The First Drop Of Rain

Chapter Sixty

Seeing your dad in a hospital gown, looking smaller than he had looked even when you climbed the tallest tree you could, was never an experience someone could understand until they experienced it. He looked pale from the bloodloss, and even in the cloudiest city in the cloudiest state, he had never looked pale before. Dad was always so golden, it took a while for me to realize that, but he always looked like a drop of sunlight that had fallen to earth. His hair was chestnut brown and always shiny, but now it even looked a little lifeless as it was dampened with sweat. They had just finished changing his wrappings and the movement had made him sweat harder than I had ever seen. He was barely ever awake now, and I barely ever left the chair. Carlisle had swung by a couple of times now and again to get me to eat, at some point he insisted on changing my bandages from my stuntman moment of flinging myself from a moving vehicle. Now I just sat there staring at my dad who needed help breathing. He looked so miniscule it was almost like I could drop him in my pocket and carry him out of here.

My shattered phone sat on my leg as I curled into the chair, absentmindedly tracing the almost two year old scar along my leg. The screen lit up and I vaguely acknowledged that it was a text from Gaia stating she was on her way up, I just kept staring at him. I was afraid to touch him, afraid to speak too loud because he may shatter at the sound. The man who had always been made of steel was rendered to glass in my mind, and I was nothing but stones.

"Hey." Gaia whispered as she opened the door slowly, a sad smile on her face. "Paul wanted to be here, I told him not to come though. Didn't want to crowd you." I forced a smile onto my face, appreciative of the fact that Gaia was always looking out for me. "How are you holding up?"

I shook my hand in the "so-so" motion as I turned my eyes back to dad. No sense in lying, she'd be able to call me out from a mile away anyways. "I think I finally understand why dad said no more extreme sports." I tried not to laugh as the twisted reality set in. "If I knew he would listen, I'd never let him work for the police department again."

"I get it." Gaia whispered, wandering over to me and placing her hand on my shoulder. I felt immense sympathy, knowing that just a few years ago she sat in this hospital on a different floor, fearing the news from the burn unit. Gi's mother was a hero all the same, now with the scars to back it up as well. It was amazing how imperfectly perfect our parents were, and even more amazing that moments like these made them more human. Growing up, Dad had always seemed like a God. He was omnipresent in my life, even when I thought he wasn't going to make it to my coach pitch softball game, I would turn around and there he was, standing in the crowd cheering right beside Mom.

Every cut and scrape, every bump and bruise, he was right there to make it better. When Mom died, Dad became more human than I had seen him. Over the years since her death, he has remained in that image of humankind... but now? Now he looked small, miniaturized in the harsh fluorescent lighting. I was almost an orphan. Whatever was smaller than human on my arbitrary scale, I was it. I may as well have been an ant scuttling around in comparison. The world is entirely too large for my Dad to not be in it. He must feel the same. I thought sadly, recalling his face as he stared at me in my hospital bed, after the attack during my freshman year. Over a year removed from the events of it all, and yet the faces I had elicited during that time still burned in my memory.

I started to lose myself in thought again, and before I knew it Carlisle was waking me gently. "Arabella?"

"Hmmm?" I raised my head and looked around, Gaia must have gone home hours ago. Hopefully I wasn't rude.

"Visiting hours are over, and your dad more than likely won't be up again until morning." His face was so serious and his voice grave. "Edward can take you home."

"Mmmm..." I groaned as I sat up, my back cracking like a glow stick as I did. "Okay." I nodded, my head feeling heavy with sleep.

"Have you eaten?" My mind sluggishly reeled, and all I managed was a small shoulder shrug. "I will make sure Edward gets you something to eat as well." He murmured before leaving the room, only the beeping of the machines and the careful inflation of my father's lungs to fill the space.