Theea
see the city and the ocean mist
My dad, alive and whole, brushes a hand down my arm. I keep soaking him in, every move he makes, no horror or fear like the last time I saw his face. Just a gentle smile that says everything is okay now. The moment feels frightenly fragile, like if I move wrong, this rekindled fire in a family hearth will gutter down to embers again.
Dumb luck. That makes sense in a situation that shouldn't make sense at all. I want to ask how he did it all, I crave the story of it, to know what the hell happed to my dad after surviving an impossible fall.
I sniffle again and wipe my eyes, and let them fall shut when he presses a kiss to my temple. I just scoot closer to him so I can hug him again, a little less crushing this time. My head falls against his shoulder like it would when I was little and too tired to see straight.
"It isn't your fault," I say, and then hate the way I almost say it's mom's. But it isn't hers either.
We had no reason to think he survived. No reason not to keep moving, outpacing the Void as best we could. I think if it had been a few months ago, before Frey, I'd have blamed her. But I've come to learn that things are far less simple than a fourteen-year-old mind can comprehend.
I lean back again, and take both his hands. "You have to go and get mom." My brows pull up at the center. "She was never the same. And I think... that after I left, when I asked Frey to make me old enough..." My stomach knots with familiar guilt I'd yet to come to terms with too. Guilt that feels more complicated than his fall. "I think she got worse, all alone for so long. She just saw Vai again, and Remi and Ronin, and I think that helped. But she really, really needs to see you."
Dumb luck. That makes sense in a situation that shouldn't make sense at all. I want to ask how he did it all, I crave the story of it, to know what the hell happed to my dad after surviving an impossible fall.
I sniffle again and wipe my eyes, and let them fall shut when he presses a kiss to my temple. I just scoot closer to him so I can hug him again, a little less crushing this time. My head falls against his shoulder like it would when I was little and too tired to see straight.
"It isn't your fault," I say, and then hate the way I almost say it's mom's. But it isn't hers either.
We had no reason to think he survived. No reason not to keep moving, outpacing the Void as best we could. I think if it had been a few months ago, before Frey, I'd have blamed her. But I've come to learn that things are far less simple than a fourteen-year-old mind can comprehend.
I lean back again, and take both his hands. "You have to go and get mom." My brows pull up at the center. "She was never the same. And I think... that after I left, when I asked Frey to make me old enough..." My stomach knots with familiar guilt I'd yet to come to terms with too. Guilt that feels more complicated than his fall. "I think she got worse, all alone for so long. She just saw Vai again, and Remi and Ronin, and I think that helped. But she really, really needs to see you."
i wish you could be here for this
