Everything I Never Say ✓

[ nine ]

Nine

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I was—still am—a huge fan of Agatha Christie. Well, not her, exactly —but her works. Especially the movie adaptations of her novels.

They aren't the kind of movies to be watched on movie nights with friends or family, of course. Not the kind of movies that are relaxing, and fun, and enjoyable with company.

I was eleven and you were fifteen, and your—our— cousins had flown down from Canada, where they lived and schooled.

Vivian and Mathew made a whole fuss and declared that your—our—relatives shouldn't dare think of staying at a hotel when they could get unarguably better hospitality at home. Then again, this was your mother's sister's family. And she adored her siblings didn't she?

I think she was always happy to have adopted me, Daniel. After all, she was giving you a little sister, wasn't she?

Back then, I was grateful —indescribably so— to have found a family in you Harringtons.

It wasn't until much later that I began to see it came with such a heavy price.

Hadley was the oldest of our cousins. With Noelle and Bash next; in that order.

So we normally let her pick the movies we watched during times such as these, throw-pillows and quilts littering the floor whilst bowls of popcorn and packets of skittles sat within our arms' reach.

"Debbie," Hadley called to get my attention. "Do you have anything you'd like to watch?" She smiled at me, sweetly. Softly. I liked her — I still do. "Any picks of your own?"

I shook my head, ready to blend in and go with the flow.

"You have some movies, don't you?" You asked then, causing my breath to falter as my eyes shot up to meet yours. "Didn't you tell dad that day to download a few of those... Um..." You couldn't remember her name.

"Agatha Christie?" I offered, face blank.

"Ah, yeah, that. Didn't dad download them and then burn them into a CD for you?" You asked, tilting your head to the side, causing that stupid overgrown dark hair to tumble into your eyes. So annoying, the way you had to keep flipping your head back in order to get your hair out of the way.

And yet, I never hoped to see you get a haircut.

"Isn't that a famous writer or someone?" Hadley asked, knitting her eyebrows together.

I nodded, smiling timidly.

"I've never heard of her," Noelle scoffed.

"You'd need to read first," you shot back, rolling your eyes. That was the thing about you — you had a way with words, and the nonchalant way in which you'd utter them — that got under people's skin so much. There was a time I genuinely wondered if you knew to be anything other than rude and downright mean.

I don't mind it so much anymore. I don't wish for you to change that — or any aspect about you for that matter. Thinking about it now, I don't think that I wanted or even expected you to change that part of you back then either.

Your flaws weren't ever flaws in my eyes, Daniel. They were just a part of you. They were simply... you.

I don't know why this particular moment is  one of the many between you and I that stands out to me, but it does. And here I am, putting it in writing so that it is permanent in a place other than my mind and heart. Because words can never be taken back, Daniel, and here I am, engraving us into forever.

Yes, we went on to watch an Agatha Christie movie of my choice — Death on The Nile — and to my surprise and joy, Hadley loved it. Even Noelle and Bash.

More than them, you liked it too. And that somehow made my love for A.C's movies that much cooler. I didn't understand back then, why it had such an impact on me that you happened to like something that I enjoyed immensely. Now I do, Daniel.

Now I do.

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