It's easy to laugh when I'm mad.
It's easy to smile when I'm sad.

But it's not easy convincing the one who knows my heart, beat by beat, that -

"- I am ok."

"Meaning?"

"I'm fine, Dad."

"Sure, shark."

Yet he knows that ever since his arrest, I've been everything but okay. He saw it coming then - the cops banging on our door when his hands cupped my face and lips touched my trembling forehead. He saw me sobbing silently throughout his trial. He witnessed me losing everything - my friend, my focus, my confidence...

And now he is sighing at this ridiculous act as if he doesn't see another storm coming. If only I could be as good a pretender as him. If only I could hold it in as well as he does.

"Tem certeza que está bem? You seem pale."

{ Are you sure you are okay?}

"Pai, sério, estou bem."
{ Seriously, Dad, I'm fine.}

"You won't change, huh," he chuckles, hiding calluses behind his cheek-length brown curls, "how is school, then?"

"Fine, geez, dad. Everything is fine," I say as my teeth's chatter echoes through my cranium.

"That sounds poorly rehearsed." He smirks at my exasperation. His hand leaves his hair, toppling near mine. My feigned smile festers. Pretending is tiring.

Avoiding his worrisome look, I let my attention wander to the other prisoners, their laughing wives, and gurgling children. Too bad I can't bring him such happiness.

He rubs his neck in vivid exhaustion, and I offer his hand another glance. It doesn't look like the well-manicured, soft hands I remember. What kind of labour has he been doing for these knuckles that drove me around to get so bruised?

The corners of my mouth tilt downward involuntarily. I chew my tongue.

Should I tell him now? What if he's not well, and I'm about to worsen things?

"And I'm guessing classes are going great then, huh?"

"Huh? I mean... Yes. School is alright."

Something starts pounding my scalp, twitching a vein. I sit up and give my head a little shake that, hopefully, he doesn't notice. He should stop talking about school. It's making me nauseous. He knows this. He knows that it's the reason he is here.

Spencer High was the high school my mother attended. She died right after my birth, and dad barely spoke about her, so I just knew her name and what she looked like until an old classmate of hers visited on my tenth birthday. She suggested I attend the private high school, but Dad said it was too expensive.

"Too bad." She pouted. "Joe and I spent our best years there."

That was how, just like that, Spencer High became my goal. I stopped going for late-night adventures, binge-watching my favourite shows, and keeping up with fake friends. I buried myself in books, icing my social life to attain a scholarship there.

But my struggle was to no avail.

I didn't get in. I was a failure. Dad tried to encourage me that there were other, better schools out there, but I wouldn't hear any of it. It was like the world had ended for me.

So, Dad decided.

After days of watching me bawl my eyes out, he decided that scholarship or no scholarship, his girl was going there.

That's why he's here for embezzling from his workplace. That's why I don't want to bother him with my issues.

"Dad," I finally utter. He stares at me. He takes me in, scared gaze and all as if my hesitation just brought his attention to something horrific.

"Fala minha filha," he mumbles, inaudible.

"How... how are you feeling, dad?" I ask to distract him. His dirty, uneven, scarred skin and the bags under his hooded eyes say the opposite of his answer.

" Good, very, very good, my dearest. But that's not what you want to say, right?"

"Ya... Uh. Uh," I stammer as the throbbing worsens, "the showers...the - they have started working again, huh?"

"Yes. "

"That's good."

"Yes. What is it, dear?" He pats my hand.

I inhale again.

He's fine. Or he will be...I don't know. Just tell him.

"Ok, let's do this," he cuts into my reverie. "I'll tell you something good about my week, and you'll let me know something good about yours, and then we'll say the bad things. Alright? "

"Urr... sure," I can't help but chuckle. 

Simultaneously, he does the same. "I'll start." He reaches down for it.

I cringe. 

"My shark visited me and brought - what's that?" He opens his paper-bagged package like a child during Christmas. "A puzzle set!"

"It's got the scene of Tom Hanks sitting on the bench in Forrest Gump on it," I chime in, making him halt in dramatised disbelief.

"The midwives were right; you are my daughter!" 

That does the trick. I burst into laughter, shaking my head. It takes me seconds to recollect myself. 

"I would have disowned you if you brought something else."

I crack up again. "Ow! All for Tom Hanks?!"

"You don't know Tom Hanks the way I do," Dad says." Your turn."

A great way not to slip back into distress is deflecting. I deflect. " Josh and I are on speaking terms."

"Oh really." He smirks."You are friends again."

"Urr." I snort. "No, I mean, I blew it. Like any chance of that happening has drowned. Like...died? Drowned deep...in the deep - ur, blue sea."
What are you saying, Mia? Stop thinking about it. You are going to worry him.

At least my response makes him chuckle. "If he's being a jerk, ignore him. You have better use of your time anyway, like your studies and diving -"

"-No."

"No?" He leans back with a sigh. "No to diving, huh."

"I'm just trying to focus on my studies," I retort, "I can't rely on being a stupid athlete forever, anyway."

"Take that back. You are not stupid," he states matter-of-factly. "Not everyone is into the book stuff anyway. That is why you should have co-curriculars."

I see the angle he is heading at, but he would not say this if he saw what happened. That's one thing he doesn't know.

"And it's normal not to have it all figured out yet, but you have to keep your options open, ok?"

Reluctance mutes me, so I nod, though there's no time between school and ceiling gazing. 

"Now, the bad part -"

" - Time is up!" The officer's bark cuts him off. My breath hitches. The other prisoners start to bid their visitors goodbye.

"Don't mind him. I got enough dirt on him to spare us time." Dad waves dismissively. I try to play along.

"What kind? The scandalous drug cartel-informant kind?"

"Na, the embarrassing kind where you hear it and think, 'Bruh, seriously?' "

Leave it to Dad to still joke around.

"Dad," I whisper once our chuckles peter out, the sound barely escaping my trembling lips. I try to steady my voice, imitating his mental fortitude.

His gaze shifts toward my hands, and the hint of a smile graces his lips. It is the bittersweet type of smile I can not decipher. He reaches out a weathered hand, fingers trembling with anticipation and concern.

"Shark?" His voice is reassuring. I finally look him dead in the eye. There's no time to stall any longer.

"Dad, what I want to tell you is... "

You're close, Mia. Just say it.

"The thing is - Dad, are you sure you're ok?" As I am about to cut to the chase, he starts coughing.

He nods.

"Yeah, I'm fine... (cough)... It's probably a cold... continue." But then, watching him, I feel a pang of something shifting and leaping out to him. The cough lingers and elongates, morphing into an unsettling chorus of agony.

"It doesn't seem so. Let me -" I jolt to my feet as he grabs me, eyes bulging out.

"Tell...(cough) me...wh...(cough) what you (cough) we -were...-"

He slips to the ground. He pulls me with him, down into a world drearier than any prison visitation area, a world where convulsions wrack his wiry frame, his lungs, his heart, his dreams, his daughter and everyone who has ears to hear the jarring yelps and tears for our end.