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22A: Moments

22A: Moments

There are moments. Moments which span years, my entire life time, an infinite fountain of the things I recall of Byron. I have always considered him a constant, the endless resource of love in my family, in my life. I had always looked upon Byron Nikolai Andrews as invincible, as the one person who could do no wrong, who would be there through everything. Yes, a shoulder to cry on but—

Byron is much more than small moments throughout years, seeing me fade in and out of awkward phases, stumbling along the social bumps trying to find where I fitted in. Byron cannot be confined to simply my older brother—the one who met Graham and bought in a whole new member of the family, who snorted every time he saw the bottle of Sunny D in the fridge, my older brother who ended up losing his voice when I won my first ever skateboarding tournament. Byron is an abundance of happy memories, smiles, laughs, the times of my childhood where I remember us being a real family.

Byron is not just fourteen years old, snorting on milkshake because he started laughing at me when I dropped ice cream in my lap. Byron isn't a small glimpse of him over the back of the sofa when he had been banished to his room for another prank he and Graham thought they would get away with. Byron is not just the in between, the almost there that could be forgotten.

No, Byron is the forever. Byron is everything and nothing, and though he is no longer here, grinning at me for not letting him win when we play video games, ruffling my hair to get a reaction in the same way that Dad had done to him for so many years, or even scowling at all of us for interrupting his sleep. Byron is—

Here. Loved. Never forgotten.

Byron isn't simply my big brother, threatening anyone who so much as gave me a bad look. Byron is my hero, here or not. So I start when he's ten, when the biggest change happens, and I end with his end.

10

I am eight years old, gap toothed, wearing a tatty pair of jeans, with a badly cut fringe—courtesy of Mom being too lazy and stingy to take me to a salon, ("You won't see me paying those ungodly prices when I can do it myself for free!" she says, though the only straight lines she can construct are on that fancy paper she keeps in her room)—and watching Nickelodeon, when Byron brings his friend home from the park. I've never met any of Byron's friends before, he says that none of them are nice enough for me to talk to. Mom says that Byron and I are our own strange pair, probably because sometimes we have to mother her, though most of the time, like now, she is burning her fingers on the ends of live electrical wires. She tells us it's all top secret, things she'd have to kill us for if we ever found out, but I'm not an idiot and I know that she's messing with Dad's stuff, their own little game which has been going on since forever.

The front door slams, announcing both Byron's arrival, and the continuation of his bad habit. He says it's because he almost always needs the toilet once he arrives home from the park, but I know it's a mixture of being far too heavy handed, and enjoying how it riles up Dad. When the door hits the wall, the echo being enough to tell me it's done so, I can already imagine the way Dad will screw up his face at the dent formed, an annoying little reminder that Byron is still refusing to listen to him, and he will shout for Byron to get downstairs right now and explain himself, which is what happens most days. In reply, Byron will shrug his lean shoulders, look at the dent on the wall and blink at it, as though he has no possible explanation on how on earth it ended up there.

He's already told me a little bit about his new friend, and by a little bit, I mean that he is already an honouree member of the family without ever having met him. "Graham's allergic to peanuts. And you know how he found out? At his Uncle's 50th birthday party, his Aunt gave him some peanuts and then he threw up, and everyone thought that was it, but then his eye started swelling up and his Mom had to take him to the hospital." But now that there are two people walking down the hallway towards the living room, I can't imagine my Dad wanting to shout now that there is company. It's rare enough that we receive visitors who aren't already used to the way things work in this house, and Byron and Mom have both already warned Dad not to scare Graham away for his amusement.