnight in the hospital.
I didn’t blame her in the least, but I was growing tired of what was becoming our norm. I wanted my routine back. I wanted my parents back.
Mom spent all day by Dad’s side, and, on the rare occasion I saw her, she was withdrawn, and she smelled… off. Wrong.
Scott and I had a wordless dinner together. I scarfed down my food, avoiding his eyes and thinking about my bookbag upstairs. He had his laptop on the table, his eyes scanning over his work at high speeds, the whites filled with small red veins that were becoming a permanent fixture.
Once I was upstairs, I burrowed down into my bed, tucking the covers up to my nose and squeezing my eyes shut tight to block out the dimming light from outside. I slowed down my breathing and kept my movements subtle and small.
I waited until I heard Scott open and shut my bedroom door as he did his check-up on me to see if I was asleep. Some nights, I would already be asleep when he’d come in, and I wouldn’t hear him. Other nights, I would be wide-eyed and sleepless, and he would pat me on the head, hug me, and tell me everything was going to be fine.
Even though I knew it was a lie. It was just something adults said when they didn’t know what else to say.
That night, however, even though I was awake when he checked on me, I didn’t move or flinch or blink. I just laid there as his eyes scanned over me, listening as he shut the door soon after.
I stayed in bed still, waiting for the sound of his shower starting. He always took a shower every night before he went to bed, even if it was well past midnight.
When the rush of water in the pipes roared above me and through the walls, I pushed the blankets off of my still-clothed body, slipped my feet into my shoes, pulled my jacket on, put my blanket in my book bag and slung it over my shoulder, then snuck downstairs and out of the house.
Scott’s home was the closer of the two to the hospital, which was why I picked this night to enact my plan. I’d been paying close attention to each stop and turn we took on our drive from the hospital to his condo until I could recite it to myself in my sleep.
It took us only a few minutes in his car, but it took me much longer on foot. I kept my head down and clutched my coat around me, blocking against the slight breeze and the cool spring night air.
I didn’t look at any of the cars that passed by me. I wore dark clothing, hoping to blend into the night sky and the surrounding greenery on the walk. The only bright bit on me was my hair, the red a beacon in the moonlight. I had my hood up, but even that didn’t cover all the vivid and unruly strands.
The pitter-patter of my feet on the pavement accompanied me the entire journey to the hospital. I let out a sigh of relief as the parking lot came into sight—I made it, and I met no resistance.
I walked right through the entrance and straight over to the elevator, avoiding eye contact with anyone. If I looked at people, someone would question me. If I acted as though I knew what I was doing, like I had a purpose and I belonged there, then I was less likely to be questioned.
Luck was on my side as well, since there was hardly a soul in sight. Only one person sat at the front desk, and he was busy on a phone call and checking something on his computer screen, so he didn’t even see me as I pressed the up button on the elevator and waited for the doors to open.
Again, everything went my way, as no one was in the elevator. I walked in and pressed the button for Dad’s floor, and rode up while listening to the elevator music version of “Drops of Jupiter.”
Normally, I would hum along, but I couldn’t. My stomach twisted and knotted around itself, and my heart raced. My palms had sweat in the center, and I wiped them against my thighs a few times to remove it.
When the elevator dinged, and the doors slid open, I stepped out and walked towards the hall that led to his room. The employee at the desk here turned, and I ducked down below the counter. For the first time in my brief life, I prayed to anyone listening that she wouldn’t see me or walk around the desk.
I stayed crouched as I tiptoed around the desk, working my way towards the corner that would block me from her sight.
I breathed out a sigh as I stood up straight once I was where I wanted to be. I stepped into Dad’s room, laying eyes on him for the first time since he’d collapsed in our kitchen.
It hadn’t been very long, but he already looked way different from what I remembered. His skin had a gray tinge, and his arms were thin and weak. He had tubes going into his nose, wires connected him to various machines, and IV lines connected to his hand.
My lip trembled as I took in his appearance. I wanted to press a rewind button so we could go back to that joyful moment in the kitchen. So I could find a way to prevent this from happening.
Tears filled my eyes, and I almost missed the sound of the door opening. I darted behind the curtain, tucking myself away as the night shift nurses entered to check on him.
“How are his stats?” the male nurse asked.
“The same,” the female replied. “He’s stable, but there hasn’t been a change for the better. Or for the worse, which is good, I guess. But the family is miserable.”
“Yes, I saw the little girl again today. I understand why they don’t want her to see him like this, but…”
“It’s not our place to question that decision,” she said.
“What about the wife?”
The girl sighed. “She left again. I think she goes to the bar down the block every night. When she returns in the morning, she always reeks of alcohol. I don’t know if her kids are so busy with everything else that they just don’t notice or if they’re just ignoring it, but she needs help.”
