Moments

I feel my life not so much in a continious story,

but simply in moments. Moments of thought, Moments of experience, Moments of memory.

 

It was my first concert. The girl that sat beside me was from the U. She wore a cream lace dress and red lipstick, her bangs were bluntly cut across at an angle that didn't quite match her cheeks, and she seemed a little shy.

We became friends quickly, though I never knew her name.
We screamed the words together like small children.

Last night, I didn't mind feeling so small.

The weight of his arms pulled me close to him, cradling my head into the curve of his neck, wrapping me into the hug I had almost forgotten. I held my arms limp at my side, desperately attempting to grasp onto some sort of safe reality; to every wall I had built up towards this, towards him, in the past seven months. He reached down and pulled my chin up to him. I think he said, "I love you." I think he told me "I always have." 


"Happy Birthday." I whispered to him. In his ear. In his home. In some reality that still doesn't feel quite real, that still does not feel quite safe. "I love you too." Because I do. Because I did. Because I have. Because I always will.

I felt her eyes, my eyes, behind me as I fidgeted in front of the miorr, mindelessly tucking a strand of hair behind my ear for the millionth time. I only aquired two things from my mother's gene pool. The hazel of her eyes, and her passion. "Again, Rachael?" She asked me quietly. I swallowed and heard myself let out a seemingly annoyed sigh as I picked up my keys off of the counter. I started for the stairs and called back to her; "It's my life. I am eighteen. And it is certainly none of your business who I date." My voice sounded so confident, and collected. I constantly find myself wishing I felt as strong as I always manage to sound.

"I wouldn't have it any other way." I penciled into the draft of a scholarship application. It was the first thing I had written all day that felt genioune. I was five years old when he was diagnosed with Autism. What I remember the most were his tantrums. Right in the middle of a grocery store, for no apparent reason, he would throw himself onto the ground and begin to scream, at the top of his lungs. My mother would kneel beside him and gently attempt to calm him. I remember the cold stares, the blatant looks of "Can you control your child?" I am not quite sure when it began but I took it upon myself to be his protector. I would place my little five year old feet firmly below me, fold my arms, and glare at these people as ferociously as I possibly could until they would look away. He is much taller than me now. And not much easier. But he is mine. He is my little brother. And I wouldn't have him any other way, I really wouldn't.

I got an 86 on my math test. It was a pure miracle. Bless those of us who are pathetically left brained impaired.