It was seven minutes past eight in the morning when Clara walked through the glass doors of the hospital. She had wanted to spend the night in her father's room but John had convinced her to sleep in an actual bed so she ended up going back to her childhood home for the night.

Clara signed in at the front desk and headed up the stairs and down the hallway to her father's room on the right. She checked her phone before she walked in and saw that she had a missed call from John. She decided to send him a text.

Hey, sorr—

"Hello."

Clara choked on her breath as a string of surprise snapped up her back. Her phone clattered against the tile floor. When she looked up she saw her dad sitting up in his bed and smiling at her.

"Oh my stars," she gasped. "You scared me!"

"I just said hello," her father defended.

"Yeah, well the last time I saw you, you had tubes sticking out of your nose because you couldn't breathe on your own. I didn't really expect you to be talking," Clara said.

"Fine, I'll ask the nurse to leave a sign on my door that says 'Warning: Conscious' how does that sound?" He joked.

They looked at each other for a few silent seconds before Clara half-ran and hugged him. It was an awkward hug from an awkward position but what it lacked in grace it made up for in sentiment.

"So you're okay?" Clara asked after they pulled apart and she sat down. "You're actually, really okay?"

"Yes, totally fine. It was just a minor heart attack, not a big deal," he said.

"Just a heart attack?! Dad, if heart attacks weren't a big deal they would call them heart inconveniences," Clara said forcefully. Then she looked down and softened her voice, "I was really scared you know. I got a call and I—I thought," you were going to die, "I just—I didn't want," to lose you too.

Somehow the ends of her sentences never came out. Her dad reached over and held her hand.

"Hey, it's okay," he said softly. "I'm still here, right? I'm breathing, I'm alive, unfortunately I'm still wearing this awful hospital gown, but you can't have everything I guess."

Clara smiled and suddenly she felt like she was sixteen again. In the weeks after her mother's death Clara used to have awful nightmares about her father dying as well, leaving Clara alone. She would wake up screaming and her dad would run into her room and hug her until she stopped crying. He would usually talk to her too, and he would say about the same thing he was saying to her now.

The moment was interrupted by the sound of a phone vibrating against the tile floor.

"Oh, I'd forgotten…" Clara said as she walked over to pick it up.

"Hello?" John's voice came from the other end. "You texted me saying 'Hey, sorrjfhgfyu,' and I don't know what that means."

Clara realized the message she was typing must have sent when the phone fell. "Oh, sorry. My dad scared me and I dropped my phone," she explained.

"Your dad's awake? He's okay?" John asked.

"Yeah, yeah he's fine," she answered, suddenly aware that her father was staring at her. She blushed and avoided eye contact. "Um listen, can I call you back? It's sort of a bad time."

"Yeah, of course, of course. I'm just glad everything's okay. We'll talk later," he said.

Clara pocketed her phone and sat back down. Her father stared at her expectantly but she didn't say anything.

"Well?" He pushed.

"What?"

"Who was that?"

"No one," Clara answered quickly. Too quickly.

"Clara…" he said.

Clara sighed. "His name is John," she gave him the least amount of information possible.

"Is he…?" He never actually finished the question but Clara inferred.

"He's just a friend," she said.

"You blushed," he observed.

"Did not."

He raised his eyebrows and gave her a knowing look. Clara shifted in her chair. "Do we have to talk about this now? You just went through a major ordeal, it doesn't seem like the appropriate time," she tried to change the subject.

"Oh come on, Clara. You're my daughter. I'm interested in your life. Humor me," her dad requested.

Clara huffed, but she obliged. "I've been seeing him for about two weeks."

"Is it serious?" He asked.

"I don't know."

"Do you want it to be?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly.

"Well what's that supposed to mean?" Her father asked.

It took a long time for Clara to answer. She hadn't really thought about it. All she really knew was that she liked it when she was with him and she missed him when he was gone. Although she just realized that since Valentine's Day, they had never missed a day of communication.

She thought about her conversation with him last night. Hearts are breakable, she remembered thinking.

"It means I'm scared," she admitted.

"Scared of what?" Her dad asked softly, though it sounded like he already knew the answer.

"Well, it's just—aside from you, the only other person I truly loved was mum, and I lost her," Clara began, trying to find a way to explain. "And it was completely out of my control and there was nothing I could do to stop it, but it still hurt unlike anything I've ever known. But this is different. I can control this, and I'm afraid that if I care too much and things go wrong, it's going to hurt again, and it's going to be my fault. I… I'm scared I'm going to mess up," she confessed. That was the first time she said any of it out loud and suddenly her feelings made a little more sense.

Her dad waited a bit, thinking of something to say before he started talking. The beeping of the machine he was still attached to was the only noise in the room and it made Clara extremely anxious as she waited for him to speak.

"You know, when I first started dating your mum I was scared too," he broke the silence. "I was walking her home from dinner and we were on her front step and it was pouring rain and all I had with me was a leaf and a speech I had spent an hour memorizing, and I had never been more terrified in my entire life." Clara had heard this part before, loads of times, but she listened patiently.

"Even after we'd been dating for close to a year, there were still times when I was afraid I was going to screw it all up. Then we got married and I was still scared that it wouldn't last. Turns out she ended up being one of the most important people in my life, and she spent the rest of her days with me. So yes, it did hurt when she left, but the heartbreak was worth every second I had with her, and I wouldn't trade it for anything," he said.

Her father never told her that part before and Clara's throat was starting to hurt like it usually did before she started crying.

"Being scared is normal Clara. But do you know what that means?" He asked.

Clara shook her head.

"It means it's worth it."


John was getting nervous. No, more than that. John was getting terrified. At first, he didn't have a clue why he couldn't focus at work or why he always felt bored and a tiny bit sad when he was at home. It wasn't until Clara called to tell him about her father when he finally realized what was going on. He was always thinking about her. Always. An eight year old would walk into his shop with her mother and John would think about how Clara wanted to work with third years. He would take the train every once and a while just to change things up and he would think about the second time he saw her. He would watch a movie in his flat and think it would be so much better if she was sitting next to him.

"I'm a wreck," he said to himself while he was driving home from work. "I'm a co-dependent wreck." It was an obvious exaggeration, but in his defense, John had never felt so strongly towards someone before.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember feeling anything for anyone. The realization slapped him in the face hard enough to make his head pound. He pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car.

"What the hell?" He whispered. Surely, he thought, surely I must've felt something like this before. I had brother right? I loved him didn't I? Of course it would be a different kind of love, but still. All kinds of love have common characteristics. But the more John tried to remember how he felt, the more frustrated he got. He couldn't recall feeling anything. Was something the matter with him?

"You're going insane, John," he told himself as he started his car. "There's nothing wrong with you." He was trying to reassure himself but words weren't working so he took a detour.

Thirty-seven minutes later John was walking through the gates of Brompton Cemetery. His brother was buried in the western end of the cemetery in Area O, row three, grave seven. John had no idea why he remembered that detail when he couldn't even remember the last time he'd visited. It didn't take him long to find his brother's name among the dull grey headstones that popped up out of the ground as numerous as the customers in his shop near Christmas.

Benjamin Smith

1980 – 1999

John stood there for a long time staring at the characters carved into the stone. The irrational, metaphorical part of him felt like the name was staring back. His hands were balled into fists in the pockets of his tweed jacket and the brisk breeze was turning his cheeks pink. John heard a dog barking somewhere far away and he listened as the wind ruffled the leaves on the nearby trees, but his eyes never left the grave.

The longer he lingered, the more difficult it became to describe what he was feeling. Was it anger, disappointment, confusion, guilt? Maybe it was a combination of them all. Naming his emotions was the only hard part; he knew exactly why he was feeling them.

John knew that his brother Ben was five years his senior. He knew that Ben had died when he was nineteen. He knew the two of them had grown up together, but their parents weren't a part of the picture, or else John would have remembered them. He knew all those facts just like he knew that three plus two equaled five. But if you asked him what Ben was like, if he preferred to be called Benjamin or just Ben, what his favorite childhood memory was, or how it felt to lose his brother when he was only fourteen, John could not give you an answer.

That's when the terror took hold.

John's breaths shortened. A gust of wind came and seemed to drain him of all his strength and he fell to one knee. "Why can't I remember?" He heaved. His other knee fell to the grass as he gave in and buried his face in his hands. John tugged on his hair as if he could rip the memories out from deep within his brain. "What's wrong with me? Why haven't I felt anything?" He whimpered. His eyes were stinging with tears but he couldn't tell if it was because of his sudden breakdown or because he was pulling his hair so hard his scalp was burning.

John clamped his teeth around the knuckle of his thumb hard enough to make his brain block everything out and only register the pain in his hand. He unclenched his jaw when he tasted blood. He was breathing heavily and his hand fell to the ground. He had never been such a mess before and he would have been embarrassed, but messes were a common sight in cemeteries so he didn't worry about it too much.

As soon as John steadied his breathing he stood up, made himself presentable, and walked straight out.

When he got home, he couldn't bring himself to do anything more than sit on the couch and pretend to watch telly. It was easy to name his emotions now: exhaustion, sadness, and a bit of curiosity. Troubling questions were winding through John's head as the laughter of a studio audience erupted from the television, but one thought kept repeating itself over and over: If he couldn't remember his childhood, when the years passed, would he remember this, here and now? Would he remember how Clara makes him feel? The most frustrating part about asking himself those questions was his inability to answer them. There was only one thing he was sure about.

He was absolutely terrified.