Page 153 of Pull Me Under

This man. This stubborn, bitter, impossible man who’s spent my whole life making me feel like the wrong son. The spare. The one who asks too many questions and doesn’t fit the mould.

He threw me out three days ago. Told me I wasn’t welcome under his roof if I was going to shame the family by loving a Trelawney.

I should hate him.

Part of me does.

But there’s another part – that just wants his dad to wake up.

‘I’m here, Dad,’ I say. ‘I’m here.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

BRYNN

Ishouldn’t go in.

The nurse said one visitor at a time.

But I’ve been sitting in this plastic chair for forty minutes, staring at the door to Room 4, and I can’t stand it anymore.

He’s in there alone. With a father who threw him out three days ago.

And I’m out here, holding secrets of my own.

Tell him, the voice in my head whispers. Tell him now, before it gets worse.

But how? How do I walk into that room and say, By the way, your mother had an affair with my father, and I found out yesterday, and I didn’t tell you because I’m a coward who didn’t know how?

There’s no good way. No kind way.

I stand up anyway.

The corridor is quiet. That particular hospital hush – rubber soles on linoleum, distant beeping, the murmur of voices from the nurses’ station. I walk toward Room 4 like I’m walking toward my own execution.

The door is slightly ajar.

I can hear Jude’s voice. Low, rough, talking to someone who isn’t answering.

‘You scared the hell out of me, you know that? Lying there on the dock like a…’ He trails off. ‘Cal had to do compressions. Cal. Because I just froze.’

A pause. The beep of monitors.

‘This is probably the universe telling you to stop trying to run everything. Let someone else carry the nets for once. Delegate. I know it’s a foreign concept, but⁠—’

His voice cracks. He clears his throat.

‘Kit’s coming. Maisie too. So you’d better wake up, all right? You’d better be here when they land, because I’m not – I can’t⁠—’

Silence.

I raise my hand to knock. Hesitate.

Tell him, the voice screams. Tell him now, before it gets worse.

But not here. Not like this, with his father unconscious and his world already cracking at the seams.

I’ve made some sound – a breath, a shuffle – and he’s turning, looking toward the door.