Six Feet Under the Stars

Reilly entered the blindingly white room timidly and stared at the still figure laid out in front of her. Ghostly skin looked back at her, mottled with black bruises and angry, red gashes. There were bandages around the wounds on his chest and a thick, white bandage was wrapped around his head. The door clicked closed behind her and she half expected his hazel eyes to blink open at her.

He hadn’t woken up since the procedure. The doctors had said that he was suffering a lot of trauma and that the healing time would be a long one, but Reilly was sure her dad should have woken up by now. She sank into the chair next to his bed and sniffled. He looked small and sad and broken; he looked like the father he had been the first few months after her mother had left. He looked like a father she could have loved.

Reilly tried to recall the conversation the doctor had had with her step-mother. She could recall pieces, like the loss of movement from the lower half of his body and that he’d flat lined twice whilst he was on the table. She picked up his hand from the bed and cradled it between her own.

“I wish you were okay, dad. It’s hard to be resentful when you’re like this.” She sniffed again and squeezed his fingertips. “You were only human, dad, and I understand that you made a mistake with Jasmine, but you didn’t have to love her and marry her. You didn’t have to let her ruin my life.” Tears flowed down her cheeks and she choked back a sob.

“I don’t know if I can ever truly forgive what you did but you’re still my father.”

Reilly dropped her father’s hand in surprise as the door was clicked open again and Jacqueline slipped in through the glass. She eyed Reilly nervously before settling into the other chair. Reilly swiped at the tears that lined her cheeks and eyes.

“I know you hate me,” Jacque said, “And I’d probably hate me too, but I’m sorry that you had to come back for this.”

“There’s a thirty-five percent chance he won’t wake up,” Reilly said. “But I think he heard me and for that, I can thank you. I never wanted to hate anybody when I was a kid, but your mom fucked up my family so bad.”

“She wanted me to have a father.”

“But why did she have to take mine?” Reilly sniffled again. “I almost liked you at first, you know. You were this cute little blonde kid that liked to talk about unicorns.” She shook her head, “But something happened and then you were just so different and you threw a tantrum every time you couldn’t get something you wanted.”

“I was a spoiled bitch, I get it,” Jacque sighed. “But I don’t wanna be like my mom. And I don’t want to ruin people’s lives.”

“What about your own life? And that boy’s life? You’re sixteen and you’re having a kid.”

“But I didn’t sleep with a married man to get it,” she huffed. “Look, this baby was an accident but I’m not murdering it for my mistakes. It’s changing me for the better, I can feel it, and I don’t want to go back to the way I was, Rei.”

Reilly stood up and walked to the door. “Good luck with that, Jacque,” she muttered and disappeared.

XXX

Reilly stared at the grass as she rocked back and forth on the swing set. Her feet brushed the cold, wet grass, her socks and shoes discarded somewhere to the left. She pushed her swing a little harder and smiled as the wind lifted the short locks of her dark hair.

It had been a long time since Reilly had sat alone in the park at one in the morning, and longer still since she’d sat barefoot on the swing and let her mind escape her. She didn’t want to think about her father in a coma; she didn’t want to think about her half-sister’s sudden reformation since she’d gotten knocked up; she didn’t want to think about her step-mother’s unadulterated hatred towards her; and she most definitely didn’t want to think about him.

It had been two years since she’d left Baltimore, but it hadn’t been two years since she last thought about her friends and her ex boyfriend. They used to be an inseparable group, formed by three girls and four boys. They’d met in the park sometime after Hannah and Reilly had turned fifteen and had remained friends even as Reilly left for college and the boys’ band took off for big things. Some of them had even fallen for others, but whereas Hannah found happiness, Reilly found heartbreak.

He’d broken up with her after a year and a half of dating, a week before she’d gotten her acceptance into her choice college and was spotted the week after flaunting a blonde girl on his arm. Reilly had moved as soon as she could.

“Reils, are you coming back?” Hannah appeared at the side of the swing set in her pyjamas, her slipper clad feet pressed into the damp grass. “It’s getting cold out.”

“I know, I just wanted…to…”

“He’ll be okay.”

“I hope so,” she breathed. “I was such a bitch to him. He was a slut, but he was still my dad.”

“No one blames you for how you acted, Rei. Your life was pulled out from under you and it was taken over by Satan and her spawn.”

Reilly smiled briefly. “Thanks, Hans.”

“Now, let’s get inside, okay? You’ve got friends to meet in the morning and Alex waits for no one.”

Reilly grabbed her shoes and followed Hannah out of the park.