My brother used to get mad when I cried. We would sit in our Mom's car, no key in the ignition, just two bodies ready to lay our feet on the pedal. His spine was straight and hot against the back of the driver’s seat, his body creased at the hip and knee. He gripped the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles turned white. Sometimes he would fumble with the radio, and I would turn my head away, looking to the contents of the garage. We never did take that car out.
We would lie hip to hip in the grass in our backyard and strain our necks to look past the tops of the trees at the stars. He knew all the constellations. Andromeda. Orion. Ursa Major. Ursa Minor. He said that I have the Little Dipper on my arm. I always told him that he knew too much. He would just smile with tears behind his eyes.
When we were kids, we swam in the lake outside of town. Like frogs with our goggles and fins, we could reach the bottom of the murky water and search for crayfish with our bare hands. He sat on the dock in the middle of the lake, his feet dangling into the water, his toes creating perfect, tiny circles on the surface, and I would rest my chin on my hands next to his shimmering legs. We returned home, half-naked, dripping with sweat from the long journey back across town to a safer place.
Forgetting about the lake and replacing old memories with friends and gasoline, we would lie belly-up on the surface of the asphalt. We rolled our sleeves up to our shoulders and let our bodies bake in the sun. We would trudge up the hill toward home, our faces flushed from the heat and the bottoms of our feet and ankles scraped by shards of gravel and broken glass.
We returned to the lake years later and everything was still the same. Crumbled rocks and smashed seashells leading the water. The pier with strings of seaweed wrapped around its weak wooden legs, still rotting and its edges covered in a thin green mold. I remember sitting on the dock, water up to my knees, as I watched his silhouette glide across the current.
We sat in the car, eternally parked in the garage, our stomachs filled with pepsi and chocolate. I started telling him about Napoleon, but he had fallen asleep, mouth gaping open, eyes rolled back, and his neck stretched back as far as his spine would allow. I switched off the courtesy light, one hand on the door handle and the other in his.
On Saturdays we sat slumped in the floral-print couch that we had learned to hate. We rubbed our knees with sweaty palms. I always sat too close to him, and I could smell his breath: a mixture of tears and sour cream and onion chips. He stood up, reaching out, offering a hand to me, but he had reached more for my cheek than my wrist. I always refused; I could get up by myself.
If we could count on anything changing, we could count on the seasons. The leaves turned. The wind became harsh, stinging out eyes and burning our cheeks a deep red. We learned how to climb trees again. Limb to limb by limb from limb, stretching our spines and torsos. He sat two branches above me, his feet dangling above my head, and he said in broken French, “Dites-moi une histoire. Dites-moi une histoire du Papa.” I smiled at him, and ascended to his level, two movements of my scraped shoes, and sat close to him. He looked younger then, his eyes full of light, and I ached to reach out and touch him.
We played in the rain until our bones became soggy and our shivering made our smiles clatter together. Meanwhile, our blankets tossed in the dryer. We came in soaking wet with our clothes already half off. Leaving the dryer door open, we got in our beds to roast our bodies in the cocoon of the blanket.
Months passed, and he would let me lie in bed with him every night, staring at the ceiling, sharing tears and fabricating lies.
We were truly bestfriends.
Mom was concerned when her little boy said he wanted to move out. He was twenty-one and I only ten. As concerned as she was for his wellbeing away from home, she never once relized I was lossing my bestfriend.
Pirate pandora Community Member 
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