My Brother's Best Friend

Prologue

{Sadie O'Brien's POV}

Since I was a little girl, I always admired my brother's best friend. Everyone else was stuck up on cooties at the moment, but I was somewhere else. I began to realize that, not only did I admire him, but I adored him and the way he went about making me feel.

There was this one time when I was left at his house because my older brother Brandon had a play to go to, and I didn't want to go. I'd cried because they wouldn't let me stay home alone by myself.

It turned out that they dropped me off at my mother's friend's house. Well, my mom's friend had a son, and that was my brother's best friend. I remember he hid behind his mother's legs at the age of five when they answered the door. Brandon wanted to stay and play, but it was only me that was going to stay.

I'd been hooked on that cooties thing like all the other girls at that time, but when I met him, everything changed. My parents left me, and his mom said to go ahead and play in the backyard. He was shy, so he kept his distance from me, and I him.

I wasn't disinterested in him. In fact, I was the opposite. I was curious how the other gender worked. But I was too shy and scared myself to do something about my curiosity. He hid behind this tree while I played in the sandbox. It wasn't too cold out.

He kept staring at me, and it gave me a feeling I didn't know at the time. Anxiety and irritation I think, but I couldn't remember exactly. Though I did remember that he had an extreme amount of bandages all about his body.

After a while, when the sun was going down, he said to me; "I like your hair."

I didn't know how to respond. My blonde hair was pulled into a small braid at my back. I was so young, I didn't have much hair to deal with. Yet my mom made it work; twisting the three hairs into a pattern I couldn't match until I was ten years old. Her hands were thin and delicate.

"Thank you." I replied politely. Even if you didn't like the person, you must always be kind to them, even if they aren't kind to you. My mother's words always came to me in times like this. Though I couldn't exactly form my words properly in my child speak.

He smiled, and I noticed one of his front teeth was missing. He came out from behind the tree, edging closer to see what I had built in the sand. My curiosity had been calmed at the moment, so I saw no reason as to treat him like he was a vile monster; a creature from the other side with cooties.

"Sand castle?" He questioned. Or maybe it was a statement. I didn't remmber quite well, but it was a sad representation of a sand castle. I made it with one simple, dark purple, plastic cup. It was just three molded, high terrain, boulders of sand surrounded by a small moat with no water. I put a stray leaf on top of one of the tiny towers.

"Yes." My bright pink leggings had sand stuck to them as I stood up. I wiped at them with my tiny hands, then put my hands on my hips and surveyed my brilliance in architecture. Content, I looked at the boy who was already taller than me. By an inch, I supposed; but I couldn't measure at the time. He was older than me. By a year. He and Brandon were the same age, while I was a lumpy four year old without any grade school experience. I told myself that I was pretty smart for a girl my age.

He looked at me, as if finally seeing me for the first time. I guess he had realized that I wasn't cootie-ridden either. He grinned from ear to ear, showing off his missing and growing teeth.