Breaking Down Sydney (Sydney West #2) (11 page)

Jason wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “You’re doing good. Keep going if you want or we—”

“I’m fine,” I said to Jason, patting his hand so he’d let me go. He stood and walked over to the window, but never left.

I blinked my stinging eyes. The tears were unstoppable. “You had two jobs. Take care of your wife and your child, and you failed. My mom’s heart is broken thanks to you. I’m fucked up thanks to you!” I pounded my fist on the bed, making his body move a little.

Jason pulled me away, holding me against the back of the chair. “Syd, only use your words.”

“Okay,” I said softly. He released me and stood at the foot of the bed, as if waiting for me to freak out again.

I let out a shaky breath. “I wish you could reply, but it doesn’t matter. I know what you’d say. You’d come up with excuses. Claim you couldn’t be a good dad since you didn’t have one and your mom was in and out of the hospital while trying to handle working two jobs. Your life sucked, but so did Mom’s. She didn’t have good parents either and yet she was always there when I was in a school play, when I cut my knee, when I woke up on Christmas morning. But where were you? You never did school things with me. You came to one Girl Scout event and only bragged about your camper.” I licked my lips and looked over at Jason. He gave me a small smile.

“You…” I closed my eyes and took a few seconds to compose myself. Jason sat down on the arm of my chair again, but didn’t say anything. “Dad, you said you’d be there when I had boyfriends and you’d grill them and scare them with your baseball bat. I laughed at that when I was little. You were my hero when I was five, but then you slipped up over and over and somehow turned into the villain.” I grabbed Jason’s hand, holding it tightly. “I have someone I love now and you can’t meet him. You’ll never know what he’s like, how I found a good man that is nothing like you and I’m proud about that. If we have kids, I know he—”

I broke down. It was too much. I said too much. My heart hurt too much. I was saying crazy things. Why was I talking about kids? I didn’t even know if Jason wanted kids.

“Baby, you’re okay. I’m here.” Jason nudged me up and pulled the chair away from my father. The chair made a thud against the wall. Jason sat in my chair and motioned for me to join him. I curled myself onto his lap like a cat. “Shh,” he said, patting my hair back. “Let it out, Syd. Releasing your pain is a good thing.”

I raised my head and looked at the still body. Part of me was pissed I couldn’t have a full conversation with him, but another part was relieved to say the words out loud after all this time.

“How can this be? How can this man be the one who laughed at me when I tripped in the backyard? This can’t be the father who made death threats to my mom and made our lives a living hell. This is just a body, just something to take up space.” My voice cracked.

This couldn’t be real. It’s a nightmare. I’m not capable of handling this.

“Shh…” Jason whispered again, pulling me in closer.

“He always had weights in his room that he’d use when he got up in the morning, right after having his black coffee. Then he’d usually come home drunk, yelling at my mom. How can this be him? Jason, I don’t understand—”

Jason forced my head into his chest, trying to soothe me and make me stop all my ranting. I gave in and listened to Jason’s heartbeat. I could also hear the machines keeping my father alive.

“I know, Syd. Life doesn’t make sense,” he said, hugging me tightly as if trying to take away all my sorrow. His hands felt so good on my body. He made me feel loved, cared for, things I never felt with any man before, something my father should’ve taught me.

My broken heart bled in my chest. My father was a lot of things, but he was good sometimes. We’d eat popsicles together and watch
The Dukes of Hazzard
. We played video games and watched sci-fi movies together and my mom would pass by, wondering why we liked those dumb things.

Tears trickled down my cheeks. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this. You can’t—”

“Don’t you apologize to me. I’m honored you can trust me with this, that I’m someone you depend on. That’s all I wanted,” he said, rubbing gentle circles on my back.

“You wanted me to have a breakdown?” I asked, not bothering to lift my head from his shoulder.

He made a noise that sounded like a laugh. “No, I only wanted you to open up to me, to trust me.”

“I do trust you.” I kissed his lips. They were so soft, so sweet.

Jason held me close. I fell asleep listening to his heartbeat. If having all my weight on him was uncomfortable, Jason didn’t show it. All he did was whisper sweet nothings into my ear. My dreams were bleak, full of white noise and horrible images of decay.

Chapter Eighteen

Loud beeping noises and voices awakened me. Nurses in dark blue scrubs were everywhere, like a wave of bodies. I slid off of Jason’s lap and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

The once silent room was now alive with activity, as if all the worker bees had come home to their hive. Doctor Ross stood out in his white coat. As he called out for things, nurses and interns scrambled to get them.

Jason stood up and jumped to the left when an intern rushed by. I moved next to him, my back pressed against his chest. A nurse with black hair tied into a bun shooed us away from the bed. “You don’t need to witness this,” she said.

“Wh—what’s going on?” I tried to see past the wave of blue scrubs, but they were a human wall.

I stood on my tiptoes and saw Doctor Ross standing over my father. The intern who pushed past us moved the crash cart to him. He grabbed the paddles, and the blonde nurse doing chest compressions on my father stepped back. Doctor Ross shouted “clear” and everyone moved away. There was a sharp
thunk
as the paddles met my father’s chest. His body leaped up like a fish out of water from the shock reaching his heart, but the machine continued to wail.

The nurse with the bun stood her ground. “You don’t—”

“I just want to see…” I said, looking around the people so I could see my father lying lifeless on the bed.

“Still in V-fib,” said an intern, looking at the machine’s screen.

“Push another Epi and charge again to two hundred,” Doctor Ross shouted.

“Charging,” replied the intern. My father’s body was shocked again, but still there was no heartbeat on the monitor. I saw enough episodes of
Grey’s Anatomy
to know my father had died, but yet it wasn’t registering.

“You need to step outside,” the nurse said firmly. She held her arms out as if we were playing basketball and she was trying to stop me from passing.

Jason tugged on my wrist, taking me toward the door. “Come on, Syd. I’ll buy you some coffee.” He wrapped his arm around my waist to make sure I tagged along.

I allowed Jason to escort me out of the room, but the hallway was a different story.

“I was fine. I wasn’t in anyone’s way. Let’s go back. We can stand in the doorway. I need to know what happened.” I pulled my hand away from him. My father was slipping away and I felt like I needed to be there, as if my presence would do some kind of good.

Jason kicked the floor, making his shoe squeak. “Your father flat-lined, Syd. Just let them do their job and they’ll tell you—”

“I know how hospitals work.”

He took ahold of my arm, pulling me down the hall. “Let’s just go get coffee and then come back.”

“My father’s dying and you think I need coffee?” I snapped, yanking my arm free. “You can’t stop me.” I turned back to the room.

“Sydney, you can’t go in there! Do you want your last memory of him to be like this?” He wrapped his arms around me, pressing me into his chest.

The fight within me evaporated. Exhaustion filled my body. I was tired of the battle. I didn’t know I was crying until I lifted my head and saw two wet spots on Jason’s shirt.

“S—sorry,” I slurred.

Jason kissed my forehead. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go get something to drink. It will keep your mind off things.”

I nodded, giving into him. If it wasn’t for one of his arms around my hips and the other on my back, I’d be on the ground, unable to move. I thought my icy heart was my biggest problem, but not after today. Never have I been hit with sorrow, denial, grief, panic, and guilt one after the other in the same day. My emotions were overwhelmed and burnt out. Soon I’d be numb to everything.

“I’m here, Syd. You can cry if you want to,” he said, curling a piece of my dirty blonde hair around his fingers.

Most of my weight was on Jason as we walked down the hallway to the elevator. A little girl with light brown curls looked at me as she stepped out of the elevator. Her big green eyes were full of wonder, and I wished I could be like her, innocent, not knowing what life was like. The girl’s mother held her hand and took her around the corner. Jason gently touched my lower back.

“Syd,” he said, keeping the elevator door from closing.

I entered the small room and leaned against the man who loved me. His strong chest moved up and down as he breathed. How could he breathe in even breaths when I couldn’t get enough oxygen in my lungs?

We went down to the first floor, where the cafeteria was. Inside we were greeted with the smell of coffee and some kind of cleaner. Jason guided me to the closest table.

“Stay here. I’ll get coffee. Do you want anything to eat?” he asked, standing by the table looking at me. Today I didn’t feel the heat, the passion from those silver eyes. I didn’t have the urge to jump his bones. All I needed was to feel his warmth, to know someone cared about me.

I didn’t want to eat or drink anything. All I wanted to do was sleep and forget any of this was happening. I wanted to wish upon a star to cancel out the wish of not having a dad.

“Just some coffee. Thanks,” I said, looking down at the table covered in what looked like cookie crumbs.

He left to order, leaving me to sit alone. I wanted to lay my head down, but I didn’t want whatever was on the table to get on my face. A family in the center of the room talked while eating sandwiches and potato chips. The kids were laughing.

That sound was foreign to me. My body felt heavy, like I was filled with cement. As I waited for Jason, I stared at the fly on the table, wishing I could be as carefree as it was.

Jason set a warm cup of coffee in front of me. I blinked a few times before cradling the cup against my chest. I sipped it, letting the hot liquid scorch my throat.

“Don’t drink it too fast. You’ll burn off all your taste buds,” Jason warned.

With the cup back on the table, I glared at him.
What does he see in me? Why would anyone want to help someone like me? I’m no good, just need to be thrown away.

“Why are you here?” I asked more to myself than to Jason.

“Excuse me?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Why are you so nice to me all the time? I don’t deserve it. I—” Tears fell down my cheeks. Would I never stop crying after all this?

I am broken.

Jason cupped my chin with his hand, forcing me to look at him. “I love you, Sydney. I love the good in you. I love your flaws. I love every piece of you. The sooner you realize what love means the sooner you can stop feeling broken.”

How does he know I feel broken?

He held my hand as we sat in silence. It seemed like forever since we left my father’s room, but it was only twenty minutes.

“Miss West?” a voice asked.

I was in a trance, staring into space, waiting for a fairytale to whisk me away.

“Yes?” My voice was weak and my throat bone dry.

“Your father…” Doctor Ross trailed off, looking at Jason instead of me.

My aching heart shivered in its icy cage, fear gripping it in its unrelenting grasp.

“My father what? Can I see him now?” I stood, but my legs wobbled. Jason came to my aid; he was the rock I needed.

Deep down I knew what he wanted to say, but I couldn’t stand to hear the words. I wanted to know my father came around, that he was awake.

Doctor Ross fidgeted with his clipboard. “Your father’s heart was too weak. I’m sorry. We did everything we could, but he passed away.”

My knees buckled. Jason helped me back to the chair. I held onto the edge of the table to make sure I didn’t faint.

My father isn’t in the realm of the living anymore? Why did that wish out of all my other hundreds of wishes come true? Damn it!

I closed my stinging eyes. It felt like all the blood had drained from my face. “He’s dead?” I whispered, not believing the words. My tongue felt thick. My stomach was sick.

He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

Jason frowned, his eyes clouded over. “Thank you. I got it from here.”

The doctor left. Jason sat down next to me and touched my knee. He looked as white as a ghost. I could only imagine how I looked, my blue eyes swollen and my dirty blonde hair a mess.

“This doesn’t seem real,” I murmured.

“I know ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t what you want to hear, but—”

I moved to sit on his lap, basically collapsing in his arms. “Just hold me,” I whispered.

Anguish forced itself out of my heart as Jason hugged me in a vice grip, stronger than an anaconda. Maybe the pressure would fuse the shattered bits of my heart back together. My grief enveloped me, taking me by surprise and folding me inward. I never knew I had so many tears for the man who was never there for me. Today I felt more abandoned than I did in my entire life.