Annika stood in the doorway, staring at her dad for a full twenty seconds, not moving, not saying a word. She heard June’s soft gasp from beside her, but she didn’t react. Couldn’t react.

Her father lay in the clean, white hospital bed, a number of tubes protruding from him, a nest of monitors beeping and glowing like angels guarding his unconscious form. His head had been shaved and a shunt placed through his skull, the skin around it a discolored purple and black. His entire face, Annika noticed, was discolored: Great patches of purple and blue bruises covered his cheekbones, his jawline, his nose. Elsewhere, he was covered in stitches and bandages where the doctors had attempted to piece him back together again, to make him whole, to delay his leaving.

His leaving.

A sob crawled up her throat. Annika walked to his side on shaking legs, her body once again trembling, as if it couldn’t hold this excess of emotion. June followed silently, a pale ghost behind her friend.

Annika took her father’s hand, one of the only visible parts of him that wasn’t damaged—and even then, it had an IV sticking out of it, denying her the veil of normalcy. There was nothing normal about any of this. “Daddy,” she whispered, even though she knew he wouldn’t wake up. She’d been warned that he couldn’t even hear her. “Daddy, I’m here. Pluto.” The tears were steady streams now, spilling from her eyes and running down her cheeks, drip-dropping on her lavender top, staining it dark purple.

She heard June sniffling behind her, and then her fingers were threading through Annika’s free hand. They stood like that, standing vigil, until the light outside the window turned blue, then deep purple, then inky black. The color of her father’s bruises.

Later, they sat in the hospital cafeteria, Annika staring into her now-cold cup of black coffee. It was close to one in the morning, several hours since they’d arrived at the hospital. The fluorescent lights seared into her retinae, making her eyes burn. Her head was buzzing. She could feel the electric current running through her skull. “He’s a doctor,” she said quietly. June took her hand from across the table, where she was nursing her own bad hospital coffee. “He’s supposed to take care of other people. It shouldn’t be happening this way.”

“No, it shouldn’t.” June squeezed her hand firmly. “This is nine kinds of fucked-up.”