I Dare You by Lylah James

I parked outside of the hospital but didn’t get out of the car. “Now, what?” I drawled, drumming my thumbs over the steering wheel.

“I can’t force you to talk to your parents, Maddox. I already did what I set out to do.”

“And what is that?”

Her lips twitched. “Get you out of bed. Take a shower. Have breakfast. Stop drinking for a few hours. Mission accomplished.”

“You’re such a bi–”

“Finish that sentence, I dare you,” she grinned, almost mockingly.

“Biscuit.”

Lila rolled her eyes. God, she was messing with my head. With us like this, I could almost forget the last month. It reminded me so much of the old times.

I could almost forget that I was… going to be a father… and that Lila had walked out on me when I needed her the most. But I didn’t forget. And the reminder sliced through me with a rusty blade that cut open my already painful wound.

I got out of the car and slammed the door. Lila followed me inside the hospital. I was instantly hit with the smell of sickness and death. I went to the help desk, and they redirected me to where Brad Coulter was staying. A private room in the upper floor. Lila and I took the stairs, and when we walked into the corridor, my mother was there.

Leaning against the wall, waiting. “Maddox,” she breathed, in what seemed like relief.

“I’m here. Now what?” I said in a bored voice.

My mother flinched and then sniffled. “Your father wants to speak to you.”

Lila touched my back, and her touch seared me through my shirt. Even as her hand fell away, I could still feel her on my skin. “I’ll wait here.”

I stuffed my fists in the pocket of my jeans and stalked forward, into the private hospital room. My feet paused at the door, and I came to a halt at the sight that greeted me. My whole body froze, and my heart jumped to my throat. Shit. Goddamn it.

I didn’t know what I expected when I walked into the hospital. Hell, I didn’t know what to think when my mother called me, weeping over the phone, as she told me my father was in the hospital and sick.

I didn’t think.

I didn’t react.

Not until now.

I didn’t know what I expected, but this wasn’t it.

My father, looking thin and frail, in a hospital bed that made him appear even smaller. Multiple machines beeping and attached to him. The Brad Coulter I knew was strong and confident, with arrogance that matched my own. He was always well-dressed, always spoke like he owned the room and everyone in it, always stood tall.

This was not Brad Coulter.

I didn’t know what to do, what to say… so, I stood frozen at the door and stared at the man, who was my father. A stranger. My lungs clenched, a reaction I hadn’t expect.

I didn’t care, I told myself.

But the brief ache in my chest told me that I was still capable of feeling emotions for my shit dad.

My mother grasped my hand, shocking me even more, as she pulled me farther into the room. She let go, once we were standing next to the bed, and sat down on the chair. Taking my father’s hand in hers, she squeezed, and his eyes opened.

Dark circles, tired and hollow. There was barely life in those eyes that used to hold so much power. He blinked at her and then smiled, as much as he could. It was a small twitch of his lips.

My mother returned the smile, a wobbly one of her own. “He’s here,” she whispered. “He came to see you. I told you, he would come. Didn’t I?”

Who the fuck were these people? Because they weren’t my parents, for fuck’s sake.

When did this happen… how did this happen?

He looked at me, and his dry, cracked lips parted, as if to speak, but there were no words. His throat moved, but my father, for once, was silent.

My mother swallowed, making a choked sound at the back of her throat. “He tires easily and can’t really speak much.” She grabbed the pitcher of water and poured a glass full, before helping her husband drink it.

I rubbed a hand over my face and squeezed my eyes shut. This wasn’t… real. It was a fucking nightmare; it had to be.

“How sick are you?” I asked, through gritted teeth.

“Cancer,” my mother replied, so quietly, I almost missed it.

“Cancer?” I parroted. “When? You were healthy the last time I saw you.”

“He wasn’t, but he didn’t want anyone to see it.”

“When?” I barked.

“We found out about four months ago,” she said, looking away from me.

Four months. Four goddamn months and they were telling me now.

“You didn’t think I deserved to know before?” My mother winced, and she had the audacity to look ashamed.

I speared Brad Coulter with a look. “Why now? Why tell me now?”

“Because…” he started, only to end up coughing. My mother jumped and helped lift his head from the pillow. He coughed and coughed, the dry sound rattling from his chest and echoing through my ears. At the sight of blood dribbling past his lips, my hands started to shake.

My fists clenched, and I had to look away. This man wasn’t my father.

After a moment, the coughing fit ceased, and I started to pace the hospital room. “Finish your sentence,” I demanded. Cold, yes. But I didn’t know how else to react, how else to speak to them.

“Because… I want… to fix… this… I want a… chance.”

“So you don’t die with the guilt that you were a shitty father?”

“Maddox!” My mother hissed. I swiveled around and matched her glare with one of my own.

“What? The truth is not something you want to hear?”

“I deserve that,” my father admitted tiredly.

Fuck. This. “I’m out of here.”

Before I reached the door, my mother’s voice stopped me. “I want to tell you a story.”

“I’m not here for some fairy-tale retelling, Mom,” I seethed.

“Nothing about this story is a fairy tale, Maddox.”

If you asked me why I didn’t leave, why I stayed by the door and listened to her, I wouldn’t have an answer to that question.

I simply didn’t know.

Maybe it was something in her voice. The pain, the sorrow, the guilt. Maybe because it all sounded so real to my ears. I felt things I shouldn’t have.

Turning around to face them, I leaned against the door and crossed my arms over my chest. “Speak.” One word. It was all she needed.

She gripped my father’s hand, her eyes glassy. “When I met your father, he didn’t have any food to eat.”

Wh – what the fuck?

She kept talking, before I could say anything, as if she was scared, she’d lose whatever courage she had to speak. “I remember that day very clearly. We were neighbors, and he came knocking at my door. He asked my parents if he could have a plate of food, or even a loaf of bread, to feed his younger brother.”

Younger brother? My father has a brother? I have an uncle? How the hell did I not know this? My mind spun, and I blinked several times.

“You see, we came from a shitty neighborhood. From the slums. You could easily describe it as a slum part of New York City. We barely even had electricity or warm water, because we couldn’t pay for it. We’d eat canned food that we could get from the community church or the food banks. That night, my family barely even had food to feed ourselves. My mother turned Brad away. After my parents went to sleep, I sneaked out of my room and went over to his house. I brought him two slices of bread. He broke down and cried. He was fourteen, I was eleven. He quickly fed his brother and only took two bites himself. I learned that they hadn’t had any food for two whole days.”

My mother paused, as I sunk to the floor, my legs suddenly feeling weak. I wanted to call her a liar, but I could hear the truth in her words, the rawness in her voice. This was real. My parents were poor… and I never knew. They never told me anything about their pasts or their childhoods. We never… talked.

I sat on my ass and stared at my parents, finally realizing that they were truly strangers to me.

My mother made a choking sound. “For four years, I’d sneak food to him. We were both poor, but I had parents who were still trying to get food on our table. Brad didn’t. His mother was a drug addict and alcoholic. The little money Brad saved up from working part-time at the church, his mother would steal for drugs. When he was eighteen, he left home with his little brother.”

“We were homeless,” my father broke in, with a whisper, his voice cracking. “For months, we lived on the streets, under a bridge with other homeless people. We were…starving. I was …desperate. I stole a man’s wallet… and I was…caught. Was thrown in jail for a night. It rained that night. My brother…was… alone under the bridge. He walked in the rain for hours, looking for me.”

He took a deep breath and paused with a cough. I was glad I was sitting down when my mother continued. “Your father’s brother… your uncle… he caught pneumonia.”

“He didn’t… make it,” I whispered, already knowing where this was going. If I had an uncle and my father never spoke of him, then it only meant one thing.

She nodded. “I used to sneak away from home to go meet your father. You see, we had a dream. We wanted a future together. We worked the cheapest job we could get. I waitressed. Brad worked at a mechanic shop. At twenty, he finally finished his high school diploma. Then came university. We could barely afford it.” My mother paused, sniffling. “Those days were the hardest, but it paid off.”

Her head fell into her hands, and she cried. “Savannah…” I heard him whisper.

My father picked up, in his weak voice. “We were finally able to buy an apartment, the cheapest one we could… afford, but it was ours. Life… got… better. We were no longer homeless or starving. I got a job, one that paid the rent and put enough food on the table. We lived paycheck to paycheck, but everything was…okay. Life… was good. When your mother found out she was pregnant with you…”

“That was the happiest day of our lives, Maddox,” my mother whimpered. “The happiest. Truly, the happiest. The best day.”

I wanted to call her a liar. All my life, they made me feel unwanted. I had been a mistake… yet, here they were, telling me that I was loved, before I was even born.

Bullshit.

But I stayed silent and listened. Because it was all I could do. I was stuck in this moment, their voices echoing in my ears, their past flashing in front of my eyes. I was… numb and then I was… feeling too much.

“For six years, we had everything we wanted. Sure, we weren’t rich. We still struggled. But whatever we had, it was enough. Then, life… it… knocked us down... again.”

“What?” My voice deepened, a ball of emotions settling itself at the base of my throat. “What happened?”

“You were five when I was diagnosed with colon cancer,” my father said.

I covered my mouth, then rubbed a palm over my face. Fuck. No. This isn’t… this couldn’t be real.

“I’m out of here,” I growled, pushing to my feet.

“Please,” she whispered, so brokenly, I… just… couldn’t. Walk. Away.

“Colon cancer is one of the easiest diseases to detect, and since we discovered it, at the earliest stage, it was curable,” my father offered. “But that was a reality check for us, son.”

He coughed in his fist once and then rubbed his chest, as if it pained him. The expression of his face was one of sorrow. And shame. “It was then I realized that if something were to ever happen to me… I would leave a wife and son, without any savings. A mortgage, student loans and nothing else. Your mother, she never finished high school. She worked to put me in university. She worked, so I could have a degree, and if I had died… your mother and you would have been left with nothing.”

“When we left the slums behind… we promised to never go back to it,” my mother cut in. “Never go back to being that poor.”

Brad Coulter closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. “I became obsessed, Maddox. So… fucking… obsessed.”

“Brad kept saying he wanted what was best for us. And so, he worked. He never stopped working. Never stopped to even take a deep breath. And he climbed up the ladder,” she took a shuddering breath, “he went from an office clerk, to a lawyer, to a senior associate, to a business partner, then a law partner, a business owner… he kept climbing that ladder, like an obsessed man.”

I shivered, feeling too hot and then too cold. My skin burned, my head ached, my chest… goddamn it, it was being carved open. That shit didn’t just hurt. It fucking killed me.

My father… he opened his eyes, and there were tears in them. Real fucking tears. Tears I never saw before. “Years passed, I didn’t notice. Years passed, I went from a man who lived from paycheck to paycheck, to a man who could have anything he wanted with a snap of his fingers. I had everything, but it was too late when I realized that, in chasing financial security, in becoming obsessed with being wealthy, I forgot… about you. Even though, you were the reason I had done everything I did.”

“Am I supposed to pity you?” I finally growled, cutting into their little story. “Am I supposed to feel bad?”

They both flinched at my cruel words. Yeah, good. Fuck this. Fuck them.

“While Father Dearest was chasing after wealth, what were you were doing, Mom?” I spat out, turning toward Savannah Coulter. “Chasing after your husband?”

She had the audacity to look ashamed. “I feared losing him. After his experience with cancer… it was the one thing that haunted me. I couldn’t… I didn’t know how to cope.”

“Does that excuse make you sleep better at night?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It doesn’t.”

“Do you regret it?” I hissed, anger churning in the pit of my stomach. “If you could go back and change things, would you do it?”

My mother’s tears-strained cheeks flushed even more, and she looked away, but not before I caught the flash of pain and guilt on her face. “If I could… I would have changed how things were. I was a good wife, but I couldn’t be a good mother.”

So, now, she cared. But too little, too late.

I got to my feet and straightened up. “Are you done?”

Silence. They both looked as if they had aged ten years since I had last seen them. Tired. Frail. Weak.

Their story explained their pasts, but it wasn’t enough. I still didn’t understand a lot of things. None of it made sense in my head, and the hospital room swayed back and forth in front of me.

“It’s too late,” I said out loud, the words were more for me than for them.

It was too late… Eighteen years too late.

There was no fixing this.