Selfless

Lily was sitting on the carpet in the living room, the light of the golden sun gleamed through the broken blinds and illuminated the VHS tapes that sat anxiously on the towering book shelves. She traced her finger along their binds enjoying the smooth texture and the little waves that each new tape created under her finger tip, 'Which one should we watch today?' she thought to herself. As she extended her arm to reach for one of her favorites, she heard a loud crash from the kitchen. Suddenly followed by a loud roar of voices and she knew that something bad was about to happen. The roaring grew louder and the crashing more frequent and she began to panic. Lily raced through the house to the furthest corner, smothered her hands over her ears and she began to hum. She squeezed her eyes shut and she rocked herself until the sound was only a whisper in the distance.

She rocked for what seemed like hours when suddenly something jolted her aware again, there was a hand on her shoulder and she looked up to see Alex, her older brother.

"Are you okay?" he asked with a sideways composure.

She nodded and wrapped her arms around him.

"Let's go." he whispered.

"Where are we going?" Lily chirped back.

He smiled widely at her as he opened the bedroom window. Alex lifted her into the air and set her gently in the alley way outside, he followed after her and shut the window behind him. He scooped her up in his arms and began to run and laugh loudly. Lily began to giggle as she bounced all around in his arms. In these moments she forgot about her fear, all she knew was that she was engulfed in joy as they raced down the block to his car. They both jumped in and he began to play Britney Spears on the stereo. They talked and joked and laughed about nonsense until he stopped in front of a tiny little shop and he got out of the car. He ran around and opened the door for Lily and held her hand as they walked inside.

"Have you ever had sushi before?" Alex inquired.

Lily shook her head and they went to sit at a small table, Alex ordered lots of food for them both to try and though Lily didn't like all of it, she was smiling. She looked up at Alex and he smirked at her,

"What?" asked Lily.

"Do you know why I take you to nice places like this?" his smile began to quiver.

Lily shook her head and picked up a piece of sushi with her fingers, getting tired of her chopsticks.

"Because when you're old enough to go out with a boy, I want you to know that this is what you deserve." He smiled slightly and took a sip of his water.

Lily heard what he said and a part of her knew to remember those words, so she filed them away in her mind for a day when they were to make more sense. And when she finished engraving it into her memory, she crinkled her nose and said, "Boys are icky, I don't want to eat with one!"

Alex laughed a little too hard and they continued with their day.

As the hours passed, the trials within the walls of their home got further and further away, until they all but disappeared from memory.

Lily and Alex spent all of their time together in the early years of her life. He taught her how to be creative, how to cook, how to love herself, and how to keep her head up high when it seemed there was nothing to look up to. On rainy days she would sit upon the handle bars of his bicycle and they'd splash around in the puddles until the sun disintegrated behind the hills. Some days when the house was empty Alex would take Lily to the garage and they would find bits of would and old sheets, he showed her how to nail them together to create her very own canvases. Then they would start to throw paint and glitter and foam all over the boards to create what they both thought to be the world's greatest masterpieces. Every Halloween Alex would work and sew for hours to create any costume that Lily wanted to be. She would go to school with all of the confidence in the world, because she knew that nobody else in the school would have something made with so much love.

One day Alex walked in on Lily playing with her Barbie dolls, or more like shoving them into a small house-looking toy.

"What are you doing, Lily?" Alex laughed and furrowed his brow.

"I'm playing, what does it look like?" she demanded.

"Well, it looks like you're shoving your dolls into a small space." He huffed and knelt down beside her.

"Well...", she hesitated. "They don't fit standing up, so I have to fold them over so they can live in their house."

Alex laughed and patted her head for a moment and then kissed the top of it.

The following week Lily was in the car with her mom, and as they pulled up to the backdoor, Lily's mom pointed outside to the back porch. Lily craned her neck and her heart soared all the way out of her chest. She bolted out the door and ran up the steps to meet a towering doll house. The rooms were tall enough for all her dolls to stand upright and she squealed in delight. She turned to face her mom and her mom smiled at her.

"Thank you, mom," Lily gasped and ran to hug her.

Lily's mom gave her a squeeze, "Don't thank me, your brother must have got this for you."

Lily looked around, but there was no sign of Alex. She desperately wanted to thank him, but knew it would have to wait.

As the days passed, she wondered where he could be and wondered if he was thinking of her. She wondered if he missed her as much as she missed him. The days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into years. Lily had later learned that Alex had been depressed for a very long time and he started abusing drugs. Lily would often think about the days they spent together and she wished there was something she could do to help him. Their family disowned him completely and Lily was simply left with an Alex sized hole in her heart.

Many years had passed and Lily was now a junior in high school, she was surviving on her own within the menacing walls of her broken home. She came home from a long school day and sat on her lumpy mattress. A new voicemail pinged on her phone and her heart began to race as she pressed play. Alex had overdosed on drugs and was in critical condition in a hospital about two hours away from where she was. Her heart thundered in her chest as she ran frantically into the living room to tell her mom.

“We have to go see him!” Lily screamed.

Her mother scoffed at her and said she had no intention of seeing his worthless life leave his body.

Lily began to cry, “He’s your son!” she wailed, “How can you be so cruel?”

Her mother shook her head and Lily sighed sharply and stormed to her room. She dialed the number for her friend Melody.

“Hello?” Melody answered.

“Are you busy?” Lily asked gently.

“What’s up?” Melody persisted.

“It’s my brother…he’s in the hospital. My mom won’t go with me and I don’t want to go alone. I know it’s a school night…I just don’t know what to do.” Lily began to softly cry.

“One second, let me ask my mom” Melody left for a moment. “She said it’s fine, just give me a couple minutes to get ready.”

“Thank you, thank you! I’ll come get you in a few minutes,” Lily laughed through her tears and hung up the phone.

She grabbed a coat and her keys and headed out the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Her mother hissed.

“To see my brother.” Lily gave her mother a hollow glance and then pushed through the door.

Lily and Melody waited in the lobby at the hospital for hours and then finally were able to see Alex. Lily went in alone. She walked slowly to the back of the hallway…and there he was. She reached for his hand and held it in hers, slowly massaging the back of his hand with her thumb.

“Alex?” she choked, “Alex it’s me…it’s Lily.”

Tears began pouring down her cheeks as she watched him take shallow breaths and listen to the steady beeps of the heart monitor.

“Lily?” he mumbled.

His eyes fluttered open and his gaze met hers. She smiled weakly and nodded. He panned his eyes to the ceiling and closed them tightly,

“I’m sorry…” he sobbed. “I shouldn’t have left…I never should’ve left you alone Lily, I’m so sorry.”

She reached around his body and hugged him tightly,

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she soothed his cries, “Do you even know what you’ve done for me?”

Alex stared at her with his signature furrowed brow and teary eyes.

“You gave me a childhood, Alex…you showed me the world in our tiny neighborhood. You’re my hero, big brother. And the love you have given me is the greatest gift I will ever know. You gave me sunshine amidst the dark swamp of our house. You gave me a glitter-filled machete to fight off my demons. I love you. And I wish I could have saved you from your sadness, but I’m here now, and we’ll get through this together.” Lily nodded at her words as they settled into the moment around them.

Alex pulled her down to kiss her forehead, and as he released her, he strained,

“Lily, you’re the only family I’ve ever known…and knowing that I helped give you a guide to make a wonderful life for yourself, I feel complete. I’ll love you forever little sister…” and as the words fell from his lips his eyes began to close and his heart began to stop…Lily flailed frantically as two men pried her away from Alex. And as the words he had spoken still lingered in the air, she began to accept that the life she once knew was long gone.

As she stood at the top of the steps of the hospital in silence with Melody, she held in her heart the gifts Alex had left with her. The gift of love, of family, of adventure, of childhood, of acceptance, and the gift of growth to pursue a life beyond the walls of their old, melancholy house. She took a deep breath and let it out into the cool night air and she held out her hand to hold Melody’s,

“Let’s go live.” Lily sniffled.

Melody smiled and accepted her hand and they walked down the steps into the rest of their lives.