The Wish List

My Brother, How I Love You So

"A brother is someone who knows there's something wrong, even when you have the biggest smile on your face."

~Unknown

My brother and Macy came downstairs early that night.

Despite being in the room with Ty, I had tossed and turned all night, and when I had fallen asleep, I just had nightmares. Macy was carrying Lucy down with her, kissing her cheeks as she whispered in her ear.

"Morning." My brother tipped his head, a grin stretching across his face.

"Hey." I set my cup of hot chocolate down in front of me, waving at Lucy as Macy walked by.

"So, I ran into your little boyfriend in the bathroom earlier." My brother said, leaning against the table a few feet away, "Were you ever going to tell me that there was some guy living here?" The way he said it, I knew Macy couldn't tell he was irritated. He was keeping his composure, his lips in a forceful smile. But I had spent eighteen years of my life with Jason, I knew him better then he knew himself.

"Oh, and that he was wearing my clothes and using my cologne. And not to mention, banging my little sister, possibly in my old bed." I looked down at the table below me, tracing my finger along it.

"It's a long story, Jase. You watched Tessie last night, I thought you-"

"I thought she was your friends daughter." He said, propping his head up on his hand as his eyes roamed my face.

"Ty is my friend." My brother rolled his eyes.

"I've been around twenty-six years, Ally. I was also, and still am, a man with needs. Don't sit here and try to convince me that you haven't been sleeping together. I get it if you're going with that whole friends with benefits thing, but be honest with me. Talk to me, Sis." He took my hand, smiling sadly at Macy a few feet away.

"I'm worried about you constantly, Macy is too. When you were going to NYU, you were closer to us. But now you're here, in this house all the time, near. . . near where it happened. I don't know if it's healthy. So tell me, Alyssa. Tell me things, talk to me. I want to know you're okay." I looked him in the eyes, the same hazel eyes that always seemed to be more green then brown. I took in the same small nose and lips that were too big for our face as I stared at him, as I saw my brother, my real big brother, for the first time in months.

"I'm not okay." I replied with a sigh, "But I'm managing. Life seems to be trying to get better for me, you know. I'm seeing. . . everything seems different now, like I'm seeing this whole world through new eyes." I explained, feeling a smile tug at my lips once I realized how philosophical it sounded.

It was when I saw Ty walk into the room with the list in his hands, his eyebrows drawn as he stared down at it in concentration, that I finally understood.

I had asked myself why Steph had wrote this list, what her agenda had been for me to learn at the end of it all. For a while, I thought I was overthinking it. I had thought that it was no more then a list of things she wished she had been able to do. But I was wrong.

The list was for me entirely. Steph had always been so persistent on me going on dates, on me getting my finals done the night before the test when I didn't want to. She wanted me to live, to be a normal teenager.

That list was her way of showing me the way she saw the world around her, the way she saw me. She had this planned out for while, she had to of. I just wish I could have had enough time to thank her.