Short stories by a Teen Shadow

The Photograph

"And who is that?" Riley asked me pointing at a picture from 7 years ago, of her at the airport crying and hugging another kid.

"Thats Talia. You don't remember?"

"Nah uh."

"She was your best friend. The first friend you made in-fact."

The ten year old gave me a puzzled look. I was only three then Mommy I didn't even know what Best friend meant then.
I laughed at her innocence.

"You didn't know the Word Riley. But you knew the Bond."
Riley continued staring at the picture.

***

7 Years Ago

"Mommy, will Talia come with us?"
The three year old Riley asked me
Between her hiccups.
"Pleesh." She said before she broke into another fit of tears.
"Hey. Its Okay. We'll talk to her everyday."
I said in an attempt to calm her down.
"When'll I meet her again?" She asked.
"Soon." I said.

It hurt me to the core, to lie to her like that. The truth was that we were leaving and never coming back.

Talia and Riley had been together since they were born. With only two months of difference in their ages both the three year olds had grown up together.

Talia's family moved into the neighborhood an year after we did. Talia's mum Wasam and I had been friends ever since. Them being Egyptians made it difficult for conversations to take place in the beginning for Wasam only spoke Arabic. But that was a long time ago. We had become a big family. Blood relations were nothing when it comes to relations at heart.

I had watched Talia and Riley grow together, talk in a code language even when they couldn't speak. Support eachother and learn to walk. Teach eachother new things. Just three year olds they were. Yet, yet they had it. The love that would last a life time.

"Mama I want Moya!" I remember Riley yelling once as she ran into the house.

"Moya?"

"Yesh!"

Wasam walked in behind her laughing.
"Moya is water. " she informed me.

It made me happy on the inside to see my daughter grow like that. Learn, develop and have a friend, no, not friend but a sister, Talia was like her sister.

The idea of us shifting, Her leaving Talia behind didn't hurt. But the fact that Riley was just a three year old and would forget all of this, her house, Talia and the friendship they shared. That saddened me.
I know its life, and you have leave things behind and move on. But it was a fact that I myself didn't remember most of my childhood. Everything being a blur of distant memories that are now secure only in the photographs that are left behind to tell the tale.
How many people have I left behind? I don't know. And Riley wont either.

***

"Where is she Now?" She asked.

"Egypt." I replied.

She started at the picture for beat longer and then flipped the page of the album she was looking at.