Maybe...?

CHAPTER 14

"Here, Eleanor, would you come with me. I need to tell you the results of the test."

I lift my head up.

The doctor called me.

I smile at my grandma and then leave her.

"They are bad?" I ask him.

He looks at me.

"Worst than I have expected at first." He declares. "She's in a very advanced state of Alzheimer."

I gulp down.

My fingers start to shudder.

I bit my tongue, trying to not begging to scream.

This doesn't surprise me.

But is still too hard to accept that it's real.

"Since when did you notice her strange?"

"A few days ago only." I pronounce with a low voice.

"That's impossible." "She's almost in the last part of the Alzheimer."

"I-I don't know..." "She was okay..."

"Well, then. Can I talk to your parents?"

YES, SURE.

"Em... They're dead."

"And your grandmother is the one who takes care of you?" He looks amused.

"Yep."

I know what he's going to say.

"She can't take care of you now." "You know that you will be separated, right?

"No... I can take care of HER." "I promise. I'm only fifteen but I'm responsible."

"And I don't doubt it, but while you're still under sixteen a family will adopt you."

"That's not fair... There's just one year, not even that, my birthday is soon."

"Sorry, I have to call someone, you will have to be strong."

He leaves me alone in the hall.

I cry.

It's an action that I'm getting used to.

I would have entered and hugged my grandma, but I'm too weak, I would have cried, and she would have asked why.

And the answer... there's simply no answer.

I trembling.

I don't want to leave her.

She's the unique thing that holds me still when I break.

And it scares me when I'll wake up tomorrow without her by my side.

It really scares me.

Those afternoons where we cooked cookies and watched soap operas, laughing and having fun are disappearing.

Everything's going to change.

And not all the changes are good.

At least not this one.

I go to the nearest bathroom in the hospital.

My reflection on the mirror is of someone wrecked.

My eyes are red, my cheeks are full of tears and my whole body seems so tiny, so fragile...

You will have to be strong, he has told me.

You will have to stay alive, I told me.

Suddenly, I hear weird sounds. Between sobs and murmurs.

I look behind me and saw her.

A little girl, covering her face with both of her hands.

"Hey, what's going on?" I lean forward her.

"He's dying..." She says falling onto the floor.

"Who...?"

"My daddy."

My gosh.

"Come here." I hug her.

I don't know her, nor even a little bit.

But that doesn't matter.

We are people, yeah, and we have different thoughts and different minds.

But at the end, we're all humans.

The feeling of losing someone or something is heartbreaking.

It kills you little by little, slowly.

Nothing can heal that damage on you, it's impossible.

Maybe there are things that can replace the people who die, but there's absolutely nothing in the world that can put back all those memories you've had with that person.

This little girl doesn't need toys, sweet words or solace.

She needs a hug.

That doesn't give you anything, just the feeling that you can cry on someone's chest until you're exhausted.

And for me, that was the best help when my parents died.