The Station Girl

Chapter 12

David's death was a blow to the both of us.

That day, Sir found him lying on the ground beside the platform, groaning in pain. Desperate, he tried to pull his son up to save him, but his frail, old body wouldn't let him. He wouldn't leave his son all alone though, and tried to encourage him to stand so he could try and pull himself up.

David ignored him.

That was when I came out of the building, trying to find Sir in the dense fog. And when I did find him, I was reluctant to help. But when I wanted to help, I couldn't. I couldn't help his son in time. The train couldn't stop in time.

David was ran over.

The days following that morning are hard to remember. Both Sir and I were stunned, unable to comprehend what had happened. His son was dead, and we had watched it happen.

I had let it happen.

All that I remember is that it'd been deemed an accident. That in the dense fog, David couldn't see where he was going and broke his leg. The question that remained though was why he was there that morning.

It's a question we'll never know the answer to.

By the time I'd come to my senses, at least a week had passed. Everything I still did was monotonous, but now I chose it to be that way rather than mind numbingly did it that way. No longer did I go out to help the people in town. Now, they came to the station to give their condolences and to talk about how they remembered David as a young boy and a polite man.

David had been a person that I hated, and I could barely function. For Sir, it was much, much worse.

That day, he sunk into a depression. His eyes dulled, his mouth frowned. His shoulders slumped more than usual, his feet dragged where ever he walked. Sometimes, I would catch him vacantly watching me. He should have hated me, and maybe he would of if he could still feel emotions.

For Sir, when David died, he had died along with him.

In those early days after his son had died, I didn't intrude on Sir's life. I knew what my part had been in his death. If only I'd reached out to sooner, walked over to him faster... Maybe I could have pulled him to safety. But deep in my heart, I knew. I knew that even if I'd been able to reach out in time, I still wouldn't have been able to help him. I just didn't have the strength to pull him to safety.

A grim part of me whispered time after time that David had wanted to die. That my efforts were in vain. I, too, would have been ignored in my attempt to help had David noticed me. An even darker part wondered: was David already dead by the time we found him?

Even in our despair, there were still customers that needed to be taken care of. Daily life still demanded our attention despite the tragedy we suffered. Sir couldn't just shut down the train station, but neither was he in any condition to do his job.

He held out for a week before he finally broke down and stopped trying to work all together.

I knew how to price tickets and how to exchange money, but I didn't know how to operate the ticket machine. There were many mistakes that I made in those beginning weeks. Most people, the ones that knew me and knew what had happened, didn't mind the delay. They would smile kindly, albeit sadly, and tell me it was alright and to take my time.

The people who didn't know weren't nearly as forgiving.

If I made a mistake, they would usually grimace and look down at their watches. If I made another error, they would start to tell me to hurry up. The more impatient they became, the more errors I made. By the time I would actually get the ticket finished correctly, they would only seize it from my hand and storm off, saying how women weren't meant to do a man's work. When the next customer would come up to me, I would be red in the face, frustrated and upset by the situation I found myself in, and the cycle would start all over.

Sir hardly spoke a word, not even to stop the customers from being rude. If he wasn't sitting on a bench outside, he was inside the building with me, laying on the few blankets he laid out on the floor for himself. Meals were the same way. Whenever we ate, he would silently consume his food and return himself to the bench or floor when he was done.

As the months passed, Sir took less and less care of himself. It seemed with each passing moment, he found himself further drawn into his memories. But for me, I was prodded back to reality every day, and soon, the incident faded into the past.

I had the customers to take care of. I had Sir to take care of. I had myself to take care of least of all. If I found myself drawn into the past for even a few moments, the responsibilities of the present would crash into me on return. They would drown me, and I would find myself curled into a ball against the wall, incessantly murmuring that I was fine.

My birthday came and went, but I hardly noticed. Sir was growing weaker. If I wasn't helping customers, I was at his side. No longer did he leave his building. Only when I gently prodded and tugged at him would he follow me to a bench to watch the daily train or the sunset. Once on the bench, he wouldn't return inside until we'd undergone the same process. It was the same way when it came to the bare basics of life.

Every time I looked at Sir, his face seemed paler and paler. From the pitiful amount we made, I somehow managed to save up enough to get a doctor to check up on him.

The doctor could only shake his head and tell me there was nothing he could do for someone who had lost their will to live.

I was stunned when I heard those words. Sir? No longer wanting to live? Where had the lively old man I'd known gone to? The one who would walk to trains every day a five-year-old girl asked? The one who had been young enough to fix a shed for that young girl? The one who'd been so excited to see his son return to him years after he'd gone missing?

I blamed myself. I had known what would happen to Sir if something happened to his son, and I still let it happen. I had known that David was a horrible person. I had known that David was acting suspicious in those final few weeks.

But worst of all, I now knew how much of a coward I'd been when I shouldn't have been.

I'd been a coward when I'd ran away from them. I was a coward when Lucy had fought with her papa for me. When I first met Sir. Every passing year I spent with Sir. That final moment when I needed to braver than I'd ever been before.

Iwas a coward all my life, and I would blame myself for it every single day inthat final year with Sir. But I never blamed myself more for being a cowardthan the day Sir finally passed away.

*****

A/N: You knew what was going to happen to Sir since the very beginning, so it's no surprise that we've finally reached this point. Were you expecting it to happen like this, or were you expecting it to be of old age, or natural causes? To answer my own question though, I had no idea how Sir was going to die until the time finally came for it to happen, so I was a bit surprised when I realized how it was going to happen. But enough of that, for the next chapter will be Sir's last chapter :/