I waited at Lily's bedside for hours as she slept.
I listened to her light snoring and watched the tiny square TV up in the corner. Terrible daytime TV played endlessly, from over-the-top soap operas to unbelievably bad reality TV. The re-runs of shows from my childhood played too, which made me smile for a minute or so, before I was reminded of why I was here to begin with. It wasn't until around four thirty that Lily stirred.
"Hey sweetie," I grinned, brushing my fingertips across her temple.
Lily's eyes slowly fluttered open, groggy and tired, and she squinted at me through the fluorescent lights.
"Dad?" She murmured. "Where are we?"
"We're at the hospital. You collapsed. Do you remember?"
Lily reached up and rubbed her eyes, smearing charcoal across her left eyelid. Even after all this, she still had charcoal on her hands. She focused on the bedsheet, puzzled over the events. When she looked up, I saw guilt in her eyes.
"We were fighting," she said. "About... And then I got really dizzy, really... really tired, I think... and then it all went black."
I looked away from her, unable to meet her eye.
You keep trying to get in the way and make me into someone I'm not. I'm not your little girl anymore, Dad.
The words cut deeper than a knife, slicing into me like the tip of a scalpel. Lily sat up and rubbed her eyes.
"About what you said, Lily, I understand. You... you're not a little girl anymore. And I understand that you want to deal with your own problems by yourself now." I dared a glance up at Lily, but she wasn't looking at me either. "But sometimes we can't always deal with things by ourselves. Everybody needs help sometimes, no matter how old you become. And I want you to feel like you can come to me if it gets to be too much, okay? And I will do as much or as little as you want, I swear it."
I looked up at Lily, who stared down at her hands, and waited for her response. She breathed in slowly and exhaled even slower, then looked at me.
"Okay," she sighed, as if giving up. "Okay."
© A.G. Travers 2015
YOU ARE READING
Charade
General FictionDo you think good people are capable of bad things? Vic and Benjamin think so... Victor Langley loves his daughter with all his heart, so when she's diagnosed with cancer, he knows he has to do everything to save her. He makes a deal with a rogue do...
