4t d’ESO Lily Ada Solé i Viladecans

Lily Ada Solé i Viladecans / 4t d’ESO

LLENGUA ANGLESA_2n PREMI

James entered the funeral home. It was a gloomy, rainy day and he felt the same way. The room was packed with people he had never met. Weirdly, he found himself looking around for her, expecting to see her red locks tied up in a bow. He wanted to see her smile one last time. “Excuse me”. James turned around and saw a short man handing him a piece of paper. “Thanks”, he said as he reached for Lily’s obituary. He couldn’t help but laugh out loud when he saw the picture her parents had picked out. It was probably very inappropriate to be laughing at a funeral but he just knew that she would have hated it. In the photo, she was wearing her old school uniform, round glasses and brackets. A huge stack of books was in her arms. Her parents had always thought of their daughter as the perfect student and well-behaved girl she was back in grade school. They wanted to forget that she got diagnosed with major depressive disorder and then stopped going to high school shortly after. She was left completely alone, abandoned by her family who thought of her as a disgrace more than anything else. They would pay 300$ every month for the mental hospital just so they could forget that part of their lives. Obviously, when word got around about Lily’s death, they felt obligated to throw her the most extravagant funeral just to avoid rumors.

James had met her the first day she entered the hospital. No one could forget a face like hers. His room was facing hers and he would watch her all the time. She probably thought of him as some annoying creep who wouldn’t leave her alone. They wouldn’t talk but he soon realized why she was there. She usually seemed fine, she would eat all her food and talk to most of the staff. But for periods of time, she would shut her door and her room would be silent for days, or even weeks. No one could get her to go outside or take her pills. Then, suddenly everything would be fine, and she started talking and laughing again. One day she asked James why he was there. He was so surprised that she was spea-

180 king to him that he almost forgot how to talk. “Anorexia”, he said shyly. She didn’t say anything for a while… “Why won’t you eat? Food is like the best thing in the world”. He would have probably been offended by that question a few months back but by that time he was getting better, so he simply said: “I do eat now.” She got up from her bed and went into his room. In her hand was a candy bar. She gave half of it to him and sat on the bed. “I’m Lily”. “I know”. Sharing candy bars became a habit and they would stay up talking for hours. The nurses hated them because they would sneak around the building late at night. He sometimes thinks that he was already in love with her when she first talked to him, but those feelings grew over time. James wanted to believe that she felt the same way. He was almost fully recovered, and he felt like she was definitely getting better too. They would make plans for when they got out of there. She wanted to move to New York. But none of that happened. Their dreams never came true. He got discharged and had to move back in with his parents. At that time, she was in one of her depressed stages and refused to say goodbye. He would try to visit as much as possible, but the secretary always said the same thing: “She’s too sick. Maybe another time.” Months went by and he left for college. He would write to her but never got a reply, so he started to forget. The day before his twentieth birthday, he got an email from the secretary in the hospital. Lily had passed away. She didn’t explain why but he knew that she had probably taken her life. It was common with that type of disorder. They hadn’t seen each other in years but he couldn’t help but feel guilty that he hadn’t tried harder to get her out of there. He had given up and no one, especially not her, deserved that. The funeral was held the day after. James got in his car and drove for four hours just to be there. He knew no one and no one knew him. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, and he knew that Lily would have hated to have a funeral like this, so he got out of the building and into his car. At the gas station, he bought a candy bar. He stopped by the side of the road and walked into the forest. Lily had always loved nature so it seemed like the right thing to do. He sat down on the grass and split the bar in half. Half for him and half for her. Once he finished it, he got up and drove back home. He thought of her every single day for the rest of his life.