The Station Girl

Chapter 13

I was dumped into his train station exactly fifteen years ago the day he died.

That day, I was particularly busy with customers. That day, Sir didn't even bother to sit up when I told him that breakfast was ready, and that he needed to eat. That day, he seemed livelier than usual, so I let it go.

By then, I had long since moved into Sir's building so that I could take better care of him. There were times where it seemed he needed constant care, and I needed to be there if something were to happen to him. I was resigned to the fact that the building had finally sunk its claws into me. At night, there were times that I thought about how I could never leave it now, for it had belonged to Sir and it would one day belong to me.

"Sir? How are you feeling?" I asked him that multiple times a day, and yet I never asked him how he felt the day he died. His cheeks were rosier, his eyes more alert than I'd seen them in the past two years. Surely, if he looks this way, then he must be feeling better. It was hard not to think that when all I would think of when I looked at him was the deathly pallor he'd carried ever since David's death.

I sat and read a book, no book in particular, just one that I'd grabbed off the shelf at random. It didn't really capture my attention, but I held onto it just the same. It let me pretend to be busy for a few minutes at a time, and when I went to flip the page, Sir would be staring up at me. It felt almost like I was the mother, and I was watching over my sick son.

That was how the majority of the day passed. Lunch and dinner came and went, and still Sir ate nothing. His utter lack of appetite frightened me, but again, I ignored it. After all, his face still looked more alive than ever before, so nothing too serious could have been wrong, right?

Shortly after the customers had left on the train, Sir soiled his clothing. I paused in my fake reading and changed his clothes. As he'd soiled himself earlier as well, I figured it was time to wash the clothing, if only so I could give Sir something a bit more exciting to watch than me flipping pages. I hummed a tune as I worked, one that had no particular meaning to me other than I was making it up as I went.

The color in his face was greatly diminished when I next looked at him.

His face was the color of bone, his eyes sunken and filled with the vacant gaze I'd come to know and despair. I dropped the clothing in the wooden bin and rushed to his side, feeling at his neck as the doctor shown me how. His pulse was weak, too weak.

"Sir? Sir?! Sir, answer me!" Life flickered back into his eyes as I called the name I'd ever known him by. The corners of his mouth lifted up, barely perceptible in how little they moved. It was the first he smiled in two, long years. I couldn't help but beam back at him, tears prickling at my eyes.

"Sir, don't worry me like that!" But even as I spoke, something felt wrong. Very, very wrong.

"Lit...tle... One...?" The effort it took for him to speak tore at my heart, and the tears spilled out.

"Shh, don't speak. It won't do you good to speak." My tears dripped onto his cheeks as I gently brushed back a few of the remaining wispy white curls of hair he had left.

"Have... you..." He sucked in a breath, coughing it back out a moment later. Again, I tried to shush him. I leaned back, clutching his hand to my chest. He didn't listen, trying to speak despite the words never reaching my ears. If Sir wanted to speak to me this badly, I couldn't sit back and let his attempt be wasted.

I laid down beside him, still clutching his hand to my chest as my head rested at the crook of his neck. I sniffled, trying to listen to the words he so desperately tried to speak.

"Did... you... pick... name?" A sob escaped me. I had forgotten until he spoke of it. Never had I a name before. The only name I had was the one he'd given me, and yet it could never be my real name no matter how much I begged and pleaded for it to be.

"Yes," I whispered in this ear as I nodded. The tears dripped and dripped and dripped. I could feel them on my cheeks, taste them in my mouth, see them on Sir's skin where my face rested against.

"What... is... it?" I had lied to him without thought, and now I was paying the consequences. What name could I possibly tell him when I knew of almost none myself?

"It's..." My voice choked, and I had to sit back. I felt cold away from the little heat Sir's body had provided me. I looked up at the sky for inspiration, and could see the red of dusk as the sun set through the ticket window.

When I glanced at Sir, his eyes were shut. I gasped, and reached out to feel his neck. It was cold and wet where I touched, but his pulse was still there, though it was still weak. I breathed a sigh of relief. Not only had he fallen asleep, but he'd spared me the arduous task of having to come up with a name on the spot.

I sat beside Sir for the rest of the day, watching the sky fade from red to purple to black. At one point, I got up to quickly turn the lights on before returning to my post beside him. Occasionally, I would look back down at him and check his pulse. It didn't grow stronger, but it didn't grow weaker either.

Until the moment it wasn't there at all.

The stars were just starting to shine through the dark when I checked Sir again. It pulsed once, and then it was gone. I stared at him, my hand on his neck, unable to believe it. It was my imagination, right? Surely, if I pushed harder, it would still be there, right?

It wasn't.

Frantically, I leaned down to hear his breathing. I couldn't hear or feel it. No, I couldn't tell it was there because my hair was in the way! I shoved it out of the way, and tried again.

His breathing still wasn't there.

"Sir?" I asked tentatively. "Sir, you're still there, right?"

I shook his arm. Then his shoulder. Back to his arm, rougher than before. His shoulder again. Back and forth I went, trying to get a rise out of him. He wasn't dead. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead! He was still alive only minutes ago!

I collapsed over him, saying my name for him over and over again between sobs. I asked him to come back. I told him I would be a good girl. I told him that I wasn't lying, that I really did have a name picked out for myself! Please, I begged, don't leave me alone in this world!

That night, I spent next to his body as it slowly cold and stiffened beside me. That night, sleep abandoned me. That night, I was still softly calling out his name in a hoarse voice when birds began happily chirping as the dawn approached.

I couldn't help but think of what a coward I'd been in his final hours of death. I had ignored the signs he'd shown me. I couldn't bear to ask him what he felt. Worst of all, I had lied to him, and didn't have the courage to follow it through. When he closed his eyes, and faded off into the comforting embrace of death, he must have known me for the coward I truly was.

Ihad let him die knowing that I would rather lie to him than tell him the truth.