Not Afraid to Die

"Please wake up," Dante begged, Lolita's hand clenched between his.

For the first time in her life, Lolita didn't respond. She didn't move, didn't open her eyes, didn't make a ridiculous claim, didn't whine. She remained still, save for the light rise and fall of her chest.

Dante couldn't remember a time when she had ever been this still before. She was always in motion. As a child, as a young adult, in her sleep. Always. This wasn't the Lolita he knew.

"I've never seen her look so," Rian paused, "dead."

Was there any better word to describe it? Sure, she was breathing with the help of an oxygen mask, but she wasn't moving.

It broke his heart to see her like that.

"She's not even like this when she sleeps," Dante remarked.

"Oh, yeah?" Rian smiled.

"Yeah," a small smile found its way on Dante's lips, "A few months before we moved to our dad's current house, we shared a bed because we got rid of our bunk bed. She used to kick in the middle of the night. Just randomly start kicking. They were never light kicks either. No, when Lolita does something, she does it all out."

"That must have been fun for you to deal with."

Dante chuckled, "It was crazy. I ended up with so many bruises because of her. At one point, I was called to the school councilor's office because they thought my dad was abusing me."

"You never did anything to get her stop?"

"Nah, I would have never done anything to stop her. I don’t think I could have stopped her if I tried, though. There's nothing that can be done to stop Lolita. She's her own entity that will do what she wants when she wants."

"But you do tell her 'no' when she asks for some things."

"She tends to ask for things she doesn't really want in order to get what she does want. All she has to do is pout and whine a little, and someone is bound to offer her something else. Sometimes it's what she wanted, sometimes its not."

"Has she ever been reprimanded?"

"Dad tried to give her a time out once because she broke a window attempting to play soccer in the house. He was dead set on being a 'good parent' by punishing Lolita when she did something that bad, put her in the corner and everything."

"What happened?"

"She was crying so hard she ended up getting a small cold. By bedtime, she had a fever and was rushed to the hospital because the cold had morphed into a more severe sickness. No one's punished her since."

"Didn't want her to pass away while unhappy," Rian mumbled.

"Yeah."

Dante looked down at his sister again, silently willing her to wake up. Could she hear them? Was she so far gone she couldn't? Did she know he loved her? Did she know there were people in the world of the conscious that needed her awake?

He needed her awake.

What if she didn’t wake up? Could he function without her around to brighten his day? Could dad function without her around?

"Does she still kick?"

"Huh?" Dante asked and looked back at Rian, pulled from his thoughts.

"Does she still kick in her sleep?"

He could see Dante falling into his thoughts, a place that wasn't safe for him to be in that moment. Too much harm could be done with Dante's thoughts taking over him. Rian's conscience refused to allow him to watch Dante drift away like that. Though Dante wouldn't admit it, he needed Rian there to keep from losing himself. Rian knew it. Dante would realize it later, after being bugged by Rian till he wanted to scream.

All the questions were simply to keep Dante there, to make sure the depressing thoughts that were sure to otherwise overwhelm him didn't. The trips down memory lane seemed helpful to some degree. That's what mattered.

"No, she lost that habit right after we moved, but she turns periodically in her sleep. Every hour or half hour depending on the day."

"Depends on how long she's had to sit still?"

"Depends on how long she's been kept in the house. Rainy days are the worst for her because dad doesn't let her leave the house at all. Too afraid she'll catch something if she goes out in the rain. Probably not too far from the truth."

"She doesn't seem like she goes outside all that often."

"She does. When she was younger, she did more often," Dante paused, "Well, not before she hit first grade, I think. From age seven till around the time she turned sixteen, she was almost constantly outside. On good days only. Not on winter days or rainy days."

"Why?"

"Because she gets sick faster in the cold," Dante shrugged.

It seemed pretty obvious. HIV had ruined Lolita's immune system, so she was more likely to get sick on bad days. That was the reason Dante had been keeping his apartment so warm and running the heater almost constantly.

He hoped he remembered to turn it off when they left for the studio days ago.

"I meant why didn't she go outside much before she hit a certain age?"

"Oh, I don't know. She didn't like getting sick, and she knew going outside meant subjecting herself to viruses. But if dad or I was sick, she would catch it. She wasn't really safe anywhere. She had a really bad sickness at one point. When she got better, she decided, she wanted to go in the backyard and play some game where she was the princess and I had to slay a dragon." He smiled, "I'm a boss dragon slayer."

"You know, you're just as strange as your sister sometimes."

"Take it up on the RxN message boards."

"You've been reading those lately, haven't you?"

"Yeah. My username ninjacatxX25." At the look on Rian's face, he said, "Lolita made it up."

"I doubt that, actually."

"Why?"

"You're more likely to come up with the term ninja cat and use it as a username. Lolita would put a slew of letters that don't form a word together and claim it's in another language."

Shit, he was right.

"You know us too well."

"I have spent so much time with the two of you in the past couple of days, it's ridiculous."

"You should meet our dad. You wouldn't believe he raised us." Dante stopped for a beat, eyebrows drawn together. He fidgeted in his chair and reached into his pants pocket, pulling out his cellphone.

"What is it?" Rian asked.

"I need to call dad," Dante answered, pressing buttons on his phone and bringing it to his ear.

It rang a few times and clicked to signify someone had picked up.

"Hi, Dante," his father's voice met his ear.

"Hey, dad."

To Dante, his own voice sounded weak, nothing like his father's in a time of crisis. Their father always sounded strong. No matter what the situation, his voice had life to it. Dante could never manage it. When he was upset, people knew. Granted, Dante didn't get upset often, but when he did, it was obvious.

"What's wrong?" his father asked.

Of course his father would know immediately something was wrong. He probably realized it when the first syllable left Dante's lips.

"Lolita's not doing too good."

He wasn't sure if he wanted to tell him over the phone or not. This wasn't something he wanted to say without face-to-face interaction. Telling his father that Lolita was unconscious wasn't a light matter.

"What does that mean?"

"Are you sure you want me to tell you over the phone?"

"Tell me, Dante."

"She's unconscious. Doctor Cart is calling it a concussion until six hours goes by. Then, it's—"

"A coma. I know how the system works.

"How?"

"You don't remember your mother going into a coma for two days while pregnant?"

"She did?"

"Yeah, three weeks before she delivered Lolita."

Dante didn't remember that. He thought he would. It was a pretty big deal for a child as young as he had been to witness. It should have been ingrained in his memory. Unless he had been staying with his grandparents at the time, which he did a great deal when his mother was sick.

This was his first time dealing with something like this.

"Dad, I'm scared."

"Don't worry. I just booked a flight and told my agent to cancel tomorrow's signing. I'll be there by tomorrow morning. Thank God for smart phones."

"Thanks, dad."

"Stay strong, son. I love you."