seasons

7: embasan

Song: Small Bump by Ed Sheeran 

Cameron and I used to have a little sister; she was our soul and our laughter.

Cameron was born a minute before me and Astrea a minute after. She was the only one of us that didn't cry. She came out silent and as vibrant as the stars in the night sky. Her first noise was a laugh of pure joy. Because Cameron and I were identical, Astrea looked different from us. She had eyes the color of lilacs and hair white as winter's snow that traveled the length of her spine and past her hips. Astrea was the most angelic human being I'd ever laid my eyes upon.

As we grew like flowers nestled lovingly by the earth, we made memories and laughed among the docks by the lake.

Cam and I did everything for Astrea; she loved long hair, so we let our hair curl to the curves of our youthful shoulders. I think if Cameron and I had the choice, we would've married Rea. The concept of incest didn't make sense to us at the time. We made her promise never to leave us and she happily obliged; we were the only people she would ever need to be happy. Everything was happiness, bright like the fireflies we caught in the meadows and warm like freshly baked bread.

Because Cameron and I couldn't pronounce her name, we called her Rea. Rea was not only the glue to our trio, but she was also the music we danced to in meadows by the trees of red leaves and curling ivy.

 When Rea sang, the world spun a little more gently; the wind stopped to listen and our hearts filled with the warmth of a gentle kiss. I remember Cam and I always begging her to sing and painting our faces in mud and dancing around her. She was our princess, and we were her faithful warriors. 

When we were four, Rea told us she wanted to dance in the rain, even if it made her sick. When we asked her why she said it was the first thing she could remember doing with us. She'd always loved the rain and the damp earth after the rain even more so.

When we were five, Rea wove all three of us bracelets. Cam's was the color of the ocean, a gentle blue that made the sea in his eyes gleam when he laughed. Mine was a delicate purple, a color as soft as lilac petals. Rea's bracelet was white as the fluffy clouds in the summer sky.  We wore the nimbly tied bracelets, though they were too big for our youthful limbs. Cameron and I grew into ours. Rea never got the chance.

When we were six, Cameron and I learned how to swim in the lake by our house. Because of her weak constitution, Rea had to watch. She was okay with it though; she always told us our smiles made her smile.

Even so, I felt bad. Then, I had a fantastic idea. 

I got Cam, and we filled our parent's bathtub, a gaudy mass of ceramic and gold that fit five adults, with warm water to surprise Rea. Rea learned how to swim in a bath with her clothes sticking kindly to her pale skin and with her two brothers in matching striped swim trunks holding her up. It was the most magical day of my life. Rea was filled with vigor and enthusiasm, naive and full of life.

The next day, everything changed.

We couldn't find Rea in the morning. She usually slept between Cam and me, but we woke up to find her missing. It must've been some sort of triplet telepathy, I don't know, but Cam and I knew something was horribly, horribly wrong. 

Cam and I told our parents and we all went looking. Cam and Dad went to the meadow, calling out to Rea. I went with mom, who had already begun to cry. Mom said she would check by the river, where Rea used to go to pick wildflowers to braid in our hair, even though we were boys. 

I ran down to the docks, calling out to ears that would never hear me.

She must've been so excited to have learned how to swim.

We must not have been good enough teachers.

I found Rea in her favorite blush colored nightgown face down in the lake.

Her pale hair was sprawled through the water gently like the first snow upon the warm earth.

I did the best a six-year-old could to drag his sister out of the lake.

She was cold.

I tried everything I could think of to revive her; nothing worked.

I was numb; numb from the cold, numb from the pain, and numb from reality.

She was gone.

She broke her promise.

She left.

Now, when I feel lonely, I fill our parent's old tub with water, and lay down, letting the water seep into the fabric around my body.

I told Sicily about Rea.

She cried for me and kissed me gently on the lips; then she joined me in the gaudy tub in her oversized sweater. 

I thought I would never be able to fill my heart again.

I don't have to.

Sicily has filled it more than I ever could.