Phosphenes |j.hale

05

A couple of days passed since Summer got to make friends at school. On the first day of there actually being a sun outside, Summer did not get up.

Charlie was used to the girl waking up before he did and making breakfast, so he was shocked not to see her before going to work, or even smell bacon in the air.

Thinking that she probably overslept, Charlie turns back around at the bottom of the steps, and jogs back up them. He walks to her room at the end of the hallway. Tapping on the decorated shut door, he gently opens it, and sees Summers body in her bed. She was laying on her stomach.

Last night might have been a hard night for her.

"Bug," he whispers, so that he wouldn't wake Bella up. Bella wasn't a morning person, and he would never want to wake her up before he woke Summer up because she spent at least an hour in the bathroom, whereas Summer, who showered nights only freshened you herself in the morning. Stalking deeper into the room, he shakes her shoulder to wake her, but she doesn't move.

"Bug, are you okay?" He shakes her body a little more, in which she still doesn't move. Placing two fingers on the side of her neck near the jaw to feel a pulse, he waits impatiently, and when there's no thump, his heart fell into his chest because this signaled that the she wasn't breathing at all. Frantically, he lets out a tiny yell of terror, Charlie snatches the purple blanket off of her, and began to do a quick CPR.

Police training taught him well as he began to push on her chest at a specific beat of the song 'Staying Alive', as the tears began to well up in his eyes.

"Bella!" He yells, trying to catch his other sleeping daughters attention. Unbeknownst to him, Bella was already awake with her heart plunging into her stomach.

She slinks out of her bed slowly and peels down the hallway, putting on the sleeping front.

"Please, Call 9-1-1," Charlie's voice cracks as he sees Bella's shadow. At seeing her fathers distressed face, and tears, Bella immediately ran. She didn't mean to hurt him. She would never mean to hurt Charlie like this.

And it made her feel worse hearing his cries of distress while talking to the dispatcher. She knew what she did.