Short Stories II

White Shadows

There was something about him that made me laugh at times. His quirky smile and those beautiful eyes streaked with pedals of green made up the times that he made me smile. His laugh was loud and boisterous, a sort of cackle that the most accepting of moms could love. There was no end to his beauty it seemed. His luscious pink lips and baby white skin glowed with an intense light in the winter's snow, captivating my wavering gaze every moment of the day.

Sitting on the afternoon school bus was always something to grieve once things turned sour at home and we ended up finally picking up and moving into my grandmother's cabin. Despite this turn of events, I still hold those afternoons with him dearly to my heart, always.

I remember him in the brightest of all lights, holding my attention for four years at this point. God, I remember that smile like it was just yesterday, sitting with my hands poised in my lap as he sat next to me on that little bus. It was like a shining, angelic light was always overhead when he was nearby. I don't know what I'd have done without my next addiction to cope with the pain of what couldn't be.

I remember sitting with my laptop on my grandmother's mattress as I shattered away at the seams. When I'd arrived home, I could only feel the absent cold of numbness. My heart was breaking underneath the destruction of my ribs and bones as I heaved in such a depression. It wasn't ordinary of me to slip into such a disparity as this one. I always had something that was driving me, moving me along down the suicide train station back into neutrality, but this was different. Oh, this was entirely different this time.

There was something about him that made me cry. There was something about him that made me weep under my thick skin, cracked and frayed from the very beginning. I was hanging onto a single thread at this point in my depression. The responsibility of my sibling's lives was the final straw to be broken, but his strand was the most vital to my heart.

There was something about him, his cheesy jokes or the way he spoke to me, that made me feel like I was really alive. His kindest words were what I clung to. His god damned smile washed away every damn thing all the way to the end of the sewer drain. He was a spirit that made way for me through the heavy rainfall, guiding me down the dry patches of the wet street until the end of the pathway. He was who held my arms above his head and carried my soiled body along the crackled concrete. He was the blinding white light that I straddled on.

Once he was taken from my clinging arms, all hope was lost in my eyes. I fed off of his energy like a leech, unable to except that what I wanted from him was just in-evidently. I didn't blame him though. As much as I did hate myself for never being beautiful or kind enough for him, it was never something that I didn't expect at that age. We were only in middle school, and to carry such a burden as my life on your shoulders is just impossible. Nobody should have to carry somebody's lifeless soul out of guilt or sadness, because they are not of who killed them inside. It was never him that broke me, rather he was the best thing that I'd ever had in my entire life. I will never not be grateful for his part in my life, because he is what showed me what love looks like. 

Love is not a game that you can win, or a sort of affection that immediately fixes everything. Love is the sort of profession that holds no condition and no presence of, "I'll love you if.." Love is the friendship of no condition, no labels or rules. Love is not the weight of one's life on their shoulders, or the eternal commitment of care. Love is the fluctuating focus of life, in which takes work and effort to continue. 

I believe that I have been in love before, but I likely will never really know what he felt. In the end, it never was love at all. It's impossible to love somebody who doesn't know how to. I grew up with a false depiction of what love was and found myself with an inability to even like myself. In order to love, one must love themselves first. In order to care and protect, one must be taken care of and nurtured first.

He was my first example of what love really was, and I will forever be thankful for the white shadows that he brought me.