By Her Side

                She was cute as a child and beautiful as a woman, and I’ve loved both sides of her. She had grown into a beautiful woman at the blink of an eye. As a child I loved her for her outgoing, playful personality that engulfed me and as a man I loved her mature and confident smile, headstrong personality, and her endless kindness just to name a few. It was a growth that I had watched but somehow missed completely. However, this wasn’t the day to mourn over missed moments for all I could focus on was how breathtakingly stunning she looked in her silky white wedding dress with her radiant smile blinding me. As soon as she spotted me, she shrieked with pleasure and hugged me tight. As I gripped her closer to me I could feel her warmth melting down my cold body.

★★★

                When I was five years old, my parents had to move overseas due to their jobs. I was a shy kid who they knew would have a hard time adjusting to a foreign country, so they dropped me off at the house of their oldest best friends. They lived in the suburbs, far from the bustling city I grew up in so it took hours by the car to get there. My parents spent the entire trip trying to assure me that it was going to be alright and that I was going to the nicest people that they knew would take good care of me. I stayed silent, afraid I might start crying, and looked out the window to calm myself down. However, watching the scenery change from the familiar urban setting of packed apartments and dirty allies to unfamiliar clean pristine houses and green lawns made me even more nervous. I was just a bundle of nerves clutching tightly onto my favorite teddy bear praying that everything would turn out fine.

The house we stopped at petite two story house with buttercup yellow walls and bright red tiled roof, just like the ones in picture books. I could hear someone shuffling around at the other side of the door and I knew that something was coming. Sure enough, as soon as my parents knocked on the door, a young girl ran straight out, bursting with excitement and jumped towards me. The shock of seeing her headed straight for me at full speed made me instinctively dart out of the way. I heard a loud thump and right where I used to be, she lay face flat on the ground.

                I heard an “Owwww” seep out from under the body as her parents rushed to the door.

                “Are you alright?” I heard my mom ask, as she crouched next to the girl, “Can you stand?”

                However, even before she could think about it, the girl got straight back onto her feet, dusted herself off and introduced herself like nothing happened.

                “Hello! My name is Brianna Moore but you can just call me Bria! Is he my new little brother?” she asked, pointing at me.

                Before my mother could answer, Bria’s parents jumped in. The girl’s father immediately stepped forward and held the girl in place before she could lunge at me again.

                “I’m so sorry about that! Are you okay Caleb?” Bria’s mother stepped forward, leaning down to reach my eye-level and patting my head. I nodded shyly.

                “She was overly excited when we told her that your son was going to join us; she’s been jumping around for days!” her husband told my parents as the girl struggled to free herself from his grasp.

                “Oh, no worries!” my father laughed, “It’s really good to see you! How have you been? Listen, I’m so sorry I have to do this to you after not even seeing each other for so many years. I’m just worried about Caleb being in place completely unknown to him, you know? Since he’s such a quiet kid and we’ll be busy with work.”

                “Don’t fret about it! I know how busy you’ve been since you guys had Caleb,” the man replied waving off my father’s apology, “I’m just happy that you guys turned to us for help.”

                “Of course!” my mother spoke up, “Who else could we turn to? You guys are like family to us. It's been a really long time though; I mean, look at how much Brianna has grown since we last saw her!”

                “Yes,” Bria’s mother said as she let out an exasperated sigh, “she grown into quite a handful.”

                “But I remember she was always an energetic child,” my mother laughed, “Always curious and never shy; maybe Caleb can learn a thing or two from her.”

                “Oh please,” Bria’s mother smiled, “I’m hoping she could learn a bit of self-control from little Caleb here!”

                “Hey!” Bria yelled, finally able to wiggle herself out of her father grip, “You’re Caleb Walker, right? You’re five years old, right?”

                I nodded twice quickly.

                “Great!” she exclaimed, clapping her hand in joy, “I’m eight so you’re going to be my cute little brother.”

She grabbed a hold of my free hand and jerked me forward towards her mother.

“Look Mommy! His hands are so tiny and he’s holding an adorable teddy bear!” she shrieked excitedly as if I were a toy she put up for show and tell then turned back to me.

“See, you already fit the role,” she said, smiling at me for a brief second before turning back to her mother, “Mommy, he’s just perfect!”

She wrapped her arms around me tight as squeezed me like I was her teddy bear. As my tiny five year old body was swallowed up by her big eight year old arms, I felt my initial anxiety fade away and I remembered her brief, warm smile that mesmerized me.

That was our first meeting.

★★★

The young woman currently in front of me looked nothing like the clumsy little eight year old I had met that day but I knew better. I leaned in close until my face was right next to hers.

“Are you sure you’re not going to trip down the aisle? We all know you can’t handle such a long dress.” I whispered into her ear.

She blushed and pushed me away.

“Oh, don’t jinx it for me! You know how much I’ve been looking forward to today!” she snapped, then started to laugh, “I’m sure nothing can ruin today though; I’m just too happy right now!”

I smiled back at her and pulled her into my arms. My heart trembled at the reminder that this time, my arms were able to encase her tiny body.

“I’m happy too.”

★★★

                “It’s okay Caleb” she whispered into my ear as she wrapped her arms around me and soothingly patted my back, “I’m right here. Your big sis Bria will take care of you!”

                It was another nightmare and I had woken up crying. Two years had passed but I was still feeling a little homesick at times. I missed my parents and even with their assuring call every week and the warmth the Moores gave me, I would have nightmares of them leaving me forever. It happened less frequently back then compared to the nights I cried myself to sleep during their first month of my parent’s absence but every once in a while horrible dreams plagued me, usually after a visit. I knew my crying worried both Bria’s parents and my own so I would try to cover myself up in blankets to hide my tears, but Bria somehow always found out. In those nights, she would sneak into my room and hold me tight until I calmed down and fell back asleep. I knew it tired her out as I could see her doze off at the breakfast table, but she always covered for me by telling her parents that she snuck a book into her bed and read it late into the night. Even while she was being scolded, she smiled cheerfully at me as if to once again reassure me that she was alright. Her amazing optimism blinded me.

★★★

            We sat holding hands outside of the wedding hall.

            “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” she breathed as she looked up at the bright sky.

            “It always is when I’m with you.”

            She let out a soft chuckle and playfully smacked me on the shoulder.

            “Oh god, wherever do you get your cheesy one-liners?” she laughed while grabbing onto my arm, “But is is the perfect day. I’ve always imagined getting married in an autumn day like this one. The changing leaves giving way to my new start of life.”

            “You’ve always been the optimistic dreamer,” I sighed, amused, then thought again, “But I guess some dreams really do come true if you wish hard enough.” I said, turning around to look into her eyes, but she had already ran off into the street full of leaves.

            She looked beautiful with her sleek pure white dress contrasting with the bright reds and oranges of the piles of leaves she started kicking and throwing around. I watched her laugh childishly while enjoying her last moments of being the young child of a family before starting her own. She was always so full of life, even among the dead leaves. She seemed to bring out something stunningly blooming from everything around her and it captivated me. She was the one who gave me life.

            “Come on Caleb! Come join me for one last time,” she called to me. I smiled to myself as I stood up to join her. However, before I could reach her, someone else discovered her first.

            “Oh my god, Bria!” I heard a woman’s voice shriek from behind me, “Get out of that pile of dirty leaves, you’ll ruin your dress!”

★★★

                At first, I really thought of her as my big sister, always filling up the emptiness I felt from being away from my parents. She did her best to make me comfortable and gave me a place in her own family. I grew an attachment to her and followed her everywhere. Every morning, we would walk to school together and always come back home together every afternoon. Even the kids at school thought we were really blood related and thought of us as an inseparable pair. However, things started to change as she entered middle school. I was stuck as puny third-grader as she started grew taller and prettier. She getting was busier and busier and making new friends. It felt like I was no longer her priority. I realized that she had her own life and that she couldn’t be with me forever.

★★★

            We stood behind the doors leading to the altar as she hung unto my arm.

            “It’s almost time now, isn’t it?” she softly whispered into the air, almost as if she didn’t want to be heard.

            “Yes, it is,” I replied, “Are you ready?”

            “I’m not really sure about right now, but I’m positive I’ll be happy in the end.”

            I chuckled, it was just like her to say that. However, a familiar face flashed before my eyes and I quickly fell silent.

            “I’m sorry,” I hanging my head, afraid to look into her eyes.

            “Why?” she asked, surprised.

            “Because your father should be here with us”

★★★

                Beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee---

                Just as she was entering high school and I was finally graduating from elementary school, our entire world was shaken up. It had happened so suddenly; one day we were laughing together under one bright red tiled roof and the next, silence interrupted only by soft sounds of sobbing and short pity calls filled the house. My parents flew back in the very next day and the mourning officially began. My parents held me tight and rubbed my back but it didn’t help. It wasn’t the same as her touch and there was nothing else I craved more than that. However I knew that I had lost it forever.

                It happened so quickly, I had no idea what had happened until it was all over. I was so excited about graduating elementary school and finally taking a step closer to where she was that I forgot to look both ways when crossing the street.

                “CALEB!” I heard someone yell just before hearing the booming horn and the screeching of tires.

                Next things I knew I was flying to the side of the street right into safety and turning back just in time to see the truck slam into a body. It flew farther than I did and the amount of blood was unbelievable. People screamed and ran to him while some other ran up to me and tried to shake me back into consciousness but I was gone. What had I done?

                I rode in the ambulance with him as we were rushed to the hospital but I could already hear what the medics were saying. He wasn’t going to make it. I killed him. It was my fault; if only I hadn’t hurried so much, if only I had slowed down to check the traffic lights, he would have been holding my hand while walking into Bria’s middle school graduation. I murdered him. I murdered Bria’s father.

                Bria and her hysterical mother ran into the waiting room I was slumped in. All I needed was a few bandages and they left me outside, waiting for the surgery lights to blink off but I could already hear it: the beeping sound that was fading as he left us. Her mother ran up to me and squeezed my lifeless body as she sobbed into my shoulder but the one I wanted to see most wouldn’t even look at me. I was disgusted with myself; if only I hadn’t been there, if only I had never came into their lives. I didn’t have the right to cry or to beg for forgiveness.

                Two hours of difficult surgery later, the doctor came out shaking his head.

                “We’re sorry,” he said.

                “We tried everything we could,” he said.

                Bria held her mother up as she slumped to the ground in shock. She no longer had her smile. I stole it from her. However, she did not cry. Not at the hospital, not at the funeral, and not in her empty parents' room. It was just that one night at the end of that week, when she crept into my room like she used to when I had nightmares, and cried. She cried and screamed so loudly, so hysterically that her mother came running in horrified at the mess on the floor. I could only watch her as I shrunk back on my bed, unworthy of touching her anymore.

                They called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I called it Guilt. Guilt grabbed my tongue, my heart, my nerves, and my brain. I couldn’t feel or speak. I refused to touch anyone, shaking uncontrollably whenever someone came close. I was completely broken in by Guilt and I lost her. I was too involved with my own thoughts and problems that I was unable to comfort her in her time of need. I left her to break into pieces and scatter into the sea. As she drifted off I clung onto the shore of a tiny island, too scared to jump in and save her.

                A month passed and she had started going to school regularly again, struggling to restart her life. Meanwhile, I had turned into a passive rock, hardening my shield against others and refusing to budge from my spot in the past. Life went by like this with her changing slowly, starting to regain her smile once more and cheerfully prodding at me again, trying to break my shell while I stayed stationary wondering what was changing her. It only became clear when she brought a boy home, happily laughing together while talking to her mother. While I stayed huddled on my secure island, a boy on another shore had scooped her up and pieced her back together.

★★★

            “I never blamed you.”

            Those words hung in the air drifting between us as if it was an invisible string holding us together.

            “I know,” I sighed, regretfully, “But I wanted to believe that you did. I couldn’t leave myself to go back to daily life with you like nothing happened. I needed to break myself in order for me to feel whole again.”

            “I didn’t want you to!” she cried, slowly losing control of herself, “I wanted you to come back to me! I wanted us to be a family again! After losing dad, you and mom were all I had left but you tossed me aside. I begged you to come back, but you wouldn’t listen.”

            I held her face up to mine and brushed away her tears.

            “I’m sorry.”

            I could see her anger bubble up moments before she slapped me.

★★★

                When it became blindingly obvious that my own self-pity had driven her away from me, I became mad with self-hatred. I wanted to restart. I wanted to restart with her but I was too late. I couldn’t accept what I had become so I had to leave and rebuild myself. I wanted to become someone she could love again but for that to happen, I needed to stay away from her so that she could forget about my current self. And so, at my parents’ next visit, I asked them to take me with them.

                The arrangements went swiftly and within a month, I was prepared to leave.

                “Don’t go,” a beautiful sixteen year old pleaded at the doorstep, “You don’t have to go, we can start over here and we’ll be a family again.”

                The thirteen year old me wanted to bitterly laugh at her.

                “I can’t be your younger brother anymore,” I explained holding her gaze for a moment longer than usual.

                “Why not?” she asked, as she crossed her arms and scowled. Her childish behavior reminded me of our first meeting and I laughed, wishing I could turn back time and freeze that moment.

                “Don’t worry, I’ll be back before your wedding.”

★★★

                “Sorry wasn’t what I wanted to hear,” she stated steadily.

                “Fine,” I replied looking straight into her eyes, “I loved you.”

                She paused or a moment, holding back her emotions before asking her next question.

                “So why did you have to go and die?”

                I had joined the Korean War in order to prove myself four years ago.

                “You went and found a good man anyway”

                Towards the end of the war just a week before the truce was signed, I was shot through the heart during battle. Quite a fitting end.

                “He was always there to pick up the pieces you left behind,” she replied tightening her grip on me.

                “I’m sorry.”

                “I hate that word.”

                A moment of silence hung between us. Suddenly the doors opened.

                “Please rise for the entrance of the Bride.”

                As we started our walk down the aisle, I leaned into her ear.

“Why didn’t you ask your mother to give you away?”

                She smiled to up to me, “Because I knew you were coming.”

                “How?”

                “You promised.”

                We were almost at the altar.

                “You do know no one else can see me though,” I said, waving my arms over my head just to prove my point.

                “I don’t care, this means so much more to me,” her gaze burning into my eyes, “When dad pushed you away from the truck, he did it because he knew that you would be the one to protect me in the end.”

                I guided her up to the altar and was just about to let go and step away when she hugged me. I could hear the whispers of the people, wondering what the heck was going on.

                “Hey! Bria! You're confusing people!” I panicked trying to push her away.

                “I don’t care. This is out last goodbye after all,” she said, burying her face into my neck, “Let’s just enjoy this one last moment.”

                She was two steps above me so I fit into her arms, just like when we were little. I tightened my arms around her and breathed in her scent. The sweet smell of her skin lingered on my own and I looked up to see her smiling face as well as her future husband standing behind her, perplexed about how she could lean so oddly on air. He would be the one to protect her now and she will be able to move forward in her life. I knew she wouldn’t forget me and that satisfied me enough.

                It had always been her love that had saved me and I could feel my body getting lighter as I drifted from her side. The space at her side no longer belonged to me and I let her go. Her tears stained my shoulders as I slowly faded away into her memories.












PS: I would just like to thank my lovely writing partner for proofreading this for me :D