"I know we dreamt of these things, but now it seems like your standards are too high."
Adira Archibong wants to be a supermodel, but as she steps into a world of money, fame, and sex, she learns that the only people she can trust are her friends.
...
"Family is not an important thing. It's everything." - Michael .J. Fox.
Adira gave the door two placid jabs and waited as usual. There was a pointed silence, then the door swung open.
"Adira!" her mother cried earnestly when she saw her and went in for a long hug. She took her daughter into her arms and squeezed. "Oh, my poor child," she cooed. "Just look at how thin you've become."
Adira smiled and squeezed back.
Elizabeth looked like an entirely different woman. Her hair looked tousled, her dark circles were darker, her cheekbones were almost too accentuated, and her lips were chapped. She looked sad and more frantic than ever.
Adira immediately felt guilty. She should have come to visit her. Her mother needed her around. Her family needed her.
"Come in. It's just me," Elizabeth's lips parted into a cracked smile.
Adira cleared her throat. "What about David and Grace?" she asked, sidestepping her.
"They left for your father's village about a week ago," Elizabeth explained and joined her, locking the door behind her. "They are staying with your grandmother since I'm not strong enough to take care of them alone and they are also going to have a lot of company. We will all go there for the burial arrangements when the time comes, eh?"
Adira nodded and sat on a couch.
"They have been asking about you," Elizabeth added. "Everybody has. We were all worried. I even called your friends but they all said you decided to lock yourself up. Why would you isolate yourself?"
Adira sat quietly.
"Adira?" Elizabeth regarded her.
She shifted in her chair. "I don't feel like talking about it."
"I'm your mother. Talk to me."
She looked up. "Mama, it's too painful," she said at last. "Why should this kind of thing happen to us? What did we do wrong? Is it something I did? Am I the cause of it all?"
"No. There is nothing you have ever done wrong, Adira," her mother answered though it was a rhetorical question. "Nothing. You are a perfect child."
Adira couldn't believe it, but she cried again. She was still crying when her mother hugged her, and even when she stopped crying from the outside, she continued from the inside.
How long would this last? She asked herself. How long will I continue to be like this?
"How did he die?" she blubbered. The question always ran through her mind. She was always too scared to ask.
"Hit and run," her mother said shortly. "He was brought half-dead to the hospital. The nurses and doctors tried everything, everything they could. He died before you arrived."
Adira nodded as tears rolled down her eyes.
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