The Quiet Game

    It’s been three months, my brother disappeared a mere three months ago. It feels like that day happened seven ages ago. No one knows what to do, no one knows where he is.

    It was a Tuesday in July, the summer heat had everyone going crazy. You could not go outside for more than five minutes without being drenched in sweat. I was playing outside with my neighborhood friends, keeping an eye on my little brother. He was playing in the pink plastic pool my parents bought me for my eighth birthday. It was my favorite. My friends and I decided to walk to the park to swing for a few minutes. I had my eyes on him the entire time, his blonde curls bouncing as he played never leaving my sight.

    Walking back home, I looked over at the pool to see it empty. He must have gone inside. Maybe dinner is ready? I skip into the house expecting the smell of chicken grease to hit my senses. I inhaled deeply to nothing. I yelled for my parents expecting an answer, I got nothing.

I ran up and down the carpet covered stairs, my shoes still on. If my mom saw, she would have spanked me, but I didn’t care. My brother was in danger, I could tell. Our house was small, but running from room to room made it seem never-ending. Finally, I reached my parents room, staring at my mother with a terrified look in my eyes. After asking her if she had seen my brother and receiving a no, we ran downstairs and called out for him, no answer. Now we started to seriously panic. He was not outside. He was not inside. He was not at a neighbors house. This was the longest day of my life.

Three months later, our days are still frantically spent searching for him. School starts soon. We would have been going into the fifth grade together. Now I spend my last days of summer alone, receiving melancholy looks from strangers. I trudge around the house in his jacket, it’s over ninety degrees out but the smell brings me back to when he was by my side. Oh, how I miss my twin.

It is now January, the bitter cold reminds me of the missing warmth my brother once brought to our family. I walk down the icy path in our driveway, the one spot that isn’t covered in snow. My family is not the same, I am not the same. I know he is alive, I can feel it in me. My parents tell me I’m being naive for thinking that, but they don’t understand the connection my brother and I had.

Walking past the park, the same one that made me lose sight of my stupid brother, I hear a scream coming from the slide. I cautiously walk over, a little sliver of me hoping to see my brother’s blonde curls and stupid blue eyes. I got the bad genes, poop colored eyes and straight hair. Slowly, I peer up the slide, I see nothing. The more I replay the scream in my head, the more I convince myself that it was my brother. I frantically run around the park checking every possible hiding spot. I begin to lose hope, until I remember the hideout Jack and I had.

It sits within a forest right next to the park, I can’t believe I forgot about this. I walk up to the makeshift house Jack and I like to play in. We haven’t used it in ages, but it still looks the same as when I had last left it. Palm fronds hanging down the side of sticks, kinda like a teepee. I call out for Jack, hopeful for an answer, but when I look inside of the teepee, I not only see Jack, but I also see our 10 year old neighbor.

“Come on now Jess, you know I wasn’t trying to hurt him, we were just playing an innocent round of the quiet game.”