I Remember

• Stella Cameron, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2017

I miss you; the you that was you before now; the you that would take my hand and race through the fields of your parents’ farm, where the clover grew like delicate snow across the ground in spring. I missed the thrill of flying through the air on that rope above the creek way out below the ravine, where the great Snowy Mountains rose from the ground like Gods. I missed that, and I miss you. I want you to take me to those mountains again, take me camping or riding, out in the bush that I miss so much.
When the skies seemed to forever be clear. When I could walk forever and never grow weary. You were the sound of the wind chimes that hung from the verandah of my childhood home. You were the feel of summer sun against my skin, the smell of clover and barley grass. Your eyes reminded me of the sea that I visited rarely, you were like the sky, which is one of my favourite things, which I never looked at for long or often enough. Your laughter was like listening to my favourite music and your voice sounded like memories I could no longer remember but wished so desperately to return to. You reminded me of home and warmth and comfort.
I miss that so desperately. You’ve changed so much from that boy that I once knew. Did I ever know you would turn out like this? So serious, regretful of every day that has passed since the accident that took everything from you.
Years have passed since I last saw you. I regret coming here now, to see you sitting at your desk, lost in the paperwork and your peaceful thoughts. I hate to break that, this one day where frown lines don’t mar your forehead. But I am as desperate as you are to live. You see me in the doorway, standing as silently as a ghost and your frown returns, mirrored by my own. You murmur my name through the grit of your teeth and I shudder again with regret. 'Come home with me,’ the words leave my lips in a wave of desperation, 'I need you.’ But you aren’t you anymore, or perhaps I am not me. We are too different from those children, wrapped together between the tall eucalypts of those mountain ranges. But still you rise, your gentle hands are rough with callouses from the years of farm work, at least that part of you is the same.
Your eyes are darker though, storm grey, like the sky. The office melts away.
‘We aren’t children anymore,’ you say, 'you can’t come to me when you are sad anymore.’
Those mountains loom before us once more. Capped with white, the smell of the bush warmed my core with lust for adventure. Everything was so familiar, even your joyous smile.
‘We aren’t children… but don’t you wish we were?’ I murmur, the sun touched our skin.