All That Matters

Grow up, they said.

They always told her she needed to grow up. He always told her it wasn’t her job to grow up.

(Jia wasn’t the parent, Ben was. Ben had to be. He always had to be.)

Ben kept her young by taking away years from his own life, raising her on his own, by making sure she never had to be the parent like he knew he had to be.

When dad came home late, the smell of alcohol on his clothes, Ben was the one to stand in front. He took the heat. Dad wouldn’t touch her, wouldn’t dare speak to her if he had anything to say about it. 

That’s how she spent her childhood. Ben stopped considering himself a child when he had to pick up his sister from school, and go to her karate tournaments, and be the parent in a relationship that was never supposed to be as it was. He smiled for her, and only for her, because there was barely anything left to smile for unless it was for Jia. 

How could a child bear the weight he was bearing?

Simple: he wasn’t a child.

(Grow up.)

He grew up.

He went straight from nine years old to eighteen. He stood in front of his baby sister, because dad didn't love her, so who else would?

(But he never asked who would love Ben? Because it never mattered anyway. Not when Jia would always be more important than himself.)

He whisked her away when he turned eighteen. He celebrated by taking his fourteen year old sister with him to CPS, claiming custody, renting an apartment, and getting a job. He celebrated by locking his father away. He took the scars and bruises and called them trophies, ornaments meant to remind him of how strong he'd been. 

Their father was a cruel man, but Ben knew better. He endured the fights and came out giving gentle touches. He listened to the harsh words yet spoke kind ones. His life was a mirror of his father's, because Ben had seen how hate and despair destroyed his life, and wouldn’t let it happen to him, wouldn’t do that to those he loved.

He grew up, and he learned. He grew up, and turned the painful childhood into a good adulthood. He grew up, and he became better.

Ben became better for her.

He became a better brother, better parent. He endured the long nights he spent working wherever he could get a job so she didn’t have to worry. He bore the weight because it was his weight to bear, not hers. He calmed her and dried her tears when she had no mother or father to do it for her. He watched her go through middle school, high school, watched her graduate and took pictures on the shoddy IPhone he bought four years before so there would be an actual emergency contact for her school to call.

Their life may have been small, secluded, but it was full of love and that was all that mattered to Ben.

(Grow up.)

Jia deserved more love than he could give, so when she was seventeen and Micah, the boy from across the street, asked her out on a date, shy and awkward but so full of adoration, he let her go.

(After all, she had to grow up, one day.)

He took her to the strip mall six blocks down and let her pick out a new outfit, promising she wouldn’t have to pay (she paid half anyway). He paid in cash because his bank account was too low to risk using his debit; two twenties and a few dimes were snatched away, but he couldn’t make himself feel guilty for either of their wallets. Not when Jia’s smile was so wide when she came out of the changing room in the army green romper and jean jacket, already rambling on about how she had a necklace that would be absolutely perfect with the outfit, or so she said.

Ben watched her go. His heart ached, but his soul sighed in relief. One date turned into three, five, twelve; Micah took her to prom and Ben saw how much he cared. Saw the adoration in his eyes from that first day to a year later when she graduated and he was right next to Ben, cheering her on.

(Grow up.)

Jia smiled at her brother as she took her diploma. He smiled back-- and it took everything in his power to keep from crying instead.

(She grew up too. He pretended it didn’t hurt.)

Micah could take over the responsibility of loving Jia, Ben knew. But it wasn’t a burden, never. The results of loving her may have been, but Jia deserved love, deserved so much love, far more than he thought he could ever give. So he let Micah throw her a twenty-first birthday party, let him buy her an expensive diamond necklace for the occasion. Let him take over that role in her life, because the son of a CEO could provide a far better life than he ever could;

Yet Jia kept coming back.

Coming back to him, for reasons he’d never really understand. She came back to the man who barely got his GED after Jia graduated, who held up a desk job instead of doing something with his life (he already did, and she turned out amazing), came back to the man who was afraid of beer because he saw what it did to their father. Came back to her brother and loved him.

Frankly, he never saw why, not when he could barely afford to keep custody of her. But she came back to him after she got an associates in mechanical engineering (that’s my girl), got a job at a garage down the street from his place and would stop by for lunch on Wednesdays when he had a day off. She came back when she got engaged, came back when she went wedding dress shopping, came back every single time, when he never asked her to.

He wanted her to move on from him, receive the love she deserved. She kept proving that he was worth her love just as much as she was his.

Ben walked her down the aisle; he cried, and wouldn’t deny if anyone asked. Because that was his girl. His baby sister. His world. His everything.

She was all that mattered. All that ever would, long after she moved on.

Jia never moved on from him. That much became clear when he became the Godfather of her daughter, when she still brought him chocolates every fathers day (“Because there’s no ‘brothers day’ to celebrate,” she’d told him years before, in a silent apartment with hearts filled with longing for a love they’d stopped asking for).

(Grow up, they said.)

She kept coming back to him long after he’d asked or expected her to; but she was too good for this world, too good for him, gave love freely because that was just who she was.

(And maybe she’d grown up, but at least she didn’t have to grow up too fast.)

His heart still ached, sometimes, when the nights were quiet, no longer filled with laughter from Jia or her boyfriend (husband), or when he found himself alone with his thoughts for too long, but he learned to live with it.

No longer was it an ache for something new. No, Jia was okay. Jia was loved. And that had always been his goal, nothing else; since it had been accomplished, fully and completely, Ben supposed what he was feeling was mostly just longing. Longing for his girl back. His baby sister.

But she was safe, happy, loved. And nothing else mattered to him, never would.

He smiled for her.