Alyssa felt like all of the air was knocked out of her lungs. She blinked a few times, having to run her mom's words through her head a few more times to grasp them. She didn't understand.
"Died? What do you mean?" Alyssa asked. She wondered if she was just hearing things wrong or if she wasn't understanding properly. That had to be it.
It couldn't be anything else. She ignored Zoe and Elias' shocked looks. They didn't know what was going.
She didn't know what was going on. Maybe even her mom didn't know what was going on.
"Pancreatic cancer," her mom sniffled. "Took him away from me."
Alyssa tried to recover her breath, but it was elsewhere. It felt like there was a hole in her lungs. She couldn't hold in enough air. It kept escaping her like a punch. Over and over.
"When?" Alyssa managed to ask. How did this happen? She didn't even know that her dad was sick. No one said anything to her!
