Affinity

Chapter 7: That Bond

            

Here was my brother in the wake of Travis' absence. The brother who'd taken the same path and had therefore been excommunicated from the Ever family, and they never looked back. I say they aggressively, I say it so as not to include myself and leave the assumption that I'd done the same open for interpretation. I looked back often. I thumbed my memories for his smile every time Jasmine broke a grin, I hung to strokes of laughter in my father's bellowing that echoed Hakim's, I'd done it all because I didn't understand it when it'd happened.

I was a teenager, on the cusp of my seventeenth birthday when a man appeared at our door. A door that I would never answer had I been inside, but I was coming home from school and a bathroom break was sorely needed. I approached the man at the door who looked me up and down and said my name clear as day before I'd parted my lips to speak.

"Abla." The pronunciation was correct, true to tune and delivery. I looked for a question in his tone and when none was found allowed myself to worry. I stared blankly at him, trying to see if the longer I stared at his facial features a memory would account for this stranger's clear knowledge of my identity.

            " No worries little one I was just looking for your brother. Tell him to come see me will ya?" Again there was no question in his tone as he smiled and took the step below me.

" And you are?" I worked hard to make that last line accusatory; diluting the fear with a bravado I'd made all on my own in the fifteen seconds that this strange exchange had taken.

" Oh I'm sorry where are my manners. My name is Jaelyn Ms. Ever." He came up the step he'd just went down and brought his face alarmingly close to mines to deliver his moniker. And that was it.

            The man had retreated down the stairs, looked back to throw me a wink, entered his car and sped off. At that moment I'd called Hakim, who didn't answer, which then led me to call Jazmine. Jazmine, who at the time was attending Penn State, and was already fed up with our brother's antics, and at my admission of the scary encounter she decided enough was enough and to let Hakim have it. She joined forces with our parents and told him he was no longer welcomed in the family home now that his dealings led to our doorstep. And that was that. I was still deemed the child in the house and I had no say, I was to leave my brother in my past as they had.

            Of course I hadn't. He was my brother, my life-long knight in shining armor, I couldn't. I called him often and found him after my school days ended. He kept his dealings to himself and I omitted the fact that our mother had a permanent sadness about her now that her baby boy was lost to the wind. But then that stopped, our meetings and conversations ceased altogether. There wasn't even a happy birthday text on my eighteenth birthday. I'd lost a brother and the hurt was real and lasting.

" I love you baby girl." Hakim broke me from my daze as he sung the words across the room to me and I cried on impact. No joke, the tears came because a brother I thought I'd lost was here! He was in the flesh and telling me the love I thought was lost was actually still gainfully intact.

" Really?" A whimper escaped behind the question, a question I realized once it'd left my mouth, that it was a ludicrous one at the least. Rah held me tighter as the whimper echoed through my body and sent a shudder through each limb.

" Yes really. And I'm sorry for leaving." Oh no the Holy Grail. An admission of repentance for leaving his baby sister when she loved him the most, I was gonna break down I could feel it. I couldn't catch the breakdown so I braced for it in Rah's shoulder burying my face in his armpit as I soaked his shirt. How many tears could I really have left?