Chapter Two

He was young and responsible…the epitome of sunshine. If one said angels do not walk on earth, I would disagree. Because Tom was one of them. He was always positive, always considerate of the people around him.

One night, he didn’t come home. We were waiting for him at dinner. His phone was off. And then we received a call from the hospital, informing us that he was rushed to the emergency room.

Tom had been racing when we didn’t even know he could race.

It had been hazy, as if everything moved in fast forward. We rushed to the hospital and waited frantically as they operated on him.

I found myself praying so hard. I loved Tom. He couldn’t die! He was only seventeen. He had so many things going for him. He was an angel. There were a lot more people in the world he could help, a lot more lives he could touch.

Like Travis’s. Travis was a troubled kid when he met my brother. But then he was able to find a new family with us. Because Tom took him in.

When the doctor came out of the room, he told us that they did everything they could. He was alive, but we were told not to keep our hopes up. There were complications and we could not be guaranteed he would walk out of the hospital healthy again.

The first time that Tom opened his eyes, he asked for Travis.

Tom was driving Travis’s Porsche. It had been totaled. The car’s safety features were the only things that gave my brother a little chance of surviving.

From the window, I saw Tom make an effort to raise his hand. Travis hooked his pinky with his and pulled it away to bump it with my brother’s fist. That was their sign of brotherhood.

I’d never seen Travis cry before. But as I watched them from the window, I could tell that he was on the brink of breaking down. He was always so proud, always so cold and distant. He never really showed much emotion. But now I realized that Tom really was a brother to him. He really did care for us.

The next time Tom opened his eyes again, I was with him.

“I…love…you,” he said with each precious breath he took.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I love you, too,” I said in a broken voice.

“Promise me…you will always…be happy,” he said.

I nodded. “And you will be there with me, Tom. You will see me live each day happily!” I said. “You’re the best brother anybody could ever ask for.”

“You will never be alone…baby sister,” he struggled to say. “I promise you that. I love you…you won’t be alone.” He gave me one sad smile, and then closed his eyes.

Just then, I heard a sharp sound that froze me on my feet.

“Tom!” I shouted. The nurses and doctors rushed into the room. They pushed me away. I struggled to come closer to my brother. Just then, somebody wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me away as they tried to perform CPR on Tom.

And then finally, I heard somebody say, “Time of death…”

I didn’t hear the rest. “No!” I screamed. I didn’t know who was holding me. But I was thankful for him because I was breaking down. I almost fell to the floor. I felt arms wrap around me to support my weight.

“It’s going to be okay, Brianne,” I heard Travis’s familiar voice as he cuddled me against his chest. But I could hear the tears in his voice as he struggled to be strong.

“He can’t die, Travis!” I cried against his chest.

“He will always be with us,” he whispered against my ear and I wrapped my arms around Travis’s waist. Right then, it didn’t matter that I hated him or we never got along. Right then, I knew that if there was one person who understood exactly what I felt at this moment, it was him…because every pain I felt in my heart, he felt exactly the same. Tom was a brother to both of us.

I don’t know how I survived the following days, trying to keep a brave face in front of our relatives and our friends. I tried to be strong. But whenever I was alone in my room, I hugged one of Tom’s shirts and I cried my heart out.

My parents stopped talking to each other. It seemed that they were both blaming each other for what happened. Even Travis had been confined in his own world. I felt that he kept blaming himself for what happened to Tom because it was his car that Tom drove that night, and he had not been there to stop it.

I stared at Tom’s grave, after his funeral when everybody had gone, including my parents. I didn’t want to go yet. I was left all alone. I read the words written on his tombstone.

Thomas Antoine Montgomery

Forever Young

It began to rain, as if the heavens were crying with me. My parents seemed to have forgotten that they’d left their little girl behind. I stood there in the rain for at least an hour, and neither of my parents came to find me.

You will never be alone, baby sister, Tom promised me. But he was gone. And even my parents caved in to their own worlds to mourn on their own.

Whom did I have now?

Suddenly, I felt an arm around my shoulder. I looked up and found Travis staring down at me. His eyes shining with tears, too.

He hugged me to him, and this surprised me again. Travis and I hated each other’s guts. But the embrace he gave me was warm and sincere. More than that, it was needing, too. It was as if we suddenly felt so alone and now all we had was each other to hold on to.

“Ssshhh…” he hushed me. “Everything’s going to be okay. I promise I will take care of you for as long as I live,” he said. Then he turned toward Tom’s grave. “I will protect her with my life, bro. You don’t have to worry. She will never be alone for as long as I am alive.”

And suddenly, I realized this was what Tom had asked Travis for in the hospital. He asked Travis to take care of me…because he would no longer be able to.

And even though I hated Travis in the past, I knew he meant what he promised Tom. And I knew Tom would not leave me in Travis’s care if he didn’t trust him with his life.

I buried my face in Travis’s shoulder. I felt him kiss the top of my head and then he leaned his cheek against it. Once in a while, he would take deep, and I knew he was crying, too. But as he held me in his arms, I knew he was trying to be strong for both of us.

***

“I was… I was…” I watched Peter Zonokkis stammer in front of me.

Because he was taking so much time saying what he wanted to say, it gave me more time to study him, up close. He was wearing khaki pants, his shirt buttoned all the way up to his neck, and he was wearing glasses.

Peter was one of the smartest kids in school. He was regarded as a geek most of the time. And it killed me to hear him stammer in front of me, knowing full well what he was going to ask me, and knowing full well, too, what my answer would be.

“So? Will you?” he asked.

I blinked back at him. Did he already ask me something?

“Sorry, Pete.” I’m not really going to ask him to repeat himself, am I? “I’m not allowed to date…yet,” I said. I hope I was right in thinking he was asking me out.

His mouth formed an O. “But…aren’t you sixteen already?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. I’m three days shy.”

“Some… some girls start dating earlier than fifteen.”

I shrugged. “Not my parents,” I lied. Actually I didn’t think my parents cared anymore if I got pregnant!

“All right. Maybe I’ll ask you next week?”

I shook my head. “Well…I’m not sure. I’m not in a hurry. Maybe much later.”

He smiled at me. “All right. Well, see you around.”

I nodded and turned around toward the exit.

“I hope you’re not just letting him down easy,” a male’s voice said behind me.

I turned around to find Allan Gilmore walking behind me.

I raised a brow at him. Allan was two years my senior. He was captain of the debate team. Very smart, and very cute.

“No. That’s the truth, actually.”

“How can a gorgeous girl like you not be allowed to date at this age?”

I shrugged. “I’ll ask my parents when I see them,” I answered sarcastically.

He smiled. “So, if I asked you out, I’d probably get the same answer?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Because I’m not your type?” he asked wistfully.

I shook my head. “Not that. Because I wasn’t lying to Peter.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll check up on you in a couple of months.”

I nodded. “Maybe.”

He walked past me and gave me a wink. “See you in a few months!” he yelled as he walked away.

I walked home and thought about Allan and Peter. Not that it wasn’t true, but it wasn’t a lie, either. I hadn’t discussed dating with my parents. With all of us still mourning Tom’s death, boys were the last thing I needed to worry about.

I remembered talking to Tom a couple of years back. I asked him about his first date, the rules and proper dating decorum if there was one.

He laughed and told me I was too young to be asking those questions.

“I promise, when you are allowed to date, I will be your first date!” he said to me. “I will take you out on a real date. I will tell you the do’s and don’ts. Let you know what to expect. And hopefully, set the bar really high for your future dates…it’s good to have high expectations, so your first boyfriend will be a cut above the rest,” he said with the boyish grin on his face.

“Promise?”

He raised his right hand. “I promise.”

And then Tom was gone even before my parents could give me a go ahead on dating. How could I go on my first date now without remembering that my brother should have been with me? He should have been alive.

I didn’t know it, but tears were welling up in my eyes already. I missed Tom so much. It had only been a few months since I’d lost him. And it still felt exactly the same as that first day.

When I reached home, I saw a sleek new Porsche parked in front of my driveway. I thought one of my parents had a visitor.

As I approached the driveway, the door of the car opened. I watched a familiar figure step out of it.

My breath caught in my throat. Straight black hair, streaked with some dark blond strands and sleek, sporty sunglasses hiding his devilishly cold eyes.

I stopped in front of him.

“Cherie,” he greeted me.

“Wow! Someone is still in Paris mode,” I teased him.

I don’t know how Travis had been making his classes. He’d been in and out of the country for the past couple of months after Tom died. One month he was home, and then after a few weeks, he went back to his home in Paris, with his mother.

“How are you?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Okay. Alone most of the time.”

He pushed his sunglasses up his head to reveal his startling crystal blue eyes.

“Alone?” he echoed and something in his expression told me that he didn’t like the sound of that. “What about your parents?”

I shrugged. “You would think that since they lost one child, they would care more for the other, right?” I shook my head sadly. “I think I lost them the day I lost Tom.”

Tears suddenly slipped from my eyes. I tried to fan my hands in front of my face and disguise my sadness with a giggle. But when I looked up at Travis, I could tell that I hadn’t fooled him.

He reached for my shoulder and pulled me to him. I rested my head against his shoulder, took a deep breath, and then for the first time in many months, I let all the tears fall.

Travis caressed the back of my head gently. “Ssshhh… I’m here now, cherie. And I’m going to keep my promise to your brother. I will never leave you alone again.”

***

I sat on my seat and attacked my banana split as if I hadn’t eaten ice cream in months. Well, I hadn’t, actually.

“How’s school?” Travis asked me. He was sitting opposite me, having a soda.

“Same old,” I replied. “Except that today, I had two boys coming up to me, asking me out.”

“And?” he asked with a raised brow.

I shook my head. “I told them I wasn’t allowed to date yet.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I don’t think my parents care anymore, to be honest,” I replied sadly. “But that’s not really the reason why I don’t date yet.”

“Then what is?” he asked.

I shrugged. Because Tom promised me…

Travis took another sip of his soda. He didn’t ask me again. Instead, he waited for me to be ready to tell him.

I sighed. “Tom promised me…” I started. “He promised he would be my first date.”

“Okay, that sounds weird…even for me,” Travis said.

“Don’t be absurd!” I said. “He promised to take me out on a real date, to tell me what to expect, to teach me what I should know about…the do’s and the don’ts. And he was hoping to set the bar really high so I could set high standards for myself.” I sighed. “I guess that’s not going to happen now. And somehow, it held me back. Every time a guy asks me out, I think about how that first date should have been my educational date, you know. Now, I guess I’m up for…trial by fire. And I’m not very thrilled to do that just yet.”

“Aren’t you turning sixteen in three days?”

“Hey, you remembered!” I said. “I hope that was not the reason you cut your Paris trip short.”

He took a deep breath. “It was, actually,” he said in a low voice.

My head shot up at him. “Really? Because the Travis I know didn’t really care about me.”

He raised a brow at me and sighed. “I’m bound to care about you now, remember?”

I rolled my eyes. “A little sincerity would be nice.”

“How do you know I wasn’t sincere?”

“Because…you barely show…any sincerity.”

“I barely show any emotion, period,” he corrected me.

I sighed. There was no winning that argument. Travis Cross was cold and ruthless now. There was a time in the past that he was so playful and mischievous. But now that Tom wasn’t around anymore, he had gotten worse. As if my brother’s death taught him not to care too much, get attached too much. Because when these people went, he would get hurt over and over.

Now, he didn’t care about the people around him. He was trained not to show how he really felt. Trained to cave in and shield himself from getting hurt. The only person he didn’t shield himself from…was buried six feet under. It must have been quite ironic for him that the first person he opened up to was taken away from him. So, I guess I shouldn’t really have complained about his lack of feelings toward me.

I heard him release a breath. “But it doesn’t always mean I don’t…feel anything at all,” he said.

I stared into his eyes. They were cold, but somehow, I could see his soul there…hiding in the shadows.

“You should know this about me, Brianne,” he said. “Because our lives are going to be intertwined for the years to come.”

I sighed and nodded. “But you must know…” I said. “I tease and laugh a lot! Or at least, I used to.”

“I know. If some girls are candies and bubble gums, you’re a Tootsie Roll,” he said, and somehow, I couldn’t tell if he found that endearing or irritating.

I smiled and then I reached across the table for his hand. “We’re going to be okay, Travis,” I said. It wasn’t just an assurance for him. It was more of a question for him to reassure me. Funny, because a few months before, I really loathed this guy. Now, I felt like he was the only thing I had left…the only thing I had to remind me of the happy family that I used to have.

He turned his hand over and gave mine a gentle squeeze. “Yes, cherie. I’ll make sure we’re going to .”

***

I couldn’t have mistaken it. The locker with a rose tucked in the handle was mine. There was a note with it.

I nervously opened it. I didn’t know what to expect. I was hoping it didn’t come from Peter or Allan since I really wouldn’t know what excuse to use this time around.

Sweet Sixteen...

Tom was right. You need your educational date.

And since I’m filling in for him, the honor of becoming your first date has officially been transferred to me.

Real world. Real date.

Pick you up at seven tonight.

I smiled to myself.

Travis!

“Happy birthday!” Cindy said behind me.

I quickly tucked the rose inside my locker.

I should probably have told Cindy everything. Except that in a way, I was also like Travis. I didn’t always tell people about every single detail in my life. And right then, it was embarrassing to admit, even to her, that I needed an educational date from my brother’s best friend before I really became confident about going out with boys.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Anything planned?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe just a simple family get-together.” That wasn’t a lie. For years, Travis had been a part of my family, too. And right then, he was the only person who probably understood the pain I still felt on a daily basis after losing my brother.

“That’s nice. I think you need that after…” Her words trailed off. “Well, I think it’s nice to strengthen family ties. Especially on your birthday.”

I nodded, and somehow, I wished my parents felt the same way. But I knew that Tom’s death had crumbled their already failing marriage. For years, we had refused to see the elephant in the room. My parents were busier with work than with each other. Apart from the weekly family dinners, they didn’t see much of each other at all. And with Tom gone, they chose to mourn apart. Unfortunately, they forced me to do it by myself, too.

I didn’t expect my parents to make an effort to spend time at home today. I was planning on making myself some mac and cheese and binge-watch romantic comedies tonight.

A smile crept over my face when I realize that thanks to Travis, I didn’t have to be celebrate my birthday alone.