My Pleasure, Darling

16: The Aforementioned Storm

The flood comes when I wake up.

I'm comfortable, and rested, and warm under the heavy covers. Sunlight is pouring in the window. I know that I am safe. My belly is still full from last night. I am here, perfectly alright, and everybody I ever loved, and everybody I ever cared about, is not.

Genn isn't warm and comfortable this morning. Tibith has been on rations for days. Himka is not safe. And my father, my father is bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders.

I'm not a hysterical crier, not usually, but with my face buried in this soft, squishy pillow, I let the sobs turn into screams. Dad. He isn't here. He's never going to be here. He's going to die hundreds of miles away and I'm not going to be with him, I'm not going to be able to protect him, I'm not going to be able to say goodbye. My goodbyes were said days ago, hastily in the night with a brief hug.

All the things I wanted to tell him. All the things he should have heard. I wish he was here so I could tell him. Thank you for taking me in when I was abandoned as a baby. Thank you for being my Dad. Thank you for taking care of me, for drying my tears when I was scared, for caring for my scrapes when I got hurt. Thank you for never treating me like a burden, even when I'm pretty sure I was. Thank you for being my best friend. Thank you for everything. Every moment. Even when I was angry. Even when I was mean. Thank you for it. Thank you for all of it. And damn you. Damn you for making me suffer. Damn you for leaving like this and making sure I never get to have those experiences again. Damn you for not meeting my first boyfriend, damn you for not walking me down the aisle on my wedding day, or meeting my first child, damn you for dying on the mountain.

My face is scrunched up and tears won't stop coming. My breathing is uneven and hacked. Thank you. Damn you. Please don't die. Please. I don't care if it makes you a coward. I don't care if it makes you a traitor. Flee. Escape. I don't want to live out here without you to guide me. I'm too young, Dad. Don't go. Just don't go.

These are things I should have said that night. Things he should have heard, things I should have told him. Now it's too late. He'll never hear them. The regret mixes with the grief as it crashes into my chest, eliciting more sobs. I will never be able to go back. I will never be able to reassure him. He will never know just how much I love him. Just what he means to me. He will die without knowing how good of a father he was to me, and that is on me till the day I die.

I don't know how long I cry for. Too long, and not long enough. The tears run dry, but it takes longer for the sobs to stop coming, for the pain to stop when it stabs in my chest. It still stabs. It's just now I'm numb to the pain. There's an ache in my head, undoubtedly from the crying, but it too is numb, as if the pain is behind a glass window, I know it's there, but I can't hear it or touch it.

I drag myself to the bathroom. My face is more swollen than I ever recall seeing it, very red, tear-streaked in the mirror. I'm not sure I would recognise me in the street. I just sigh at my reflection, as if I couldn't breathe before, as if the screaming somehow could have come before oxygen.

I run the shower on the hottest temperature I can find. It's very hot. I know this, because it leaves bright red marks on my skin where it hits. But I don't feel it burn me. Or if I do, I take solace in the pain.

Physical pain I can handle. Physical pain, I know how to deal with. I have first aid training and I know what I'm doing. Psychological pain in something new entirely. I haven't felt this kind of loss, this acute abandonment, ever. Passive abandonment? Finding out that I am adopted, and processing the absolute terror that one day I'll be set aside again, unlovable, unwantable? Sure. But this? How am I supposed to live with this?