“I’m gonna call Mom,” I say, taking my phone out of my back pocket.

“Don’t call my mom.”

“No, I’m gonna call my mom.”

I hold the phone to my ear and open the bathroom cabinet for a paper towel or a new roll of toilet paper, but as the phone rings, I realize I have no idea how to start cleaning this up.

“What’s up, Cham?” my mom answers briskly. “How’s Dad feeling?”

“Not good, he threw up and kind of collapsed in the bathroom, I don’t know what happened, he just—” I bite the inside of my cheek until I can picture my teeth coming out the other side.

Then he starts to shake again, not like he usually does, but more violently throughout his whole body.

“Mom, his eyes are like rolling back in his head and he’s shaking a lot and—”

“Cham, listen, you should call 9-1-1,” she says calmly. The bones in my hands are rigid, and my muscles are petrified, and words are having a hard time unfreezing themselves from my mouth or my throat or wherever words are formed. “Cham, call 9-1-1,” she repeats. I try to command myself to move, but I’m paralyzed and it’s terrifying. My body is a prison that I am trapped inside. I watch him struggle to get up, his hands shaking and his legs too. Is this what he feels like?

I reach out my hand to hold his, then I steady my voice.

“I’m calling right now.”

Dear Universe,

I will miss the whole show. I will miss the whole night. I will miss whatever I have to for him to be okay.

Time and sound and space somersault around one another in many minutes of confusion: sirens, firefighters, the ambulance with the white stretcher. They drop my dad off in the emergency room, and one of the EMTs walks me to the waiting room. My body is here, but that’s just my body.

Texts sent to Gene while I am someplace unknown entirely:

Situation got worse C

Gonna be a bit more than an hour C

G Is everything okay?

G I’m kinda pissed

G and freaked out

G You really didn’t want me in your house

I’ll be at school as soon as I can C

I’m sorry C

G Can I do something?

Tell Abigail I’m sorry and I’ll call her ASAP C

G If you tell me what’s going on maybe I can help

The text I do not send: I don’t think anything can help.

Every second waiting outside the ER while my dad is inside with my mom and the doctors is agonizing. Part of me is bummed about tonight, but the other part of me can’t even believe there’s a part of me that’s bummed, as if there’s another world that could even be slightly as important as this one. At first I try to keep on top of what’s going on at Senior Night. People are posting pictures and videos and stories of themselves making their own pizza, bouncing in the inflatable castle, competing in a Ping-Pong tournament.