Chapter Thirty-Two
Penny
“Maybe I shouldn’t have gone off on him like that. I don’t know. But after the week I’ve had, you can’t really blame me for being stressed and upset with him. A good boyfriend calls you every now and again, especially when your dad is dying.”
I was lying in Nic’s bed staring up at the ceiling. I hadn’t wanted to talk about Dad or Darren, so we had played a board game and eaten some leftover fried rice before retiring to bed for the night.
But when I awoke next to her in the warm light of morning, all the troubles of the day before were still there waiting to be sorted. Soon, I would have to begin making arrangements for Dad’s funeral. And after the fight we had had the night before, I wouldn’t have blamed Darren for thinking we had broken up.
“I feel like this is at least partially my fault,” said Nic, who had been putting off doing her morning exercises for the past hour so that we could talk. “He told me he wanted to go visit you in the hospital, and I told him it would be better to wait because you were already dealing with so much. Maybe I should’ve asked you first, but you had mentioned feeling overwhelmed and wanting to put everyone at a distance.”
“I can see how it would be confusing because I both wanted you to be there and I wanted to be left alone,” I said fairly. “I suppose I would’ve been upset either way, but I’m over it now and I’m not in the panicky place I was in last week. I felt this sense of lingering terror in my tummy knowing that Dad was about to die. But once he finally passed on, the terror subsided, and I began to feel a sense of peace—like, ‘Okay, the worst is over. Now we can begin to deal.’”
“Isn’t that the worst, though?” said Nic. “Sometimes the waiting for a dreadful thing is worse than the thing itself. There’s a sense of release when it finally happens—even though, in this case, you can never get your dad back.”
“Yeah, but I think he was ready for a long time. That’s what his brothers kept telling me last night: that I was probably dreading his death more than he was because now he gets to be reunited with Mom.”
I reached for my phone on the nightstand and scrolled through my texts looking for new messages. There were none. “I guess I had better find Darren and apologize,” I said gloomily, staring at my phone as though it was somehow to blame. “He just needs to understand that sometimes I’m not an entirely rational person, and it’s something he’ll have to deal with.”
“Given the fact that you just lost your dad, I think he’ll understand,” said Nic. “There’s a certain measure of grace that comes with grieving.” She winced in pain as she rose from the bed.
“Nic, it’s already ten o’clock,” I pointed out, holding up my phone. “You’re not actually going to work out this morning. Give up the dream.”
“I suppose not,” she said with a sigh. “Do you want breakfast? I don’t think I’ve eaten since lunch yesterday.”
We ate a lavish breakfast of gluten-free waffles, raspberries, strawberries, granola, and scrambled eggs with cheese and toast. Nic was scrolling through the morning news on her laptop when she turned to me and said, “Did you hear about this?”
“No, what?”
She turned the computer around to face me. I set down my tea and took it from her. “Apparently there was an accident yesterday at the drag strip.”
My immediate instinct was to wonder whether Darren was okay, but of course he was; I had seen him last night. As I scanned the article, my hand flew to my mouth in surprise. Dickie had been horribly injured. He was currently in critical condition at Medical City.
“I hope he’s okay,” said Nic anxiously. “In my experience ‘critical condition’ is a polite way of saying he’ll probably die.”
“Oh, I hope not.” My stomach turned at the thought. I shoved my plate away, having lost all desire to eat. “Him and Darren are best friends. Think how devastated Darren would be if he died.”
“I’m sure death would be pretty devastating for Dickie, as well,” said Nic with a smirk. “Anyway, we ought to go visit him. I bet Darren is already up there keeping watch over his bed.”
“Maybe so. I’ll go and text him just to be sure. Maybe he’ll actually answer this time.”
While I texted Darren, Nic rose from the table and began gathering up the half-empty plates. “Do you think we’ll ever again have just a normal week,” she asked, “where no one dies, and there are no accidents, and we can just sit at our windows drinking tea?”
“I doubt it. I led such a calm and untroubled existence before I met Darren. I don’t think I even appreciated how good I had it.”
“You didn’t,” said Nic. “You were always complaining about how lonely you were. If you ever want peace to return to your life, I suppose you’ll have to break up with him.”
“Which I will probably never do,” I replied, and drained the last of my tea.