Between Two Eternities || Travis Hamonic

(9) Everybody Loves a Dream

"That was one of the saddest things about people- their most important thoughts and feelings often went unspoken and barely understood."

-Alexandra Adornetto, Halo

I listened to what he said with his eyes. You can always tell what a person is saying if you look at their eyes.

His are brown. But they have light gold specks in them that hide something - care, pain, some kind of emotion. His eyes are glowing.

"I know I haven't known you guys for long, but you two deserve to be happy," he says.

"How do you know that, Travis?" I counter.

"Well, you're doing everything you can to make his life normal instead of doing things for yourself. That's one thing."

"There's more?"

He pockets his hands and let's a smile wisp across his lips. "And because you are extremely private about yourself. That means you really only care about your brother and don't pay much attention to yourself, right?"

I cross my arms and look away from him to my right. A homeless man sleeps slumped up against the side of a building, people walking by swiftly and totally oblivious to him. I turn away in distress. "Who's an open book anymore?"

He laughs, "I am," he says, "Swear, ask me anything."

I ponder it. "Another day. I have lots of questions, but not today."

His eyes narrow, but he nods. "So about Matt," he says, changing the subject to who we're supposed to be talking about. We get down underground and onto a subway going uptown. It's only lightly filled with others. The middle of the day is barely a time for rush hour.

"I don't worry about him too much," I say after we sit down in the middle of the car. "He doesn't show any signs of depression."

Travis cocks his head to the side, and makes eye contact with me. I can tell that he's grinding his back teeth together. "Signs of depression? You ... know signs of depression?"

I suck in a breath and shrug. "I learned about them in school." It's a poor whisper of an excuse. He doesn't look convinced, but easily moves on.

Not many people give us the time of day. The weird kids with the dead parents. He's the first person to look at me deeper.

He gives me more tickets. I don't accept them at first; he has done so much. But Travis is proving to be very persistent. "Arden, just take them okay? You guys can come to every game if you want," he says. I look around the subway car. Just to be looking at something.

"We can't accept -"

"Arden, I want you to be there. I mean, you and Matt," he quickly corrects himself and color rises to his cheeks.

When is the moment that you realize something is bigger than it was? Because this had grown into something bigger than being the sister of a kid he met once.

I just don't know exactly what it has grown into.

That silence is there again. The silence that should be awkward but it's not. It never is.

He glances at me. I can feel those beautiful eyes on the side of my face. I don't know if I should look at him. I will most definitely be blushing if I do.

But yet I do.

We talk about that coveted subject. Death. It always seems to be popping up ...
Like most people, I never thought about death until it directly affected my life. Death is supposed to be something that happens when a person is old and has lived their life fully, accomplished everything they wished to. It's not supposed to fall upon two parents in their late forties, completely submersed in their relatively young children's lives and their flourishing careers.