There were no more tears left to cry. Hannah spent what should have been the prime of her life in hospital beds, surrounded by doctors, nurses and machines. It had all come to this, her father holding her hand in the palliative care ward. They would pull the plug on Friday; give her a sedative and that would be the end.
This struggle had taken everything from her father. The money ran out years ago. All that was left now was for him to sit at her bedside.
It was odd, how bright and vital she looked since they had stopped the therapies. Her skin was still pallid but a richer, rosier color than it had been in a long time. Her hair had come back, auburn locks draped against the nape of her neck. It was almost as if she could climb out of the bed and live the life the diagnosis had stolen from her so long ago. But he knew that was a lie. On the inside, her organs were failing and if left like this she would be in tremendous suffering.
"Dad," she said, and his ears became keen as his mind tried to etch every atom of these last moments with his daughter indelibly into the stone of his mind. "I know you've asked a thousand times if there's anything you can do for me..."
He had indeed tried to do absolutely everything he could for her. He sold his home, lived out of his car, and waited on every word, while she humbly endured the pain and indignities of treatment and never requested anything. If she had anything in mind now, he would go to the ends of the Earth.
She looked into his eyes, hesitant and conflicted, "⋯ Dad⋯"
"I don't care if you want me to lasso the moon, you can tell your Dad and he'll damn well try to have it in the parking lot for you."
She smiled, which was a rare and beautiful thing that burrowed into his bosom as he hung with baited breath for her next words.
She looked away, downcast out the window, recollecting herself before she turned back and tightened her grip on their interleaved fingers. "I don't want to die a virgin, Dad."
He felt something twist within him, as he processed what she said. "Honey⋯ I," he trailed off. It was completely natural, to want a lover at least once in your life, and she had never had the opportunity for a boyfriend. There was no one else in the world she was closer to, but his mind reeled at the prospect that she meant what he thought she did.
Her eyes told him it wasn't a joke, but it was unthinkable and wrong on so many levels. And yet how cruel would it be to deny a girl on her deathbed the intimacy she craved in the twilight of her short life?
He pulled away from her hand, feeling broken by the resistance of her fingers tugging against his. Wordlessly, he buried his face in the door, the inch of darkness between the bridge of his nose and the sterile laminate the only sanctum. After a singular moment that stretched out to last forever, he felt his hand moving on its own to lock the door.
He turned, trying to regard her for the first time in a manner other than his dying angel. Though frail, she had the intrinsic beauty of a teen girl, the hint of supple breasts under a hospital gown and delicate, innocent features. She seemed to understand the strained expression on his face, timidly biting the corner of her lip and tugging at the gown