Girls Who Dreamt of Castles

Chapter Thirty

"Goodbye', says the dying man to the mirror they hold in front of him. 'We won't be seeing each other any more.' "
                       - Valery.

Everyone was going to lose someone in life. It was meant to happen to someone someday. It was either you lost someone or someone lost you. It was the way things were. No one could trick nature.

There was no in-between.

Adira had taken a full plate of fruit salad that morning with lots of water. And as usual, that wasn't what she really wanted to eat.

She and Benjamin had become really close after their first kiss. He hadn't done anything further and she was grateful. His perfection still scared her, that was why she hadn't told any of her friends about him. She wasn't sure if she was on the right track. Benjamin was her boss, she had to be extra careful. If she lost him as a lover, she'd lose her job too.

They had gotten so close that he even recommended the fruit-salad-diet for her which she had been on for the past few days. It made her lose a few pounds and according to him, the number of jobs assigned to her had shot up within the past days, which according to him again, was a miracle. She was a miracle, thanks to her long legs and her fierce face.

Adira was extremely happy about the pay, although agency fees and other expenses ate into it. She had started earning real good and it was all thanks to Benjamin. She was glad he came into her life and at just the right time.

Benjamin.

His name always made her heart skip a beat. He made her feel some kind of way.

After the kiss they had shared together the other night, everything felt awkward and not just to her but to him also. She didn't want to rush things. Whenever she did, it never ended well. She would always get her heart broken.

Benjamin might have sensed her discomfort because he brought up the kiss. They talked about it and they finally decided on taking it slow. So, he was now her very close friend. It was a good start. Friendship first.

Adira could be found in one of her small sofas in her living room, reading a small, old novel. She had been laying in the prone position for a while that her neck and hands began to hurt. When she got up to stretch, it felt as if the world around her was whirling.

She still felt dizzy and fatigue from time to time but that didn't make her eat more. She valued her job more than anything now. She knew her parents would scream when they saw her but it didn't really matter. This was what she wanted; to make it big in the modelling industry. She had to keep her job, no matter the cause.

Death was one of those inevitable things like; life, sadness, happiness, tears, and love. But Adira didn't expect it to happen to her and even though it did, she didn't expect it to happen so fast. So soon.

She was still at home when her mother had called.

"Adira, come to the hospital now," she had said gravely. "Something bad has happened. Something is really wrong. Adira, please, come quick."

"Mama, what happened?"

"Adira, please."

Her mother's voice had shocked her. Never in her life had she heard the woman sound so small, so scared. She abruptly rushed to meet her, asking for the address and the room number she was at in the hospital.

Her ride to the hospital was one of the slowest and fastest rides she had ever encountered. A part of her was curious and the other part was just afraid. She wanted to know what had happened but she was also scared because she didn't want it to be what she thought it was.

She finally arrived at the hospital. She did the usual thing and ran up the stairs to the room she knew her mother would be in. She opened the hospital door slowly and peeked into the ward. The whole room was white and she didn't know if that comforted her or frightened her. At the corner of the room, a figure laid on its back. It had a blanket covering its whole body. Her mother sat beside the body, her head buried in its chest. She was crying.

Adira held her breath, shut the door, and walked to the bed towards them.

The whole room held an awful smell to it and it looked like some kind of vintage movie. Both conscious and unconscious patients laid on the small beds that were placed close to the walls. It was a six-bedded ward, which meant; six different patients, six different problems, six different cases, and her father was one of them. It had to be him. It had to be him.

At the end of the aisle of beds, opposite the door was a hospital wardrobe. Atop it was a small television on mute and it bore no colours. Some patients stared at it,  some stared at her.

She didn't say a word to anyone. When she got close enough, she opened the cover and stared. She couldn't recognize her own father's face when she saw it. There was nothing left of it. She brought her hand to her face and screamed.

"No," she muttered. Not once, not twice.

She felt nothing. Nothing moved inside or outside of her, not even tears. She just stood there motionless, looking into the lifeless face of the man that meant everything to her.

Adira remembered everything. What was supposed to be remembered and what wasn't.

Still, there were no tears. It wasn't because she was heartless. She was angry.

There were things she could never forget. She remembered the books he had told her to read, the whiskey they both shared in secret, the music he loved, and his smile whenever he told her a story. She could never forget them because he planted every character he was in her. She could never forget because he was her best friend.

She remembered when she had crawled in his bed one night when her mother had travelled to the village. She had had a nightmare and was too afraid to sleep alone.

"Adira dear, what's wrong?" he had asked in his usual, sweet voice.

She had cried that night. When she told him what she dreamt about, he smiled.

"Death is not something to be afraid of, Adira dear," he had said and his words scared her even more. "The only thing you are to be scared of is when or how you are going to die," he said stroked her hair lovingly.

"Death will always come and sometimes, death is the answer."

Adira thought he was wrong. She knew he was, he was human after all. But she didn't care. It was her father. Even if he was wrong, he was never wrong to her.

Nobody fancied the topic or the feeling of death. Nobody liked sadness and its friends. Adira loathed them. All of them. But since death was just beside her, since death was so close to her, she could think of nothing else.

Nothing else at all. But she had just one question. Was her father's death an answer? And if yes, to what question?