The Price of Beauty

prologue | glowsticks

"A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be curious, and to fight tirelessly for something." ― Paulo Coelho

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MY BROTHER AND I HAVE always been really close. Aiden is only 10 months older, him being a late baby and I being an early one, according to mom. We were unlike other siblings - we fought, but my brother always watched out for me like a best friend would. 

I remember a particular night that stuck out to me. We were 9 years old, and we had this weird family tradition where every other July 4th, we'd go to a country or place where no one celebrated July 4th to escape the loud celebration. Dumb, I know, but it was fun. 

"Psst. Claire!" my brother had whispered to me whilst we walked to the countryside for a picnic that year. Of course, we could totally still hear the fireworks - it was almost inevitable - but it was still wonderful to sit down on a red-checkered cloth, hearing the distant buzz of people and excitement, and looking up, not catching a glimpse of fireworks.

I nodded at my brother, who was holding two heavy bags full of food. "Eek," I had thought. My parents were always harder on him because he was the older one, although barely. Maybe because of that, I've always had the urge to protect him. 

"Come here," he whispered again, "I wanna show you something."

I was holding a bag full of the sandwiches mom had packed for us, so it wasn't really heavy. I walked towards the left side of the pedestrian road (which wasn't really a road, it was more like a lot of grass that seems to have died because of the constant walking on by human beings), where Aiden was walking grudgingly with the heavy bags.

"Hey, let's switch bags," I said, offering a hand, which he took willingly. "What's up?" I continued.

"Remember just now when Mom was packing, Dad and I went down to the shops right?" he said to me.

"Yeah, what about it?" 

"We got glowsticks!" he smiled at me knowingly.

We were just kids - glowsticks were so amazing to us. They were magical things we could bend and then put around our wrists.

He watched my face as mine lit up enthusiastically. "Did you guys get connection bars too for bracelets?" 

"Eh? Who wants bracelets, those are for girls," he teased, "of course."

I remembered being really unsure of whether he did buy them for me. I loved having hoops around my wrists, they looked like bangles. And back then, bangles were the cool it thing - only kids in middle school had proper ones. 

That night, after eating a scrumptious picnic and spilling orange juice like the norm, Aiden took out the glowsticks - a huge package of 100 glowsticks, which we got so hyped over. He took a handful out and handed some to me, bending them as they went, click, click, click, CLICK, as neon colors filled the glowsticks. 

"Did you get the connection thingies?" I asked.

"Uh yeah, it's here." He thrust a bag of the said connection things and I happily opened them, trying to create my own bracelet that glowed in the dark. I couldn't seem to tie it around my wrist though, as it took two hands.

"Here, let me help you," Aiden had said, but I turned away, still foolishly annoyed at his dismissal towards my interest in making a bracelet.

"Come on, sis, stop acting like that," he said, having an edge to his voice.

I rolled my eyes. On the one hand, I really did need help with the bracelet. On the other, he was acting like he was all that.

"Fiiiiinneeeee." I rolled my eyes.

"You know that when you roll your eyes, your eyes completely turn white, right? Like, your pupil thingymajiggies completely disappear and you look so creepy, like a ghost." he said, whilst tying them around my wrist one after another.

"You're just jealous you can't," I stuck my tongue out.

Maybe I shouldn't have done that, because even at the age of 9, we had some form of intelligence, we weren't completely whackatats.

He looked and me with the same blue eyes I had, and they looked so sincere and loving. He was my brother, Aiden Johnson.

I smiled. We knew under all that sibling rivalry, he had my back and he loved me more than anything in the world - we just had a wonderful siblinghood. 

"There," he said, and I was distracted for a moment, forgetting he was tying them on.

I looked down and saw chains of glowing colors on my wrist and smiled wide. "Thank you."

"Okay, now give me one. ONE." He said.

I looked at him, open-mouthed. He had just dissed glow-bracelets two minutes ago or something, so I expected an explanation.

"You seem so excited and happy for having a glowstick bracelet. So I want to experience that too, I wanna understand that." 

"Oh," I said, then I proceeded in finding a blue glowstick, as blue was his favourite color, and tied it around his wrist.

And that was what glowsticks meant. Glowsticks represented love and understanding, of one trying to understand another. At least that's what they meant to us.