New Beginning

High on a hill overlooking a small quiet town sat a little boy, his head resting against his knees, his shoulders shaking from his sobbing. I immediately felt sorry for him. I walked over and sat down next to him. He didn’t move an inch. I had no idea what his face looked like; all I could see was his dark brown hair. It shook slightly as his sobs began to subside. I put my hand on his shoulder and his head jerked up. Apparently he hadn’t known I was there. He looked away and wiped the tears from his face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked in my seven-year-old childlike voice. He glanced back at me, but didn’t say a word. “Ok,” I said, “you don’t have to tell me.” Once again silence greeted my comment.

I had no idea where that comment came from. I was usually a very quiet, shy girl. I didn’t talk to people I didn’t know, and I barely even talked to the people I did know. I was suddenly reminded of that, and I thought about just leaving. Clearly this boy did not want to talk to me. But then he looked at me again, and I felt like I could not leave his very sad, brown eyes. I don’t know what it was about him that made me not want to walk away. It was almost as if he needed me there, though he said nothing.

We were sitting at the top of the biggest hill in our small town and as I looked up, I noticed gray clouds moving over the horizon. They threatened to pour rain down on us. I decided I should bring an umbrella to the lonely boy, as he did not seem to want to move.

As I got up, the boy looked at me with a strange kind of longing in his eyes. I told him I would be back in one minute. He looked back down at the ground. A few little raindrops began to fall as I walked to my house.

I returned to the boy with a blanket and umbrella in hand. I put the blanket around his shoulders, sat beside him, and held the umbrella overtop of us. The rain started pouring harder. I shivered, and to my surprise the boy moved closer to me and shared the blanket with me. We sat in an oddly comfortable silence, listening to the rain and watching the lightning.

“I’m Amy,” I said.

“I’m Rex,” he muttered.

“Why so gloomy?” I asked Rex. He just shrugged. For a long time he didn’t say anything.

Then, “My sister… died,” was all he said. But the words were too much for him. He broke down crying again. As I watched him, I felt my own eyes tearing up as well. But I could not imagine the amount of pain Rex was going through.

When his tears had stopped once more, I asked him how his sister had died. It took him a while to find his voice but he finally answered quietly, “Leukemia.” Once again, we sat in a long silence, while rain fell, thunder crashed, and lightning flashed about us.

“Rex, you can’t stay out here forever,” I told him gently.

“Yes, I can,” he replied angrily.

“Fine then,” I said. “But I’m going home and this is my stuff, and you’re gonna’ get soaked.”

For a moment he glared at me, as if challenging my words, and then he nodded slowly. I got up still holding the umbrella, fully intending to walk him home so he wouldn’t get wet.

“Where do you live?” I asked Rex.

He shook his head. “I’m not going home. Don’t want to.”

Now I wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. Insist he go home? Or take him to my house? I decided on the latter, but I knew he would have to go home eventually that night. I took him to my house and introduced him to my mother as “my friend Rex.” He didn’t say a word, and I didn’t want to push him. I left him in the living room and went to find my mother, telling Rex I was going to get him a glass of water. To my convenience, I found her in the kitchen.

“How do you know Rex?” she asked me.

“I just met him today,” I told her truthfully. At her questioning gaze, I continued on, “His sister just died of leukemia.”

“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” my mother responded sincerely.

“Yeah, he’s pretty sad about it. And he doesn’t want to go home,” I said.

“Well, Amy, he can’t stay forever,” Mother stated the obvious. “Where does he live?”

“I don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me,” I said. Mother then suggested I talk to him some more, then get him to go home to his parents.

I did as my mother suggested. I sat with Rex for a while on the couch. He didn’t talk to me for a few minutes, but eventually he slowly started sharing things about his sister. I learned that she had been his biggest hero; she had looked after him and had always been there for him. I could almost feel his pain seeping through his words as he spoke. It was then that I realized why he had been so upset.

Eventually though, I did get him to go home. But from then on, he always spent a lot of time with me, whether it was at my house, or on the big, old hill. At first, we only saw each other little by little. But soon we began spending almost every minute with each other. We became inseparable. Rex became like a brother to me, and I, although I could never replace his sister, became like a secondary sister to him.

Now we find ourselves in our last year of high school, reflecting back on all our memories together, good and bad. This story is a recurring memory in both our minds, because without it, we would never have known each other, and we would never have become the people that we are today.