Chapter 5 Given Up On Him

Cade was already at the door when she grabbed her jacket, she pulled it on with shaking hands and followed him outside into the cool night air, the gravel crunching under her feet. His bike sat in the driveway, the chrome catching the faint glow from the porch light.

She'd never been on one before, he swung his leg over and settled into the seat, then looked back at her. Waiting.

"I don't know how," she admitted quietly.

His jaw tightened and he reached back and grabbed her wrist, pulling her forward. "Swing your leg over. Sit behind me. Hold on."

She climbed on awkwardly, the seat firm beneath her, the engine warm, she didn't know where to put her hands.

"Hold on to me," he said.

She hesitated, then she wrapped her arms around his waist slowly, feeling the heat of him through his shirt, the solid muscle beneath her palms. He went still for just a second, his shoulders tensing, then he kicked the bike to life and pulled out onto the empty street.

The wind hit her face immediately, cold and sharp. She pressed closer instinctively, her cheek against his back, her arms tightening around him. She didn't ask where they were going. She already thought she knew, but she was wrong.

The sign above the entrance read Santa Maria Hospital.

She lifted her head when they pulled in, blinking against the harsh light of the parking lot. "Why are we here?" she asked.

Cade turned the engine off, the silence hit her immediately. He got off the bike and turned, offering his hand.

She didn't take it. "Cade. Why are we at a hospital?"

"Get off the bike," he said.

She climbed off on her own, her legs unsteady, her eyes on his face. He was already walking toward the entrance.

"I thought you were taking me to his grave," she said, hurrying to catch up. "You said he was dead."

He pushed through the glass doors without answering. She followed him past the reception desk, down a long hallway, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, the sharp smell of antiseptic pressing in around her. Her hands were shaking. She didn't know why yet. Her body seemed to understand something her mind hadn't caught up to.

She grabbed his arm. "Cade. Please. Tell me what's going on."

He stopped, his jaw was tight, his eyes dark, and he looked at her for a long moment like he was deciding something. Then he said, "You wanted to see him."

"He's dead," she said. "You told me..."

"I know what I told you."

He pulled his arm free and kept walking, she stood there for a second, the hallway quiet around her, the monitors beeping somewhere behind closed doors. Then she made herself follow.

They turned down a quieter corridor, the lights dimmer here, the sounds of the main floor falling away. He stopped in front of a door. The number 217 on a small plaque beside it.

He stared at it and she watched his hands curl slowly into fists at his sides. "Cade," she said softly.

He didn't look at her. "Go in."

"What?"

"Go in," he said again.

She looked at the door, then at him, then back at the door. Her heart was loud in her ears as she reached for the handle and pushed it open. The room was small and white and very still.

A single bed in the center, machines surrounding it, monitors beeping in a slow steady rhythm, tubes running from the bed to IV bags on metal poles. A thin blanket, a pale hand resting on top of it... A face she hadn't seen in years.

Her breath left her body all at once, he looked older. So much older. His face pale and sunken, his chest rising and falling in shallow, labored breaths, his eyes were closed. He looked like he was sleeping except he wasn't sleeping, she knew that immediately, the way you know things before you're ready to know them, her body understanding it before her brain did.

She couldn't move, neither could she speak, she just stood in the doorway and stared at him and felt the floor shift beneath her feet.

"No," she whispered.

Cade stepped into the room behind her. She felt his presence without looking at him.

"You said he was dead," she said. Her voice didn't sound like hers.

"He is," Cade said quietly.

She turned. "He's breathing." Her voice cracked on the last word. "He's right there. He's breathing."

"That's not him," Cade said. "Not anymore."

"You don't know that..."

"The doctors do," he said. His voice was low, controlled, like he'd had this conversation before, inside his own head, a hundred times over three years. "No brain activity. No chance of recovery. He's been like this since before you came back."

She shook her head, her eyes burning. "You should have told me."

"You were gone," he said.

"I had a right to know," she said, louder now. "He's my father. He's my..." Her voice broke and she pressed her hand over her mouth and looked back at the bed.

Cade said nothing. "You gave up on him," she said, not looking at him.

"Lyra..."

"You decided he was dead and you just..." She turned back to him, her eyes wet. "He took you in. He gave you a home when you had nobody and you just decided he was gone and moved on."

Something moved through Cade's jaw. A muscle tightening, releasing. He looked at her for a long moment and she could see it, the thing he was holding back, pressing down, keeping controlled.

"I paid for this room," he said finally, his voice lower now. "I paid for every machine in here. Every bag on every pole. I came here every week for three years and I sat in that chair." He nodded at the chair beside the bed, worn at the armrests in a way that told her he wasn't lying. "I didn't give up on him. I just stopped pretending."

She looked at the chair and something shifted in her chest. "You should have called me," she said, quieter now.

"Your mother had your number," he said. "Not me."

That landed somewhere painful. She turned back to her father and the fight went out of her all at once, her shoulders dropping, her hands loose at her sides.

She crossed the room slowly and sat in the chair beside the bed, the worn armrests, three years of him sitting here.

She reached out and took her father's hand. It was cold, the skin thin and papery, nothing like she remembered. She held it carefully like it might break.

"Dad," she whispered. "It's me. It's Lyra."

The machines beeped steadily and she heard Cade shift behind her.

"Do you think he can hear anything?" she asked quietly. She wasn't sure why she was asking him. Maybe because he was the only one there. Cade was silent for a long moment.

"No," he said. "I don't."

She nodded slowly, her eyes on her father's face. Soon she heard Cade's footsteps move toward the door, then a pause and the soft sound of it closing behind him.

She sat alone in the quiet room, her father's cold hand in both of hers, the machines keeping time around her, and let herself cry without anyone watching.