The Moments They Shared

The night was at its peak when Angela realized she has been out for almost five hours. She knew her brother was waiting for her back home. But what was the point of all this? Him pretending to care for her and her pretending to show some appreciation in return to the pity Ashton had shown her. She didn't think their relationship was supposed to be known as that of siblings. Nah, she thought more along the lines of biological roommates.

"I don't like the air back there, Max," Angela told her friend who was drawing stuff on the mud. "Since Mum and Dad separated, it feels suffocating in there. It feels as if I'm being a burden on Ashton."

"It's been six months already, Angie," Maximus looked up from his self-proclaimed masterpiece. "I thought you said it'll be easy for you to adjust?"

"Well, apparently... I was wrong. I'm not welcome there, man. He's just keeping me there for the sake of it."

"But he's your brother, right? Your parents, both of them, never wanted kids. So you guys only have each other."

Angela sighed, "Ashton has his wife, Julie. I don't have anyone. And what with this year's events, I feel more lonely."

Max put a big arm around his best friend and smiled, "You have me."

The two 15-year-olds sat under the moonlight in comfortable silence when Angela heard a woman speak behind her, "Angie dear, will you be staying for dinner?"

The blonde girl stood from where she was sitting and while dusting her skirt replied, "No, thanks, Mrs. Lawson. Julie said she's preparing my favorite dish tonight."

"Okay then. You know that you're always welcome here, right?"

Angela smiled lightly and gave a firm nod. She put her boots on, walked towards the fence gate and looked back on the ground. She saw one pair of footprints on the mud, and there was no sign of any masterpiece. Sighing, she waved to Max and made her way to her brother's house.

***

After walking for fifteen minutes or so she reached the large, black metal gate which took all her strength to open. After walking around the marble fountain which stood gracefully in the middle of the front garden, the big fish spewing water from its mouth, Angela finally reached the porch and rang the bell. She heard some argument behind the door and a couple of minutes later a woman in her mid-twenties opened the door. Julie had a scowl on her caked face.

"Get inside. The food is getting cold," she said with some sense of spite in her voice.

Angela scurried inside the big mansion of a house when she heard the loud angry voice of her brother, "Who will clean this mess you've made? Are you?"

No, the maids you hired will. She thought and looked back at her "mess". Angela had forgotten to take her muddy boots off before entering the dining room. Not that it would have made any difference. Her feet were equally, if not more, muddy.

The teenager just ignored her brother and went to the round mahogany table to eat her dinner. When the other two joined her they joined their hands to murmur a prayer, thanking the gods for the food they had received. I'd rather like some one-star hotel food than what Julie the witch has prepared and poisoned for me, Angela thought. She lifted the lid from her plate and found lasagna. She hated lasagna.

***

Angela Black woke up early that Sunday morning. It showed 7 on the clock above her bed. But however early she woke up, her brother and his wife were always off to their jobs, even on Sunday. She got off her bed and got ready to go to her favorite place, the Lawson house. The irony of her life, though. A big bungalow like her brother's property made her feel as if the entire world had lent her its loneliness. But going to her best friend's house, however small it was compared to the Black mansion, made her feel light, made her feel like all her problems had vanished away. It made her feel as if she was with family.

Mrs. Lawson greeted her with her evergreen and beautiful smile, "Good morning, Angie. What would you like for breakfast?"

"A peanut butter and jelly sandwich would suffice, Mrs. Lawson. Thank you very much."

"Seriously, a PB and J sandwich? Do your tastebuds like anything else in this world? Cheese exists, you know." Max appeared and whispered in her ear.

Angela turned around and crossing her arms against her chest she said, "Your Mom makes the world's best PB and J sandwiches. And after that terrible lasagna last night I'd like anything but cheese."

The two friends laughed at her appalling situation back at the mansion and jogged inside the house, arms intertwined together.

Hours passed by. Angela felt lively at the Lawson household. The food that Mrs. Lawson prepared and the jokes that Mr. Lawson passed filled the gap that was created when her sorry excuse for a family abandoned her. When her best friend abandoned her.

Once again she was out in the garden with Max, the soil wet and fresh after the heavy downpour that evening. She remembered how both of them used to play in the mud, not caring about how their families would complain about their dirty attires. Now that Maximus had left her, Angela reminisced by leaving her small footprints in the mud. She and Max loved to annoy the crap out of his parents because Angela never cared about hers. She laughed along with his memories once again that night, forgetting about the tiny cuboid tombstone that stood at the corner of the garden, peeping out of the wet soil.

"It broke her heart the most, Larry," Wendy Lawson spoke to her husband with remorse as the couple stood on the porch.

"And it breaks my heart when I look at her like this. I'm glad somebody truly remembers our son," Lawson Sr. replied.

Angela ignored their voices once again. She ignored the universe's whispers once again as she remembered her best friend Maximus Lawson on his one month death anniversary. She was going to run in the mud that day for as long as she wanted to because she could feel him running beside her, both of them sprinting in the mud, leaving footprints of their memories on it, caring about nothing but their feet in the cold, wet mud.