Rise To Stardom

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Moisture hung heavily in the air. You could smell the incoming rain through the opened windows and the clouds hovering over the neighborhood were a scary gray hue. It matched my current mood; gloomy.

I came to my decision and I was standing by the window, a mug of hot chocolate warming up my hands. I closed the windows to prevent any more cold air from assaulting my body.

Awaiting dad's reaction to my choice was what I was most dreading. The disappointment plastered across his face almost made me postpone telling him the news to, well, never.

Dad's slow footsteps made me aware of his nearing presence and once he saw me, a smile reached his eyes. Maybe I shouldn't tell him the news. Instead of him dying of cancer, he'd die of a broken heart. There would be no way I could live with myself if that happened because of me.

“Morning, daddy,” I cheerfully greeted as if I wasn't potentially going to be the one that killed him.

“Good morning, my beautiful butterfly.” His morning person behavior was not helping the bundle of nerves twisting in my stomach. My smile fell into a frown as I sat on the stool next to him.

“Daddy,” I started with calling him the word I used to call him when I was five. I remembered when I first made the transition from calling him daddy to dad. His heart broke at the sound of his baby girl growing up. “I came to a decision about… the auditions.”

I hadn’t even told Aubrey yet. Even though she was the one who had been begging me to audition, dad was my number one supporter. He beamed when I told him I would think about it, which, in most cases, led to a yes.

Unbeknownst to him, that wasn’t going to happen. There was a tint of hope in his eyes as he looked at me, not even the hesitation in my voice bringing him down.

“And?”

There was no way I could say this without hurting his heart. I might as well rip it off like a bandage and get it over with. Preferably, before I chicken out and divert the subject to what breakfast I should make for him. “I’m not doing it.”

My worst nightmare came true. The corners of dad’s lips dropped into a thin, straight line. He was never disappointed in me like this. When I brought home a C on a test, he would be more encouraging to do better next time.

He'd help me study until I knew the material like the back of my hand. Thanks to him, I could tell the Pythagorean Theorem to anyone who asked me about it.

“It would just be too much pressure. Singing is more fun when there aren't any singers you think are better than you and your insecurities aren't creeping up on you.”

I was waiting for a shift in his facial features, but there wasn't one. His eyes were downcast and his lips remained shaped in a frown. "Daddy? Please say something."

Dad didn't say anything. You could tell with the way his eyes were flitting back and forth that he was trying to sort through the questions that were rattling around in his mind. "Why won't you audition? Y-Y-You promised me you would chase after your dreams for me after I go. Y-You—"

His words were interrupted by another coughing fit. He was gripping his chest with his hands scrunching the material of his shirt. Dad was fighting for the oxygen to return to his lungs, but it seemed far out of reach.

“Daddy?”

The life was draining from his eyes, his skin whitening to a ghost-like shade. There came a point where he stopped gasping for air. Every time he would inhale, a strangled noise would escape like a rope was tightly wrapped around his neck.