Till death do us apart.

lizzah, age 19

"its life" people say "take what you get". sometimes people don't get to choose what they take.

i watch as hakeem struggles but fails to keep his popsicle from melting. i cant let him get his shirt stained, so i roll my eyes and pull myself away from the beanie i was sitting on,i have to help him, i had just taken a break for 4 minutes, but i guess life thought that was too long for me.

i reach towards him to gently take the popsicle away and i cant help but smile he has his tongue all the way out and he is trying as hard as he can to lick all the sides of his fast melting popsicle. when i extract the popsicle from his hand gently, his face momentarily looks stunned with surprise and then his 15 year old face crumples into the look of a crying baby, i pat his arm gently trying to calm him while i quickly lick away the edges of the melting popsicle, then i hand it back to him, immediately his crying subsides and his face relaxes into an expression of pure bliss, i shake my head at him and steer myself towards the kitchen, i've still got dinner to cook, maybe i should make hummus, its one of the few things hakeem eats that i can also eat.

The kitchen is one of the places i have crafted entirely for myself, its one of the places i don't let hakeem enter so i don't have to worry about baby safe counters or leaving cooking utensils where he can find them.

its a fairly big room with soft blue wall paper on all sides, the counters are glossy marble grey, so is the kitchen island, i manage to keep the glass cabinets sparkling clean, i spend most of my 'free time' here when my classes are over and hakeem is asleep. even though i love to bake and ice and tryout new dishes my favorite part of the kitchen is the large window at the far end, the window that overlooks the leoland family house.

i pop a container of humus into the microwave and go to my chair beside the window. i look out my eyes searching for something. someone.

And there he is, sitting on the deck next door he has his baby sister in one hand and a book in the other. he's reading to her. his lips are forming the words and his eyes are widening in fright to explain the story. i cant see the color but i know his eyes are gray. like my counters, i think.

his baby sister is sitting in an amazed silence her hands clasped in front of her. if only i could get hakeem to be that attentive when i wanted him to be. suddenly he looks at her and smiles his face lighting up he has a beautiful smile strong and kind. i smile unconciously. then he closes the book and straightens up and they turn to leave and then as an after thought he turn's his head and he looks up. directly at me. he smiles again .at me. he raises his hand the one that holds the book and as if remembering he's holding a book he looks at the book and then looks back at me and laugh's. i laugh as well i cant help it even if i've just been caught stalking. he smile's once more and then turns to leave. i sigh, he's new in the neighbourhood soon he'll hear all the stories about me. about the rude rich stuck up pretty girl , who thinks herself to high to spend time with anyone.

if only the story tellers knew.

3 years ago my parents went missing leaving me with a ton of money and hakeem, my baby brother who would always remain a baby. hakeem has a type of peter pan syndrome the disability of growing up, a person who's mind remains that of a child. hakeem wasn't always like this, he used to be a normal kid who could say proper words who could run around like others who could play and make me laugh with his incredible jokes, but slowly over time his mind began to deteriorate. he wasn't able to walk properly, sometimes he would wet himself. gradually he started keeping quiet for long periods, his eyes blank. that was the worst. seeing my brother turn into a stranger. my parents broke down. they took him to doctor after doctor but there was no cure. they would come back from every hospital with redder eyes and i would lose a little more hope. soon he stopped telling me his jokes.stopped laughing. stopped walking. he just. stopped.

no one understood what it did to me, not even me. i was just 8 when it fully happened but i started seeing the world in less vibrant shades, i started seeing my brother in a strangers happy face and less of him in hakeem. i remember shaking hakeem and pushing his head begging him to become my brother again. i remember wet pillow's and the silent house, my parents grey faces. i remember being alone and learning how to survive on my own, i remember falling down and knowing that no one would be there to pick me up except myself.

now years later i'm hakeem's only guardian, his only listener. and honestly maybe he also is my only listener as well. i have become the one person to take care of him, to bath him, clothe him, feed him, talk to him even if it means forgetting myself

but i love him and that love has never changed, i loved him as my animated brother and now i love him as my silent brother, i still believe that one day i'll see my brother in him again. all of this wont go to waste. it just cant. he is the only person i have left.

lizzah, age 27

The sky is sunny and bright, the flowers dancing cheerfully alone. i don't understand it. how can the world look beautiful on a day like this. how can the world not understand my pain.how?, how?,HOW?!!!. My heart is cracked open it's pain should flood the world yet the world remains....normal. How dare it!.

The sky is Supposed to drip Red the ground should crack open the world should turn in the ground

the children should be terrified their smile's should be frozen the rain should stop the world should turn dry the leaves should fall dead. Everyone should fall dead. How dare they not. How dare they. How does happiness have the audacity to show off to me. not after everything i've lost, not after losing him. NO!, HE CAN'T BE DEAD!.

it was a mistake. thats what they say, the police, the ambulance driver, my maid. it was a mistake, i know. it was a mistake when my whole life was dragged from underneath me and i fell into hell, it was a mistake when i was forced to lose my only bit of sanity it was alll a misttttttaakkkekeeeeee i,him,us it was all a mistake.

and like all mistakes it, it ended. he ended. john leoland ended! he died, he died in my arms, he died because he was killed. he died because he was killed he died because he was killed he died because he was killed. by hakeem.

and they say it's a mistake?

lizzah, age 67

i remember it as if it were yesterday, the day i got married to the man i thought i'd never get, he wore a lily in his tux pocket and that smile on his face, it was the smile i fell in love with, the smile i kept to myself. the smile that was my reason to smile.

john leoland was my reason to smile.

i was dressed in soft rose colors, it was the color of my dress, the color of my veil.

there were murmurs when i walked down the aisle,not just because of my glow but because of my escort. my brother in his wheelchair holding on to my hands, he had tears in his eyes and a scowl on his face.

''your beautiful" john had whispered when my hands were in his. i smiled because he din't realize to me he held all the worlds beauty.

He had loved me no matter what flaws i came with, he had loved me like no one ever had, he had loved me the way you love a rose, aware of the thorns but in love nevertheless. and he had accepted hakeem as well after all we came in the same package.oh the irony..

our house was beautiful, standing tall surrounded by a cascade of trees, beautiful trees, and flowers, climbing vines and roses. roses.

i let him sweep me into his arms and into the house while a servant tailed along wheeling hakeem, i hadn't thought of the effect my happiness would have on hakeem, i hadn't thought he would take my momentary freedom as betrayal, i hadn't thought about what he would do.

for the next few weeks john and i took turns taking care of hakeem, it was true i wasn't spending as much time with hakeem as i normally did but i was in love and newly married.

john used to read him stories at night from his book. i wish i never let him. i still remember the one story that caused it. it was an innocent story of a princess who lived with her prince and the wicked dragon who was trying to capture her away, the prince had slayed the dragon and his princess remained safe with him.

That very night i woke up to squeaking of wheels, john wasn't in bed next to me. i went towards hakeem's room thinking maybe he was there. there was no one in the room, not hakeem nor his wheel chair. that's when i heard it, a scream.

coming from his terrace. i ran towards it, ripping the curtains and knocking the doors apart. sitting in his wheelchair with his back to me was hakeem, black hair illuminated by the moon light.

" hakeem,hakeem" i had gone towards him in my panicked state, and i searched his face for any sign of pain. i knew someone had scram. i saw no hurt in his face instead i saw the most surprising thing. hakeem was smiling, his tongue was slightly poking out, but he was smiling, i almost smiled as well, i thought finally after all these years hakeem was coming back . But thats when i heard it a low moaning coming from down i looked past the balcony, and my heart stopped. my world stopped.

he was there splayed across the floor soaked in his own blood.

i wanted to jump. to reach him as fast as i could, but the sensible part of my brain stopped me. i thundered down the dark staircase. ran past the thousand rooms broke outside and then there he was, there he was, lying there.

i had him in my laps, my tears on his face, his hand's in my hair he whispered something using his dying breath he said "hakeeem" and then he was gone. and i had a body on my lap and his blood on my hands.

so much of me left with him on that night, so many feeling's left with him.my love for this world even my ability to hold hate in my heart, may be that's how i ended up here, bound to the one thing i could never get rid off.

there is a gentle tapping on my door

"miss lizzah, he is awake" its grete the young lady i hired to help me.

I nod even though she cant see me.

"i'm coming." i say quietly

As i straighten up, my knee's release a quick popping sound.and then i head out of the room, i head over to him.back to who i always end up heading towards. back to hakeem.