HIS PRETTY LITTLE DOVE

KAI: Eighteen years

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The faint sounds feel like thunder in my ears. My head pounds with a dull ache as I desperately will it to stop. I hear the shuffling of feet around me—the scratch of a pen on paper, the soft body heat of someone coming close. A faint touch of a finger on my wrist. My senses feel sharpened and heightened as I struggle to open my eyes.

Light pierced my eyelids like needles when I finally cracked them open. I squeezed them and winced as I waited, then tried again. When I managed to open them again, a woman in a soft pink scrub stood in front of me. She has the IV drip clamp wrapped around her fingers. She adjusted the pressure on the tube, regulating the flow of whatever was keeping me tethered to this world, before her gaze drifted to my face.

She looks shocked to see me awake.

“Mr. Kai. Are you awake? Can you hear me?” She asks, leaning closer to my face. I’m grateful she blocked the harsh ceiling light for a moment. She presses the button below the bed, and soon a doctor walks in with two other nurses.

After asking a series of questions and confirming I’m okay, I finally see the last person I thought I would never see again. I stare at the tall, lanky man clad in a grey suit who prowls over to my bedside. He looks older than I remembered four years ago but still well put together and dominating as ever.

Tears well up in my eyes. I feel tired—drained and in pain. It’s like I’ve been hit by a thousand rocks. My body feels heavy, but my tongue feels even heavier. My vision blurs, fading in and out of focus. Each breath feels like lifting weights.

Uncle James stares at me like he’s seeing the most important thing in the world. His eyes hold a grief and pain I’ve never seen there before—he looks exhausted and relieved at the same time. He takes my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. His eyes were bloodshot, like he hadn’t slept in days. If I didn’t know him to be a strong man, I might think he’s been crying.

“Uncle …” I try to speak, but the words scratch my throat raw and burn with every attempt. My voice comes out rough, like I haven’t used it in days—and with the position I am in, attached to all the tubes and wires, I probably haven’t.

“Shh… Easy now,” he soothed softly. “It’s okay, son. Don’t try to talk. You should save your strength." His voice is gentler than I've ever heard it.

He picks up a bottle of water from the side table, puts a straw in it, and helps me drink. I feel slightly better after.

“You’ve been unconscious for a month now. I…we didn’t think you were going to wake up. Your coming back to us is a miracle.” His voice shakes as he takes a seat on the cushion stool by my bed. I watch the strongest man I know crumble into a mess of emotions.

I never thought I’d see the day he would look so broken. He’s a fierce and well-respected man but even more stoic when it comes to business. The only time I’ve ever seen his soft side was with his daughters. He would become their little Pony just to see them smile, and he doesn’t care who sees. He is a proud man, but for his children he’d do anything. They are his life.

I often peeked at him when he came around to talk business with my father. He was my undisclosed role model. Anytime I got caught, he'd talk my ears off about how a real man doesn’t sneak around, and then he'd continue teaching me what a real man needs to know in our harsh world—how to be fierce and in control.

This strong, unbeatable man had tears streaming down his face. The view was such a contrast to the scene of the man who hauled my father over his work desk and punched him square in the face while announcing that their thirty years of friendship and fifteen years of business had come to an end four years ago.

The memories won’t stop coming back—it feels like yesterday. I keep remembering everything that happened four years ago and prior, but something feels missing. I can't shake it off.

Like a lightbulb, it suddenly clicks—Dad, Mom. The memory is a sharp sting to my skull.

We were on a drive. He was having a conversation with my mom. She was smiling. They were holding hands after a very long time.

A loud crash jolts me, making my head pound in unbearable pain, only for me to realize that the sound is in my head. Then it all comes crashing down on me.

The truck. The distinct silver of the overhead light. My mother’s scream as she called for my father. ‘Sam, watch out!’ .

The truck was coming straight for our car. The loud bang. My parents’ lifeless eyes as they stare into nothingness. The bright red flames from the truck as it caught fire while I lay there helpless, unable to do anything.

A scream tore out of my throat as I tried to grab for my head. “Make it stop!” I keep screaming, but it seems no one can hear me. “It hurts. It hurts so much!” I sob.

I grabbed my head tighter, like I could claw the pain away. I can’t open my eyes, and the tears won’t stop coming. The beep, beep, beep grows louder, and it feels like all the machines are going into a frenzy.

There were voices everywhere, but every word was incoherent to my ears. It was a blurry moment that seemed like it would never end.

How could I not remember? How could I forget something so gruesome? How was I even alive?

All these thoughts cloud my mind as I feel a hand push against my shoulders.

“Kai…Kai…Kai,” I hear Uncle James call before a sharp sting shoots through my arm. My body relaxes slowly. I feel myself losing consciousness again, but my mind won't sleep. It can’t.

I replay every memory like it’s a dream, and I wish I’d wake up sooner. It hurts too much. The last coherent thing I heard was,

“I’m sorry, Mr. James, we’ll have to do more tests and monitor him continuously for any more complications.”

KAI: Eighteen years

"You never have time for this family anymore!" my mother screams at the top of her lungs on an early Monday morning. The problem wasn't the screaming. I am quite used to that. No, it’s the fact that I spent the whole night preparing for a test, barely catching a wink of sleep. Now her voice is pounding in my head, and I know it’s only a matter of time before I get dragged into the argument.

Right on cue, I hear her say,

“Kai, when was the last time you had father-son time with your dad?”

I sigh.

The question isn’t new, and honestly I don’t give a d*mn if I have ‘alone time’ with my dad or not. There was a time when it used to bother me—when I would look forward to telling him about my achievement or the new things I want to learn and hoped he could teach me, but I got over it.

When you stop getting the things you want, you either learn to live without them or you take them by force. My father is as