You Changed My Story

Chapter 6

OLIVET

Dad's health is improving, he's able to walk around without assistance. The crisp white sheet showed the scrawny outline of his lower body, his shaking fingers gripped the rusty metal bar of his bed and I quickly supported his back with a pillow.

Terribly hunched, eyes like an awaking crocodile, peeled back to catch the soft crack of light through a dingy curtain. I swept pieces of used tissue, wet cotton thick with the scent of bleach -toothpaste caps and sticky half-used tubes of itch cream into a bin. The living conditions here make me want to run.

Maybe if I ask Stormme nicely, he'll transfer my father to a private hospital.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, brushing his hair. There were more grays than last time.

He rubbed his pinkish nose, straightened himself, and stretched for that hundred-year-old glasses by his bedside.

He's assessing me, eyebrows tightly drawn together. "You're not gonna tell me where you got the money for my treatment."

I fiddled with my perspiring fingers, "I got a second job. The pay is decent."

His response came an eternity later, "Olivet. Make sure you're taking care of yourself." A single tear slid down his pale face, "I worry about you." He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

"You don't have to." I rested my forehead on his trembling shoulder, my eyelids were smoldering hot, full of weight, and ready to give way.

He's not covered with the unbearable scent of cigarettes for something in the bones ate away his desire to satisfy the blankness in his lungs. I can no longer recognize those endless hours he'd spent with hookers at the red light district, their payment was my livelihood throughout high school.

His fingernails were swampy grey, his tongue rolled over a jaw that he struggled to keep shut. The scars along my heart ruptured, and I clenched my fist over my chest, holding back a whimper. He's gone down so deep, but I've fallen somewhere endless.

I lost my mom. I don't want to lose dad. I'll do whatever it takes to be with him as long as possible.

"I'm selling the bakery." His voice rang in my ear.

"You can't sell it!" I emptied myself over the bed, coughing from excess liquid and clogging my throat. "I'll do two jobs. I swear. I -"

"Olivet!" He bared his teeth, his nostrils flared yet I could barely make out the tears forming in those bloodshot eyes, they were two dim light bulbs, "Do you want to work yourself to death Olly?"

The sound that came from my mouth was unearthly, heart shattering. I covered my left eye. I'm almost blind in the right eye. Of course, my meds are on empty.

"You have your own treatment to take care of, get it sorted first." The bones in his back cracked when he tried to lay down and I helped him.

A formal knock at the door brought my attention to it.

"Mr. Raizel, Dr. Noland is here to see you." Nurse Arissa spoke.

Did she say Noland? My heart's literally doing cartwheels inside my chest. He's my ophthalmologist.

"What are you waiting for, let him in."

He made his way inside and my heart rate soared. The mirror across the room exposed my self consciousness, my eyes were red and swollen. Tiny inflamed pimples dotted my nose and cheek. They had gotten more visible due to binge eating.

"Doc, what a pleasant surprise." Dad smiled weakly while he extended his measly hand to the man who hadn't taken his eyes off me from the moment he stepped in.