Chapter 33

On my eighteenth birthday, I was legally free of Harry. It wasn't as if he had tried to get me back in the first place, but this felt official. I almost wanted to change my last name to make it a done deal. But Ace assured me that he would do it for me one day. 

Even though I was no longer his daughter in my head, I guess the police didn't see it that way. Because a few weeks after I turned eighteen, they still called me to tell me that my father had tried to kill himself. 

I suppose I wasn't supposed to feel bad for him or feel scared, but I did. 

I all but ran to my car to drive to the hospital, where Harry was hanging onto his life by a thread. Ace has been asleep and I didn't want to wake him, so instead, I settled for sending him a text when I arrived at the hospital. 

I sat in the parking lot for fifteen minutes before I could drag myself out of the car and into the automatic doors. 

When I finally made it in, I told the lady at the front desk who I was there for with shaky breathing. She gave me the room number and I headed down the hall. I couldn't stop the shaking in my hands or  my knees. 

His room was silent as I stood outside of it. There was no bustle of doctors, no nurses running in and out. It led me to believe he was alright. And I didn't know what scared me most; the fact that he was okay, or the fact that he had attempted to take his own life. 

But when I walked in the room, it was empty. No doctors, no nurses, no patient. I furrowed my brows and glanced around the room one more time; still-

Nothing. 

My shaking legs took me to the nurses station and the look they gave me was full of pity. "Yes dear?" One asked me. 

"The front desk told me that Harry Grey was staying in room A206, but no one is in there. Did he get moved to another room?" I asked her quietly. 

She smiled at me but glanced at her hands quickly. "Let me check," she began typing on her computer and scanned the results of her search. She was quiet. "I'm sorry sweetie, it seems like you were just a little late. He passed away almost half an hour ago."

"What do you mean, passed away?" I asked hollowly. 

Her smile was made out of brittle. "Would you like to speak to his doctor? I don't know the specifics."

I must have nodded because the next thing I know, I was sitting in one of the many Doctor offices, in a beige, plain room. I sat with my hands together, my lips tight with confusion and shock. 

"Ms. Grey?"

I glanced up to see a woman with dark hair and dark skin, smiling at me. Her smile was kind and without pity. "That's me."

"I'm Doctor Hannanburg. I was the one assigned to your father's case," she spoke with authority and intelligence. 

I nodded at her and stared at my hands resting in my lap. She began to explain to me exactly what landed Harry in the emergency room in the first place. He had taken a handful of sleeping pills and overdosed. His neighbor, my old neighbor, had walked by and the front door had been cracked. 

He tried to call out to Harry but found him lying on the couch, in the middle of a seizure. The paramedics had come and got him stabilized enough to take him to the emergency room. Once admitted into a room, they had believed he was going to be okay. They pumped his stomach of the pills. But he had another seizure an hour later and none of the doctors or nurses could get him stabilized again. 

His heart stopped beating and even with three rounds with the external defibrillator, his heart wouldn't restart.

I nodded as if I understood, but while the information was easy to understand, there was something that wasn't. Why would Harry try to kill himself? The doctor told me he had no alcohol in his system, only sleeping pills. 

I sat out in the waiting room after my meeting with Dr. Hannanburg, not knowing where else to go. I didn't think I was steady enough to drive myself back home; so I sat there for who knows how long. 

"Mad!" I heard shouted down the hall. I looked to my left and saw Ace frantically making his way toward me. I didn't move to get closer, I just sat there. He knelt down in front of me, tilted my chin up. "Did he-"

"Harry's dead," I told him with no emotion in my voice. No sadness, not relieved, not anything. 

Ace shook his head. "What- what happened?"

"He killed himself. He swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills, the bastard," I spoke bitterly. 

He pulled me up until I stood in front of him and then he wrapped me in his embrace. "Are you okay?"

"My father just killed himself and you're asking if I'm okay?" I chuckled a little. "That's just like you," I told him, but not without affection. 

He gave me a tight smile after pulling back a little. "I'm worried about you, Mad. Not your father." 

"Maybe I should have been worried about him. Then maybe he wouldn't have taken his own life. How selfish of him, not having to live with the guilt of abusing his daughter." 

Ace squeezed me tighter and kissed the crown of my head. "It's not fair sweetheart, I know. I'm sorry."

He held me for awhile. It could have been ten minutes or an hour. It could have been no time at all, or forever. But he was exactly what I needed, like always. 

Just as I was finally ready to ready to leave, Ace pulling me up from the seat we had both eventually sat down in, I looked over his shoulder and saw a figure approaching the nurses' station. 

I pulled away from Ace and squinted to get a better look. "Mom?"

"Madison," Samantha sighed from the nurse's station. She didn't sound surprised to see me whatsoever. 

She started walking toward me but I took a step back, still confused. "What are you doing here?"

"Your father-"

"I know. But you don't even live here anymore. How did you know he was here?" My eyebrows furrowed. 

She glanced at the boy next to me and gave him a tight smile. I imagined he did the same back, but I couldn't move my gaze from her. "I guess I'm still an emergency contact on the records."

"And you came back for him, but not for me?" My voice cracked. 

Ace latched onto my hand. 

"Melon, I couldn't come back while he was-"

Tears threatened to leak at the mention of her old nickname for me. "What? Still alive?" She didn't say anything. "You left me here with him."

"Can we talk somewhere more private?" She bit her lip nervously. 

I swallowed harshly and squeezed Ace's hand in anger. "Why? Too embarrassed of your daughter calling you out?"

Samantha looked emotional, as if she deserved to be holding back tears. The woman left me when I was fourteen and only had the audacity to call me on my birthday; which she hadn't even done a few weeks ago. "I wasn't happy in that house Madison. You know that."

"And you think I was?" I kept my voice low and angry. "He treated us both like shit and you got out of it."

He glanced around the hospital and started biting her thumbnail. It was a habit she obviously hadn't broken. She had always done it when Harry walked in the room. "I needed to start over and I couldn't afford to take you with me. I had always planned to come back when I had enough money, but I never got to where I wanted melon."

I scoffed. "You never planned on coming back for me Samantha. You don't have to lie to me."

"I really did angel, I promise. I had a whole plan. I would go back to school, get my degree and get a good job. And I would come back and get you and we would live together in a big house," she spoke as if she were reminiscing on memories instead of a dream. 

I looked up at Ace and he brought my hand up to his lips to kiss it. I turned back to my mother. "Did you go back to school?"

She shook her head solemnly. "No, I couldn't once I got a job waitressing at a restaurant. I worked so many hours just to get enough money for rent. I can still barely afford my one bedroom apartment."

"It still doesn't excuse you from leaving me with an abuser, Samantha," I shook my head. 

She did the same. "He wouldn't touch a hair on your head, Melon. He was all talk with you."

"Then why did he hit her a few months ago?" Ace asked her, jaw clenched tight. 

Samantha eyed my boyfriend and squinted her eyes, as if she were thinking very hard. And then she turned back to me. "He hit you?"

All I could do was nod. 

"But- he promised..." 

I exchanged a glance with Ace. "Promised what?" 

She looked up guiltily. "He knew I was leaving. He knew I had been planning it for awhile. He told me that he would only let me leave if you stayed. But he promised to never hurt you like he did me."

"But you just told me you had a plan to get me back. Was that a lie too?"

"No, Madison. I always had that plan. But I didn't want him to find out that I planned to take you with me. At least I was going knowing that you would be okay," Samantha frowned. 

I took a deep breath, looking down. "Well, I wasn't."

"I'm sorry melon," she whispered. When I looked back up, there were tears in her eyes. 

I toyed with the necklace she had given me a few years after she left through the mail. She glanced down at it with a sad smile. 

"I'm surprised you actually wear that thing."

I looked down at it. "It's beautiful and it reminded me how much I missed you," I sniffled. Ace presser a kiss on temple and wrapped his arms across the front of my chest, standing behind me. 

"I sent it to show you how much I missed you," my mother told me, eyes still shining with tears. 

And even though I wasn't sure if I would ever fully forgive her, I pulled out of Ace's arms and crept over to my mother. Her arms automatically opened when she saw me come closer and I stepped into them with caution. She wrapped me up tight and I could hear her heart beating and her breathing heavy. She still smelled the same as she did before she left; like cotton candy ice cream. 

When we finally pulled away from each other, I went back to Ace who was standing awkwardly a few feet away. "Mom," I paused, letting the name familiarize itself again. "This is my boyfriend, Ace."

She glanced over at him with a bright smile. "I'm glad my melon has someone to look over her. I'm Samantha, it's very nice to meet you."

Ace held out his hand and she shook it, but ended up pulling him into a hug too. "It's nice to meet you too, Samantha."

All three of us ended up at Harry's apartment. I honestly had no idea what I was supposed to do with all the furniture and with the apartment itself. My mom told me that she would have it all figured out so I didn't have to worry about it while finishing senior year. I was weirdly grateful she was here now. 

After taking some things for myself, we left the apartment and went out for lunch together at the diner Ace had taken me to before we were dating for real, the Roller Diner. I ordered the chicken strips again and Ace stared at me judgingly. But this time, I just leaned up and kissed his cheek and he quickly got over it. 

"You two are adorable together," Samantha sighed, glancing at Ace and me and the nonexistent distance between us. 

Ace landed his hand on my thigh under the table. "That's all her."

"You just don't like being called adorable, do you macho man?" I intertwined my fingers with his on my leg. 

He turned to me and smiled cheekily. "Maybe."

And even though I didn't want to think about it, the thought of me leaving him in a few months came to my mind. I wished there was a way to slow down time, and just stay in this moment right now. I wasn't sure how a long distance relationship was supposed to work. And that terrified me more than the thought of leaving.