A/N: I don't know where this chapter came from. This story has taken on a life of its own, and I'm surprised. I'm also crying a little as I write this. This is again dedicated to my dad.
John Symthe leans against the cold glass wall of the hospital room and scrubs his hands over his face. He is in his shirt-sleeves, his tie loosened, and his hair is standing on end. He wants more than anything to go inside the room. He wants to kiss his little boy and make everything better. But, no kiss can make this better.
"I need him to tell me the truth," The stern, young female doctor told him. "And, it's a rare sixteen-year-old who will tell me the truth with their parents in the room."
He wonders when he became someone with whom his son could not be honest.
When he held the beautiful, squirming, wrinkled red bundle of his blankets in his arm on a day that he remembers as one of the happiest in his life, he promised himself that he would always be there for Sebastian. He would not be the man his father was.
He remembers when Sebastian thought he was wonderful. The four-year-old, his blond hair sticking up in all directions in his triceratops pajamas would worm his way into bed at three in the morning because he'd had a nightmare. John would try to carry him back to bed, but the child would whimper, "You're the only person who can protect me from the monsters, daddy. Let me sleep with you, tonight." And, even though John hadn't slept in a week, and he knows his four year old needs to learn to sleep by himself, he lets the child curl up. He promises himself that tomorrow, he will find a way to get his son to sleep in his own bed.
He remembers the hurt, terrified look in the sunken eyes of a skeletal eight-year-old and telling him that even though he's so thirsty, his father can't bring him water, or even ice.
And, he remembers that frantic phone call that came at 3:30 in the morning. He had been out drinking, and was still warm and flushed with alcohol. "John!" the frantic voice, slightly accented voice on the phone says when he picks up groggily, "It's Sebastian."
His mind raced through all the possibilities of what could be wrong. Had his son been hit by a car? Broken his arm playing sports? Had another seizure?
"John … Sebastian, he, he tried to kill himself." His ex-wife's voice fills the phone. His mind races, and she tells him, "He's resting. But… he's not okay."
He remembers the trip to France to collect the withdrawn, silent, too skinny fifteen year old. He remembers the rounds of therapists. The medications. The discussion of therapies. The nights of locking away the kitchen knives, the pills. His heart breaking as his little boy cried.
He thought Sebastian was getting better. He waited long before sending him to Dalton, with its support and anti-bullying policy. He thought that he was making friends.
Is he just blind? Is he just delusional?
Where did he wrong? When did his little boy loose hope?
How did he fail his father?