Moments

            Your mother’s large eyes meet your own, her gaze filled with warmth that melts the flecks of ice in her stare. Her mouth parts in a wide circle; perfect lips drawn open with the exaggerated shape of a story. Her hands flutter around your face, showing you a small portion of the world that she inhabits. Your eyes are tugged open wide with wonder, holding you perfectly still. You know that the smallest movement could break her trance; send the icy walls crashing down around her heart.

Her breath ruffles your hair, pulling through it like the small fingers of the fairies in her stories. You love to imagine that they were there. Watching you struggle but knowing that you could handle it. You love to believe that if things got bad enough, they would be there to whisk you away.

They never did.

***

Your arm is looped around your brother’s waist; tangled hair covering your eyes as you hide behind him. Sam’s arms are spread wide, shielding you from the wrathful gaze of the person in front of him. His gaze darts to you for a fleeting moment. He untangles your arms from around his legs and places your smaller palms in his hands. They shake wildly under the pressure of your fists. Straightening up, Sam ruffles your hair, giving you a halfhearted smile. 

You can see the thin muscles in his body tightening, bracing himself as he turns toward your father. He holds his hands up placatingly as if soothing a wild animal. Sam gestures back to you, trying to get him to recognize reason. Your father widens his bloodshot eyes, stumbles forward drunkenly, lashes out at your brother with an unpredictable speed, knocking him down. He curls into himself, trying to cover his head as your father kicks, beating him into the ground. 

Then he turns to you.

***

“Happy birthday to me,” you whisper, “fifteen and I don’t feel any different.” Your legs are curled under you, the weight of your body pressing them into your mattress. Your bed has been stripped bare, sheets and blankets going in piles into the closet, where you sleep. On your faintly stained mattress lays dozens of pictures. Images of your family pulled close together wearing smiles as false as your father’s Rolex. Sam whispering secrets into your ear, while you smile and laugh. Images that show a perfect family.

One by one, you flip them over. Pull the pencil from behind your ear and draw. Each image is nearly the same as the reverse side; people in the same places you and Sam drawn in immense detail. Your parents are drawn with the lines smudged, faces bearing the faintest whispers of who they were supposed to resemble. In some, they are removed completely. Memories made happier by removing the people who caused you pain.

A light knock sounds at the door before Sam walks in. His hair ruffled, walking gingerly. He sits heavily on your bed, cradling his head in his hands. Looking so broken it is nearly impossible to believe that he is only three years older than you. 

“I can’t do this anymore,” Sam whispers so softly you thought it was a mistake, “I need to get out of here. I need to live. You can come with me! We can leave together.” His bruise-shadowed eyes met your own and you shake your head. 

A single tear flees his eye; the only sign that he has seen your response. Sam stands shakily and walks out the door. You never thought he was serious. You thought he would come home.

            He never did.

***

            The night is cloudy and dim, but it is yours. Your legs ache from the tiptoed walk from your house to the bus stop. The cool glass of the window fogs beneath your breath, smudging out the sky. Your duffle bag bangs your knees as the bus trips forward. For the first time in your life, you can breathe. Your hand rests protectively on the red backpack that rests on your lap. Inside is your livelihood. The money that you have saved for years for a one-way plane ticket. The pictures you recreated on your birthday. The letters from your brother.

            Ecstasy floods your veins as you watch the starlight flicker through the window. Your pulse thunders as you realize that for the first time, you are the one in charge.

            You are never going back.

***

            The full moon weighs heavily on the thin thread leaving it dangling in the sky. It shivers under the weight of each star until the moment the sun comes up again and it is hidden. With each moment, each place farther and farther from home, you find little pieces of yourself that you kept locked down. Each new sight is viewed with the same wide eyes of the little girl who believed in fairies. But tonight is different; you are not a neglected little girl, not a gawky preteen who lived with the fear of her father’s fists clawing around her neck, not an abandoned teen left forgotten and alone on her birthday. You are free, you tell yourself. Nothing is holding you down anymore.

            You pretend that the memories don’t rise up to haunt you without warning. Smile with strangers who don’t know you. You tell people you meet about the childhood drawn on the back of the pictures; where the parents were faceless but happy and the children grinned brightly without consequence. You act like all this time alone doesn’t hurt, like without the pressure you are free.

            It doesn’t help.

***      

Warmth and laughter pull you into the bar, not for the alcohol, but the sense of belonging. A rush of voices and energy rises to greet you, drawing your attention to a single familiar face. Sweat glistens on her forehead as she rushes toward you, pulling you to the dance floor. Her hair is tangled and damp; as she dances, she roars with laughter, having the time of her life. She winks clumsily, the movement dulled by drinking, as she pushes you toward a guy you faintly recognize. 

            He grins at you crookedly, blond hair tousled from dancing. Carefully, you take the seat next to him. He murmurs something to the bartender, and he comes back moments later with two glasses of milk.

            “I’m Isaac. Hope you don’t mind,” He speaks just loudly enough to be heard over the remnants of the music that trickle in, “I don’t drink, don’t like the loss of control you know?” The bright lights shimmer on his skin, weaving gold into his hair and drawing thick shadows beneath the long curve of his nose.

            “Me too, me too.” 

***

            Your hand swings carelessly, fingers intertwined with larger ones. Laughter bubbles up from your lungs bringing a sense of euphoria you haven’t felt in a long time. The river gurgles playfully beneath your feet, its childish mirth bringing you to another deliriously joyful fit of giggles. Besides you Isaac grins in the thick honey light, his hair turning to a sparkling amber and full lips parting in a shout of glee. 

            Isaac roars with joy, the sound wrapping around you like a warm blanket on a cold night. He pulls you close, the faded fabric of his shirt brushing your cheek, soft after being washed countless times, the smooth scent of beechwood filters through the cloth. His arms release slowly and with a scarlet blush, he tugs a box out of the pocket of his jeans. 

            He kneels slowly, the water staining the hems of his clothes and he looks at you. Tears fill his eyes and the last time you saw a boy cry your brother left you. But his eyes aren’t filled with sadness or pain. He looks up at you like you look at the stars in the sky, with a sense of breathless wonder. A small golden band sits in the sandy box, a tiny diamond sparkling in the egg-yolk light. You splash down into the water beside him and he holds you tightly. You lean into him and whisper yes. The single word slips through your veins and fills your heart.

            Always.

***

            Artificial light unspools into the pristine room. The sunlight is muffled by the curtains and you wish desperately to be dancing arm in arm in the honeysuckle light again. A heart monitor beeps steadily in one corner, reminding you that the muscle hasn’t given up yet. Isaac’s lightly tanned skin looks almost translucent beneath the sharp light. 

            His eyelids flutter limply, wings of a bird that has been held captive for far too long. You lift his limp hand and place it in your own, rubbing circles into his skin. His eyes open slightly, revealing a thick green the color of hope. Of life that he is filled with.

            “Hey,” he whispers voice gravelly from disuse.

            “Hey, how are you feeling?” A sob rises thickly in your throat as his hand lifts to your face, wiping the tears from your skin. He gives a raspy chuckle, a sad mimicry of the days in the light.

            The door opens with a soft creak and the doctor steps in. 

            “What is it?” You ask anxiously, as she shakes his head forlornly. Isaac grips your hand a little tighter as the doctor clears her throat. 

            “It’s not good.”

***

            Sweat slicks your skin, trickling down your back in the stifling heat of the chapel. Your fingers curl waiting for his warm skin to meet your own. Waiting for the impossible truth to sink in. Waiting for someone so full of life that he couldn’t possibly last. 

With a whimper, you recall the way that he would laugh so hard that tears would stream from scrunched eyes. Your Isaac. The way he could be so full of joy that he would yell to the moon, hoping someone would hear him. The grin on his lips as you pulled him from the dry comfort of the house to dance with you in the rain.

You try desperately, despite the hole it chips away in your chest, to remember the exact way he left this world: with a smile on his lips and the words “I love…”.

Leave it to him to go loving everything. You give a sad chuckle at the thought, folding your arms tightly, fingertips cutting crescents into your skin.

He was too good, you think.

***

Rain lashes at the windshield of your car, blurring your surroundings with the fine mist. The wipers work frantically to clear the glass. Thunder rolls far overhead, the sound vibrating deep in the hollow remnants of your heart. With each clap, your pulse sings louder and louder, drowning out the rain hammering on your metallic roof. 

The line dividing the two-lane road flickers in and out of view beneath the torrents of water. The wheels catch on the liquid, sending you spinning violently out of control, colliding with another vehicle. The resounding screech of metal-on-metal screams in your ears. From somewhere far away you hear someone screaming for help, the pounding pulse of thunder in the distance. Something warm and wet pools beneath your head and finally, finally, you pray to get to see Isaac again.