Chapter 31: Empire of Desire: Chapter 30

Dad woke up.

Dad. Woke. Up.

I still can’t believe it and keep mentally shaking myself during the entire ride to the hospital.

I think I’m dreaming.

That’s what I did when he first had the accident, I slept upside down and dreamt about Dad tilting his head and telling me that sleeping in that position isn’t healthy.

Then I woke up and he wasn’t there, but there were tears in my eyes.

So that’s what I think during the entire ride. I think that this is a dream—I’ll eventually wake up and Dad will still be in a coma.

My nails clink together and I dig them into my skin. Pain means it’s not a dream and that the call Nate got was real.

That my father is back.

We don’t talk the whole way. I just listen to my NF and Twenty One Pilots playlist and count the minutes until we get to the hospital.

Anytime he opens his mouth, I raise the volume until he gets the memo and stops trying to speak. I don’t want to talk to him, I don’t want him to spout more words that will cut me open. Because you know what? Fuck him.

Fuck his coldness.

Fuck his assholish tendencies.

Fuck it all.

I know about his history and what turned him into a hard man, and I get that. I do. I was abandoned, too, so we’re similar in that way. We understand what it’s like to be left behind by the same people who should be there for us. We understand how those feelings shape who we are. I have an empty brain, a notebook, and use unhealthy obsessions to cope, but I don’t go around hurting others.

I don’t go around telling them that, no matter how much they try, I’ll feel nothing for them.

Being hurt doesn’t give him the right to hurt me.

Before, I bided my time and stupidly believed that he’d come around. That one day, he’d feel a sliver of what I feel for him, but I’ve only been chasing a void.

An impossibility.

So yeah, fuck him. Now that his name is officially on the list, I’m going to be desensitized to him.

Or that’s what I tell myself.

Anyway, I just need to focus on Dad and the fact that he woke up.

When we reach the hospital, however, the doctor, an older man who has a clean-shaven face and a dimpled chin, tells us Dad is unconscious again.

My legs nearly give out, and I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts. “But…but…the nurse said he woke up.”

“He did,” the doctor says. “He responded to my commands and stayed awake for twenty minutes and tried to talk. Recovering from a coma is gradual, which means that he will gain awareness over time.”

“Does that mean he’ll wake up again?”

“We believe so, yes. Mr. Shaw didn’t have a severe score on the Glasgow Coma Scale and we’re confident that he’ll make a full recovery. Your father is a very strong-willed man.”

“I know. He is.” Tears gather in my lids again and I wipe them away with the back of my hand. “Can I see him?”

“Of course.”

I storm to Dad’s room even though my limbs barely carry me. Nate doesn’t follow me and I think it’s because he wants to talk to the doctor.

There’s a nurse moving Dad’s arm so he doesn’t get bedsores. Ever since his bruises and broken bones healed, he just looks asleep.

When it got to be too much and I missed him so badly, I used to sit beside him and joke that he doesn’t fit the Sleeping Beauty role. It was either that or crying whenever I came here.

“I’ll do it,” I tell the nurse, and she lets me, even though she stays to watch. I learned how to move my father, to wash his hair without much water, to clean his body, and make him as comfortable as possible.

“Dad…it’s me, Gwen,” I announce my presence before I lift his arm and stretch it out. He lets out a sound, a grunt or a moan, I don’t know which.

I stare at the nurse, bug-eyed, and she nods. “It’s because you’re stretching his arm.”

“Am I hurting him?”

“No. I believe he’s probably reacting to your voice. Keep talking to him.”

My attention slides back to him. “Dad…I came as soon as I heard. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you opened your eyes. But I’m not leaving your side, okay? It’s us against the world, right? And I can’t go against the world if you’re not in it. Also, also…I’m working hard in my internship and I’m confident that I’ll kick ass in college this fall. And did I tell you that I have a new friend? Can you believe that? Me, making friends? Jane didn’t even know you were my dad in the beginning, and she might have thought you’re a bit egotistical, but I changed her mind and she’s totally a member of your fan club now. I want to introduce her to you since she joined the IT department after your accident. They called her Plain Jane there and I totally put them in their place. I had to use your name for it—sorry about that—but I promise it’s for a good cause.”

I stroke his hand in mine and sigh. “I also went ahead and broke my own heart, because I gave it to someone who doesn’t want it. I think I have vanilla dreams and I need to get rid of them, so, Daddy, please wake up and tell me how.”

He squeezes my fingers, and before I can freak out about it, his lashes flutter and his eyes slowly open.

I nearly have a heart attack, my fingers pausing on his arm as the blue-gray color of his irises shines under the lights. The color I haven’t seen in weeks. It’s muted now, exhausted, but it’s staring directly at me.

He blinks slowly, but his gaze remains on me.

“Oh my God, Dad…”

His fingers squeeze around mine and he mumbles something. At first, it’s incoherent, but then I get close and the word he croaks fills my lids with moisture. “…Angel…”

“Yeah, it’s me, Dad. I’m here.”

He blinks again, says something unintelligible and slowly closes his eyes.

“What…what’s wrong?” I ask the nurse.

“It’s normal. He’ll be slipping in and out of consciousness a lot before he regains complete awareness. He’s just sleeping now.”

“You’ve slept for long enough, Dad. Sleeping Beauty really doesn’t suit you, so you have to wake up now.” I try to scold him but sound tearful instead.

He squeezes my hand again, but he doesn’t open his eyes. I remain by his side long after I finish moving him. It’s very early in the morning, and I should be sleeping, but I can’t. What if he wakes up when I’m asleep?

The door slides open and I think it’s the nurse, but Nate walks inside with a vanilla milkshake in hand.

He places it between my fingers. “You should go home and rest, but I assume you won’t move from his side now.”

I dig my nails into the cup. Why does he have to be so good at reading me but not know how painful his actions are?

He shouldn’t be this attuned to me if it means nothing.

He shouldn’t know things about me and bring me those things because they’re what keeps me at peace.

“The nurse said he opened his eyes and talked to you?” he asks.

I just take a slurp of my milkshake. Yes, the asshole bought it, but it’s not its fault and it should be consumed.

“Gwyneth.” There’s a warning in his tone because he’s a god, and gods don’t like being ignored.

They don’t like being defied.

Well, too bad for him because I’m in the mood for anarchy.

“Look at me.”

I don’t.

“Gwyneth, I said look at me.”

When I refuse again, he steps in front of me and grabs my chin with two fingers. They’re strong and powerful and so warm, it feels as if I’m being set on fire.

His size eats up the horizon as he stares down at me with disapproval. As if he has the right to disapprove right now.

I jerk my head away from him. “Don’t touch me.”

A muscle tics in his jaw and his brown eyes rage in color, darkening. “What did you just say?”

“I said, don’t touch me, Nate.”

“You’re my fucking wife. I will touch you whenever I want.”

“Not when you intend to keep this physical only.”

“You were fine with physical before. What changed?”

“Me. I changed, Nate, and I’m not going to let you hurt me every time I wait for you to kiss me and you don’t.”

“So that’s what this is all about? A fucking kiss?”

I jerk up and nearly spill the milkshake. “It’s not about the kiss, it’s about what comes with the kiss. The feelings you don’t want.”

“You didn’t want them either.”

“Are you serious? Do you really believe I don’t want feelings? Why the hell do you think I kissed you two years ago? I’ve had this burn for you since I was fifteen, Nate! Since you told me the emptiness isn’t my reality and I can’t fill it up but it’s okay to feel empty sometimes. I realize now that was because you understand what it means to be hollow. You were abandoned, too, you were left behind, too, and there’s a void that remains, like the one my mother left in me. I didn’t know that before, that you were empty, but I understood it deep down. That’s why I was able to connect with you, that’s why I had a burn that would become all painful and hot whenever you were around.

“I fought it at first, you know. I really, really did, because it was wrong, right? You’re eighteen years older than me and Dad’s best friend, and it killed me to hurt him or be the reason that you guys grew apart. So I hid whenever you were around. I ran to my closet and closed the door. I used the trees as camouflage to be out of sight. But you know what? I kept watching you through the opening of the door and from behind the trees. Because the burn wouldn’t stop. If anything, it kept growing and heightening until it became a volcano. That’s why I kissed you on my eighteenth birthday—the volcano erupted and I couldn’t stop it anymore. But you turned it to ashes when you rejected me and I gave up. Or I tried to, anyway. But the thing is, that volcano was never dormant. It’s been slowly resurrecting, especially since I became your wife. And now it’s about to erupt again, and you’re turning it to ashes. Fucking again. So no, Nate, it’s not that I didn’t want feelings. Feelings are all I have. I’m empathetic. I feel, and I feel deep and hard. I agreed with your stupid no-feelings rule to get whatever I could from you. I believed you’d change with time, but that’s not the case, is it? You’ll always turn my volcano to ashes, won’t you?”

His body tightens during my outburst. His nostrils are flaring and his chest nearly bursts from his heavy breathing. When he speaks, his voice is calm but tight. “What are you saying, Gwyneth?”

“I’m saying that you don’t get to touch me unless you’re willing to give me more.”

“I don’t do feelings and that’s fucking final.”

“Then I won’t do sex. That’s also final.”

“Gwyneth,” he growls.

“What, Nate? What? If you want a whore, go pick one off the side of the street.”

He grabs me hard by the shoulders and shakes me. “Don’t you ever—and I mean, ever—think of yourself as a whore, do you hear me?”

“That’s what you make me feel like!” My voice raises and I hate it, because that’s not true. He doesn’t make me feel like a whore, not when he always takes care of me and makes sure my comfort comes before his.

But that’s what I’m supposed to think, right? If he doesn’t have feelings for me and doesn’t intend to, then how am I any different from a whore?

Nate releases me with a shove and I flinch from the gutting harshness in his expression.

“I see.” He turns around. “I’ll be outside if you need anything.”

And with that, he’s out of the room.

I fall to my seat, and the milkshake hits the floor and spills all over it. And with it, my tears.

Because I know, I just know, something just broke between us and there’s probably nothing that can fix it.