Different colored minds

Dad

JOE POV

My bed is cold, even after I lay in it for hours. I finally realize it's not my bed, it's me. I told them I wanted to go home tonight. They fought me being discharged but ultimately they let me go. My parents both wanted to give me some space. It's hard to think, to breathe now that I'm alone in bed. I'm so tired but every time I close my eyes pictures of dead bodies flood my mind. Contorted figures, contorted faces, they're all there. A piece of my heart in a jail cell, the other on the floor of the library drowning in the blood of my first love.

"Hi my name's Aliana, I just transferred here," she puts out her hand for me to take. I look down at it curiously. What was a newbie talking to the most popular guy at school for?
"Joe," I shake it slightly unwillingly and am about to turn away, she squeezes my hand hard. I look back.
"I think you're hot, and I don't say that lightly," she says with a serious face. I chuckle.
"I don't find you hot at all."
"That's too bad, I guess you'll just have to get to know me, I'll be on the cheer team in no time." She adds. I laugh.
"Tell you what, if you get on the team, I'll take you out," I know for a fact that those girls are like vultures, they'll look for pieces of you to pick apart, and Aliana sure has a lot to pick apart... That's what I thought then. How utterly ignorant I was. How insolent and selfish and hideous I was. My last words to her was that she was restarted. Angry words. The last I'll ever get to say to her. The last impression of me for her was anger. Just like my dad. I can't be that kid anymore. Watching her die, killed that in me.

There's a knock at my door. I turn my face towards it. Slowly the door opens and my dad steps inside. My fists clench.

"Joe," I can't help but gulp.
"Joe, I'm sorry I am so harsh. I couldn't stop thinking about it all day. I just put what was hurting me onto you, I was waiting for the world to be fair when it never will be. Joe, I'm sorry. I messed up as a dad, and it took me almost losing you twice to understand it. I love you son more than anything on this planet, and I'm so sorry for what I put you through," my heart ties in a knot. He just said he's sorry? He doesn't say sorry, he's never noticed this stuff before. He left me to pick up the pieces of him tearing me apart. My hands, he watched me destroy them, and my mind, he watched it fall apart. Did he? He gets it now.
I can't help it, a ball is lodged in my throat. A sob right beyond, but I can't cry. Not now.
"Im angry at life and I take it out on you. But what if those were my last words to tou? What if the last thing I said to you was how horrible you were?" And for the first time in a very long time he cries.
Im numb. Who am I to hold a grudge against him when I did that. I did that to her. My first flower.
"I forgive you," I barely get the words out.
"Sleep well son," and then he walks out of the door.
My mom is standing in the doorway. She steps inside and closes the door.
She sits down on the bed and looks at me.
"At least you didn't lose both legs," she says.
I blink too fast and then I see the tears falling like bullets from her eyes. All of the grief of almost losing her son twice. I hug her. It's all I can think of doing.
"I'm sorry I worried you mom," I whisper kissing her forehead. "I love you mom," I'm not crying. I won't. I have to live. I have so many to live for. I have so many wonderful people to live for. I have God to live for.