All I'll Ever Need

Like Sidney had warned, he wasn’t there when I woke up in his bed. It surprised me that I hadn’t woken up when he had gotten out of bed, but as I stretched out and looked at the alarm clock sitting on the bedside table, I was a bit worried that he wasn’t back yet. Two in the afternoon?

I thought he wasn’t back yet, but the moment I climbed out of bed and headed for the living room, I nearly ran right into him.

Still dressed in his athletic shorts and Penguins t-shirt, Sidney hadn’t gotten a chance to shower yet. He must’ve just gotten back because he had a nearly empty Gatorade bottle in his hand and sweat covering every part of his exposed body.

But Sidney was determined to cut through the bullshit. There was something in his eyes I couldn’t read, but he shut me out and looked down to his feet.

“Mika, we need to talk.”

I stared at the gorgeous five eleven man in front of me with a nervous smile. Though I loved seeing him dripping with sweat, back from a fresh workout and before a shower, I was worried about this talk that was obviously inevitable.

I had gone to dinner with someone else, and that was wrong.

“Okay, so talk,” I whispered.

“I need to know where we stand,” he said. There was confidence and certainty in his voice, but it was just a front. Truth be told, Sidney was utterly terrified. His chocolate eyes painted a picture of misery and fear quite well.

Now, I realized something was horribly wrong. We discussed this only a few days ago, yet he had to ask again.

“You know where we stand.”

He shook his head. “No, Mika, I don’t. What am I to you?”

“You’re my best friend,” I said. “Seriously, Sidney. You’re easily the second most important person in my life.”

“Is that all I’m ever gonna be?”

And there was the question of the century. Would Sidney and I ever become more than friends, more than best friends?

“Come on, Sidney, I thought we already talked about this,” I whispered. “Can I just have some time?”

“I need to know,” he breathed, and when my eyes met his, I realized just how horrible I really was.

This wasn’t just affecting me. It wasn’t like I was the only person hurting over this decision. Sidney had to sit around and wait ever so patiently for me to decide I was ready, and the fact of the matter was, I wasn’t ready to say yes yet.

But are people ever really ready? I mean, how do you even get prepared to fall in love? Is there a step-by-step process?

There was no being ready for something unpredictable, something that can never really be defined. No relationship is the same, so how on earth can you prepare for that?

“What are you getting at?”

“I need to know if I need to start trying to get over you,” he said. “I’m never gonna be okay with that, but I’d rather have you in my life in some way than no way. So I’m willing to try and move on from you if that’s all you want me to be. But is it?”

“No, Sidney, but it’s not that simple,” I breathed.

He let out a huff. “Why can’t you just tell me what you’re feeling? Why do you have to be so damn cryptic all the time?”

Fear, love, uncertainty . . . those were the things I was feeling, but I could only talk about two of them. I couldn’t tell Sidney I was in love with him because wasn’t it too soon? I mean, sure, I did love him, but we had only known each other a little less than a month. Can someone logically fall in love that soon?

Then again, love doesn’t have logic.

Instead of showing my fear, I turned it into irritation and glared at him. “That feeling where you don’t know what the fuck you’re feeling! Ever felt that?”

“Just yesterday!” he exclaimed. “Then I realized, what the fuck? It’s love. For you! I’m so fucking in love with you that it drives me crazy, and it’s terrifying. In less than a month, you have become the most important person in my entire fucking life, and you don’t even wanna be a part of it! If you do, you have a funny way of showing it.”

I heard my phone ringing from wherever I had left it in the house last night, but I couldn’t move to see if it was important, and quite frankly, I didn’t care much. Sidney . . . loved me too, much more than I deserved. After all I had done to him, all I would probably continue to do . . . Sidney loved me.

“I want to be in your life,” I whispered. “Sidney, I—”

“Mika, we need to get home,” Matty interrupted from behind Sidney, and immediately, all emotion left Sidney’s eyes as he turned back to look at my brother.

From the panic in his eyes, the fear . . . I knew something was wrong.

My lips trembled when I stepped past Sidney, closer to Matty so I could brace myself a bit before hearing the news. Getting home fast meant one thing and one thing only.

Something I wasn’t ready to hear.

“Dad doesn’t have much longer.”

I wasn’t stable. Matty . . . he had prepared for this a long time ago, but I was too busy to prepare for Dad’s death. Matty wasn’t exactly throwing a party over his death, but he was ready.

My legs wobbled as I tried to walk, so Sidney picked me up in his arms and carried me to the car. Without hesitation, he drove us both back home, one hand on mine as I just stared out the windshield, not really seeing anything as my mind swirled.

Why did I hurt so much at the idea that he would be dead soon? Everything would be so much easier when he was gone. I wouldn’t have medical bills I had to work a million hours to pay for. There wouldn’t be someone constantly putting Matty and me down. The evil man that had destroyed our lives and also created our lives . . . he would be gone.

Good riddance, right?

The drive from Sidney’s place to mine wasn’t long, but it felt like ages, yet ages was what I needed to think all of this through.

No, losing a parent is never a good thing unless they’re a danger to your life, and he wasn’t. The only thing he did was make us feel worthless, make us miserable . . . so it was time he moved on to a better place, right?

Was there a better place for him, though? If there was an afterlife, he was no saint, and he admitted that to anyone he met.

In my life, he was just toxic. Everything he said burned through me and twisted my mind. He never taught me how to live or exist in the world as I needed to learn. All he taught me was that evil is everywhere, and you can’t escape it.

This was the closure I needed to feel better, but that didn’t make it any easier. My dad was about to die, which meant there was no chance for him to decide that he wanted to try and be a real father. There was no chance for him to apologize and make everything better.

Or was there?

Matty had no problem getting up the stairs and into Dad’s room, but I did. Sidney, however, held my hand and helped me the entire way up.

Dad’s eyes were like ice when they looked over and saw Sidney standing behind me, and very weakly, he gave me a proud smile. “I see you’re . . . taking after your old man.”

“No,” I said, voice just as cold as his eyes. “I’m making my life my own, not a replica of your miserable excuse for one.”

He scoffed, but the breaths came out as something more painful sounding than they should. “I’m dying . . . and that’s what you have to say to me?”

When my eyes met his, I saw something strange that I couldn’t register. Then again, I didn’t care enough to try very hard, so I looked away and tightened my grip on Sidney’s hand. “You’ve dug your own grave and made your place in hell right by the fire. I’m done hurting for someone who has been so acidic in my life.”

I could see Matty grin from the other side of the room, and Dad saw it, too. “What are you laughing about . . . you worthless piece of shit?”

“The last person left on earth who gave a damn about you doesn’t care anymore,” Matty told him, and that smirk only grew. “Just feels good to know you died the way you deserve.”

“And you think you’ll die any better?”

“I know I will,” he said. “Because I have people who will always care about me. Unlike you, I’m never gonna be a monster.”

“You already are,” Dad breathed, but as he did, he had to cough rather violently. To be honest, the way his body shook and his lungs wheezed the blood out, I was surprised he survived. He was weak and fragile, and the simplest things could kill him.

I scoffed. “You can stop trying to compare us to you. We’re not anything like you. Matty gave up his childhood to take care of me. Unlike you, we don’t take anything and everything we can from anyone we can.”

“Actually, you little bitch,” he sneered, but it was a lot less angry than I think he intended. “You take everything from anyone. Just look at that idiot standing behind you. All you’ve done is fuck with his heart while you stay at his house because you’re in ‘danger.’ And you won’t even date this bozo behind you. After all he does for you, you just take and don’t give out. At least show him some tit every now and then!”

I heard Sidney let out a breath from behind me, but I didn’t expect him to say anything. He, however, had a different idea.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked. “You have some of the best kids I’ve ever met, and all you do is tear them down. Matty is probably the greatest man I’ve ever met, and Mika? She’s beyond wonderful. Yeah, she makes mistakes, and yeah, she does some . . . pretty strange things from time to time, but that doesn’t mean she owes me anything. They deserve better than what they have. They deserve better than you, and I can’t wait to give them what they deserve.”

Dad’s eyes weren’t open through all of Sidney’s rant, and when it was over, I wondered if he was even still alive. His lips moved, however, though the rest of his body froze in place. As I watched every part of his body stop moving, aside from the very tiny breaths his lungs took, I realized I was literally watching him die.

“At least . . . I can . . . die knowing that . . . you two will . . . always be as miserable . . . as me.”

And just like that, he was gone.