The Right Thing

She ran her slim fingers over the cool, frozen glass. Soft snowfell gracefully to the ground, swayed by the wind. That small flake was lost amongst the snowfields. A sigh escaped her as she turned her back to the window, unwelcome memories swarming at the back of her mind.

Too late, she was already reminiscing. 

In the winter of 1990, a young boy by the name of Alex Mendoza ran past mountains of thick white snow and stumbled over stray patches of grass. His icy blue eyes were full of fear, but somehow hope too. 

“Alex!” she yelled from the cabin. Her name was Nina Mendoza back then, a fifteen year old Californian. Alex ran towards the cabin, chased by a herd of neighborhood boys calling him sickly names. Alex wasn’t accepted in society, not amongst the boys anyway. He wasn’t man enough, they said. He liked jewelry and feared hurting or getting hurt. He had never hurt a fly, even when they flooded their house in the summers.

He wasn’t normal, not to the world. And sometimes not to Nina either. No matter how hard she tried, there was always some uncomfortable feeling inside her when Alex was in the room. 

Alex stumbled through the door. Nina immediately slammed it shut and locked it. Their parents were working overnight at the firm, so Nina and Alex had decided to roast marshmallows in the cabin. The boys caught him, beat him. Alex ran. Ran like he always did. 

Nina got the first-aid kit to patch him up. This time there was a cut on his forehead and scars on his stomach. “Fight back little brother.” She said quietly, knowing he never would. Alex shook his head, smiling bitterly. “I’d spend the rest of my life fighting.”

“Would you rather spend it getting beat up and shunned by everyone?”  Nina tried to control her hate and anger. She tried to remind herself that Alex wasn’t the enemy, just the victim. “I’d rather spend it proving them wrong. The right way.” He answered. Nina caught herself before she could say that there was no right way. The world didn’t appreciate the right way. It appreciated guts, bravery, fighting back the hard way,

It wouldn’t effect Alex. He still wouldn’t fight back. He wasn’t brave. She felt guilty thinking like that, Alex was her brother. But it didn’t make it any less true. 

The kettle whistled. These days she was known as Alexis. She poured tea into her mug and stirred it, watching it swirl like a tornado. She stirred it faster and faster until started spilling on the counter. It swirled like the memories, or the blizzard within those memories.

The winter of 1991. She was almost sixteen. Alex was in his room. He had stopped talking a few months ago. Nina had watched him pull away. Piece by piece. String by string. Until he was completely gone. She could hear their mom weeping at night when she thought they were asleep, and their dad comforting her with whispers of it being just a phase.

Mom thought he might have lost his voice, but Nina knew better. He had lost his self. 

She walked into his room, angry. So angry and terrified. All she could see was red and her brother. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you realize your tearing this family apart?!” He didn’t answer, too busy folding his clothes and placing them neatly on the shelves. 

She snatched his shirt away and pushed him. it was not too hard, but he still collapsed onto the bed. “Alex!” 

He met her eyes for the first time in weeks. She caught her breath. Those icy blue eyes were dim. No hope. Just fear. Skin paler than the snow. He used to be s handsome and healthy, but now…

“Are you dying?” she whispered, stumbling against the study table. He just looked at her. They shared eye contact for seconds before she ran out. 

The tea was everywhere but in the mug. She tossed the spoon in the sink. The clatter rung through her ears. A similar ringing to the deadly one in 1993.

“You’re going to go where?” Nina asked, refraining from screaming. Their parents were at a parental group they had started attending last year when they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Alex. It wasn’t anything medical, which only worried them more. 

“I don’t know. Anywhere.” He shrugged. He only talked aloud to her these days. But at least he talked. 

Nina thought of her sixteen year old brother out there in the world, all alone with nothing and no one. Desperate. 

“You can’t leave us Alex. We’ll be destroyed. You’re not even eighteen. For the love of God stop packing!” she was screaming now, done with controlling herself. Done with all this. It made no sense. “What happened to you?” she was at the verge of tears. At the verge of exploding.

“I want more Nina. I want something better. I refuse to die here.” He gestured to their home, not just the house but their home. Nina knew it wasn’t really home for Alex. It never had been. She hugged herself, taking deep breaths.

“Running away won’t make things better. If you want a fresh start, do it the right way. That’s what you always said. The right way.” Nina urged, trying to break through those walls her brother always surrounded himself with.

“The world doesn’t appreciate the right way. It never works. It appreciates guts and bravery. That’s what youalways said. You were right. You were always right.” Alex threw in another T-shirt and a pair of jeans in his duffel bag.

“This isn’t guts or bravery. This is insanity!” she yelled. 

Alexis cleaned up the counter. She hated tea anyway. Why had she even made it? She pulled open the drawer in search for the scrub. Instead, she found a locket. An old one covered with dust. It opened easily though. A picture fell from it like the snowflake earlier. Swayed by the wind and lost in a field of memories. 

The picture was of her and Alex in the winter of 1994, in front of a snowman.

Their last snowman.

Nina walked beside her brother in silence. He hadn’t run away, not after Nina threatened to call the police. They hadn’t been the same after that. 

“How’s school? Decided on any colleges yet?” she broke the silence. Alex shrugged, “The local ones seem fine.” “But your grades are so good and you’ve always wanted to go to USC.” Nina nudged him lightly. He drifted further away, shrugging.

She didn’t push. They were already so fragile. Hewas so fragile. “Look.” Alex lit up suddenly. That could only mean one thing.

Nina followed his gaze. A frozen sheet of ice spread out in front of them. She gulped. “Let’s go around it.”

Alex, of course, shook his head resolutely. “Not when we can glide across. Come on sis, be brave for once.” He winked. She stepped back, shaking her head. Ice scared her, always had. Unlike her brother, she had never learned to ice-skate. She had never even wanted to. It seemed horrifying. One wrong turn and you could slip, breaking a bone. Or worse, the ice.

Alex stretched out his hands, edging towards frozen surface. A lake, Nina had guessed.

She took his hands hesitantly. He slid onto the ice, and she almost slid onto it with him. She let go at the last moment, standing at the edge while her brother glided across it like an angel. His blue eyes shone again for the first time in years. His jet black hair a stark contrast to the whiteness of the ice. His skin aglow once more. She stared, smiling, the fear washing away. Not completely, but enough .

Nina ended up going around it. That was when they had made the snowman, had a little snowball fight. For a short evening, they felt like brother and sister again. 

Then a scream tore through the freezing winter air. Nina and Alex glanced at each other before taking off in the direction of the scream. 

A five year old boy was on the same frozen lake Alex had been on mere hours ago. He was sliding and screaming, fear emanating from his charcoal eyes. 

Nina recognized him. “That’s Derek’s little brother!” she gasped. Derek, the one who led all the herds chasing Alex and started all the nasty rumors that had changed him..

Alex stepped onto the ice. “What are you doing?” Nina cried. The ice was fragile and couldn’t handle more than one person at a time. 

“It’s ok Josh. I’m a friend of your brother’s. My name’s Alex Mendoza. You’re going to be fine.” Alex called to the boy, gliding across the ice like before, but more carefully this time.

“I’m scared.” The boy, Josh, had tears on his face. Nina was a little surprised that Alex remembered his name. But how couldn’t he? He was his bully’s little brother.

“I know. Stay where you are. I’ll come to you.” Alex moved carefully across the ice. It started to break when he neared Josh. Nina suppressed the urge to cry out. Her brother knew what he was doing.

Josh, however, didn’t suppress his own urge. He screamed again. “It’s ok I got you.” Alex grabbed a hold of Josh’s arm. The ice cracked again, the sound ringing through Nina’s ears. Alex pulled the boy close to him and pushed him across the ice with enough force for him to slide to the edge. Josh hopped off the ice, his knees sinking into the snow.

Nina ran to him, helping him up. She was just about to praise Alex when the ice cracked completely under his feet, and her brother fell into it. 

His body was found frozen to death an hour later.

Alexis cried at the counter. Tears spilling over the tea. Alex had loved tea. He had loved tea and snow. Her parents were never the same, and she had run away a year later unable to bare it anymore.

She was awful at controlling her emotions. Be it fear, anger, sadness, or guilt. Guilt that if she had been brave like her brother, she could have saved him. Guilt that she spent her life telling him to be brave when he already was. Guilt that she had just been telling him to what she never was: better.

Alexis ran out the back door and sunk knee deep into the snow, still crying and hurting. It had been five years since his death but every day it felt more real. He had died doing the right thing. The very thing he was born to do. The very thing he had promised to do. 

Her tears were still fresh when she laid eyes on a frozen surface before her. She had moved near a lake in memory of her brother. It froze over some winters, yet she still hadn’t been able to gather the courage to slide across.

She still hadn’t gathered the courage to let go of the fear.

Taking a deep breath, she trudged through the snow and towards the lake. 

Her legs shook violently, the memory of his death flashing before her eyes. She closed her eyes.

“I love you Alex.”

Then she stepped tentatively onto the ice.