She was the girl who was afraid of love. Terrified of it. It isn't permanent, she believed, it leaves you and it leaves you broken.
He was the boy who desperately needed it. Love--the only thing that could've rooted him to this world.
Ophelia and...
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Alastair James Hawthorne had committed suicide.
Tried to. But that's what the newspaper article had failed to mention. It was torn so I didn't get to read much, but I did see the word murder in there somewhere and I had a feeling that whoever published this article wanted everyone to know that it was no murder.
Alastair tried killing himself. The end.
And that confused me more than anything. Why did they think somebody would've murdered him in the first place? Why was the incident even in a newspaper article? Where was the fucking privacy?
But then I remembered Luce's words. The Hawthornes were big in the whole of Camberley. Perhaps such things came with fame.
I didn't ask anything about it from Luce though, or Jim. I pretended that I knew nothing even when Luce told me the next day that she had appointed me as the new part-time aide for Alastair--the patient in room 221.
She thought he might talk to me. She thought he might open up. Luce told me that it hadn't even been a week since he was put here in the hospital and they had to change up his aides thrice, just because he never really answered anyone's questions. He said nothing. And if, on the rarest occasions that he did, it was either a glare, or a snide remark--that was what Jim seemed to say.
Why would he though? I thought. Why would he open up to me?
And why had he tried taking his own life?
Every time I found myself thinking about it, I tried to distract my mind from it the next instant. I'd seen that torn piece of newspaper article and I wanted to know more. I wanted to get my laptop and search it up on the net. I didn't, however, because it wasn't any of my business, and instead, I busied myself with other things.
I got the stuff out of my bags, which I still hadn't unpacked, and busied myself with stuffing my clothes in the bedroom's little closet. It was a guestroom, so it was mainly plain. I spent the whole day moving around the little furniture I had until it felt a little bit like my own room back at home.
Then I called Mum. I even talked with Mason this time, mainly because I kind of missed him. He told me he'd found a new video game and we talked about that, even though I secretly hated video games.
At one point, even Helen came up on the screen to talk to me. It warmed my heart a little, even if she just came by to tell me that she was inviting a college friend over and letting her stay in my room. I told her to fuck off, which Mason listened (obviously) and told Mum all about my indecent use of language.
It was annoying but I found myself missing home a little more after I talked to them.
When I ended the call, I glanced over at the wall clock. I had hours before my shift started. Luce was still at the hospital and the apartment was empty, and I realized that I didn't necessarily like being alone.
