Things that I really miss in this moment:

• Aaron calling my hamster a gerbil.

Michelle just told me something about Aaron that I never wanted to know.

And the bed has been folded up into a couch and I stand in the doorway with my eyes filling with tears I do not want..

I told myself that I wouldn’t cry this time. I even looked him in the eye, smiled, and said see ya, but as soon as he walked away I knew that mom and dad were both crying and I felt my eyes boring holes into the tiled airport floor and how could I not? I walked to the car with dry eyes, but I started crying in the car again because I got the window seat and he wasn’t there to take it. I stopped for a while, but then I turned to Mich to tell her to buckle her seat belt and she was crying, so that got me going again. My face was covered in dried tears when we got home and I still couldn’t talk.

My heart is heavy heavy heavy and it’s in my feet now, in my shoes. I’m thinking about tapping it out onto the sidewalk. Why is my heart so easy to wound? Why can’t I just not to be as sad as the rest of you? Everything I was happy about is now so easy to be sad about.

Aaron facebook stalks the absolute heck out of people and it cracks me up.

One last thing, I love the battles my dad and Aaron have been waging against each other. Sometimes, I wonder if my dad wishes he had a son like Aaron. I can tell that he thinks Aaron is leaving too soon, and I hear them talking when I wander out of my bedroom at night and they’re both still awake, watching some sports game. 

Aaron,

Sometimes, I start to forget who we are. I think back to that funeral, when I was standing in the well kept grass and it looked too green against so much black, our dresses and pants and shoes-much-too-big. I remember sobbing, glancing up, and there you were, staring at me as if I was insane. We were both so small. I remember your glasses and playing dodge ball in the basement after dinner. I remember fishing with you, and we would dare you to french kiss the ones you caught. I remember you burning your fingers trying to light our sparklers, and how those glittering rods hissed when they hit the water, the dying orange glow still alive beneath the surface for a while. I only forget who we are because we’ve grown and changed in ways I could never imagine. You are so tall and capable now, with girlfriends and a license and this passion for hockey. I have hardly any of my hair left, and I’ve sunken in to myself, a solitary girl with a poet’s hands. Michelle is a swimmer with beautiful blue eyes that stand out more than they did when she was younger and a sailor’s mouth. I’m not saying that who we are now is inadequate. In fact, I’m only saying that it melts my sadness away because sometimes, when you’re walking up ahead of me, I see it in your stride, the children we used to be in the way you move your legs. Does that make sense? You really do walk just like you always did. That much hasn’t changed. It makes all of these memories valid for me, and so does sitting on my floor trying to make rhymes, and your legs are dangling down by my shoulders from the bed and you try to help, dreaming up words that match with tomorrow. Thank you, Aaron. Thank you for existing. Thank you for being my cousin and laughing with me and being yourself. Thank you.

We had pancakes this morning and Aaron’s arms were sore from working out with my dad the other morning, so he was complaining that he was too weak to open the syrup.

Things I suck at:

• ice skating
• driving

Things Aaron is utterly perfect at:

• ice skating
• driving