The Last Goodbye

She seemed to have a better grip on reality than he did. He smiled nonchalantly and pushed away my guilty embrace. "I'll miss you buddy." He didn't know it at the time, but that would be our last embrace for two months. He'd go home and find the walls stripped bare, any semblance of who I used to be, packed up and taped away. Those familiar objects he associated with my presence would be gone. On a truck in the middle of nowhere with no destination. But at that moment, standing at those gates, he had no idea. This was our last goodbye and he had chosen not to say it.

I had always thought of him as the emotional one, but it was us three girls at that time who could all but hold back the tears. I watched him walk away, so unknowingly, and it killed me. This was just another day at school for him. This wasn't the last goodbye at all. I wanted him to know. I wanted him to hug me tighter than usual, I wanted to be the hero dying in his story. But I wasn't. He had no idea I wasn't returning. He didn't know how to say goodbye, and maybe that was for the best. He had never wanted to say it before and it wasn't fair to make him do it now. So I said goodbye for him, for me.

The three of us walked solemnly to our next destination. One more goodbye to tick off my list. This whole situation was reversed. She was meant to be the strong one. The one who smiled and waved back at me. And he was meant to be the one in tears, clutching my wrist, sobbing "Please don't go." But he wasn't, and she wasn't. It broke my heart. If I'd ever broken a heart in my lifetime, it had to be hers right then. I had no idea she held me so high. I guess I just had no idea. I was leaving them after all. Even though I knew they didn't have anyone else. Her little face, once so bratty and kid-like, now so mature and experienced. She had said a thousand goodbyes, but none like this.

We hadn't expected it, us three. This was meant to be easy. See you in a few months, no big deal, I'd be back. Only, in her mind, I wouldn't be. And I knew this. I knew that those tiny hands gripping me so tight, those unsure eyes overflowing with emotion, I knew that they were saying goodbye. Our last goodbye. She made it so hard, saying goodbye. Though it was the leaving part that hurt the most. I couldn't bare to look back at her, so small, so vulnerable, her tears so justified, yet her situation so unfair. I was leaving her. I was the hero in her story and I had died. She knew when she got home that I'd be gone. That I wouldn't be back. And it killed me. I half-wished she'd be as unknowing as him. That she too would entertain the thought of me always being around. But she knew better than that and I cursed her for growing up so quickly. I didn't want to give her another reason to feel so old, so hard done by. I wanted her to be a child, to run under sprinklers and never fear getting caught. But life had caught her already, and just as it caught her it left me to slip away out of sight. I never thought it would be this hard, not like this.

Their lives were so different that day, and they had no idea they were returning home to the same reality. His day would be no less mundane than the others, packed with the same home-made lunch as it always was. But hers was different. Her day would seem foreign and surreal. Her lunch would be exotic and inedible. Her mind, her heart, so full of questions she was too young to ask. Why are you leaving us. That's the only one that ever stuck in my mind. I don't know how I could allow myself to feel so guilty, so responsible, but I did.

Sometimes they must think I try too hard. To be their guardian, their best friend, their mentor. When really, I was just their sister. And although this was what life had taught me to be, I knew in my heart that to these kids, I needed to be, I wanted to be, I was, so much more.

Maybe I had held myself too high in their eyes. Maybe I wasn't their hero at all, but I so desperately wanted to be. I wanted to be the hero I never had as a child. I wanted them to look up to me, to know I'd always be there. But I wasn't, and I was never going to be, The fullness of this responsibility I placed upon myself still plagues me daily. Maybe I'm the only one awake at night. Thinking of our last goodbye. Thinking about the last embrace and the last tear in our eye.