KEEPING THE FAITH

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                                       KEDAH

   The guard, who was holding my arm so tight I lost circulation in it, threw me into my room.
I did not react because I was used to it, I just gripped to the device in my hand close to my chest.
That was the only thing that mattered right now.
The door slammed shut behind me, and I slowly stood up and sat on my bed.
I didn't have time to make it this morning, so I quickly pull the quilt taut around the corners of my bed and flatten my pillow.
With shaking hands, I press the button on the side of the small device.
A hologram lit up my room, and the image of a small boy's bedroom showed.
"Let's see...is this thing on?"
A voice, young and smooth, startled me. I couldn't see a face anywhere in the room.
Then, the figure of a boy showed in the center of the frame as he walked into it.
He was thin, with skin so bronze that it almost glowed in the sunlight coming from the boy's bedroom window.
His dark hair was cut short and clean, and his eyes twinkled with childish delight. He was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans.

He was beautiful. He was my beautiful brother.

"Uhm...hi. This is weird, talking to a camera. I'm making a video diary to keep me occupied while I'm off for summer vacation. And because I have no one to talk to. So I'm just going to rant about random things. Um...my life isn't really exciting. In fact, a lot of people want me dead. That's the reason why very few people want to take me in as their foster child. Those who do are risking their lives to try to protect me. But the result is either their disappearance or their deaths."
I watch intently as he huffs and shakes his head.
"All my life I've been told that I was special. I was special because I was the only Bernstad left. The people that want to kill me don't like what we believe in and who we are, so they target me. They target me because my..."
He chokes at the last word.
He straightens, then continues.
"Because my sister was a Light."
He wipes his eyes harshly and clears his throat.
"Anyway, I don't really remember much of my sister, probably because I was two when she left. But I remember peeking from underneath my blanket and seeing Julius for the first time talking to my sister. I remember seeing them look at each other. I believe that they liked each other since that moment, though they fought with each other every time they started a conversation."
I smiled.
"Oh! I have something to show you...or me...or...whoever finds this."
I chuckled.
He walks out of the frame, then after a few seconds comes back and holds up a blanket.
"So...this is the blanket that Gracie said she carried me in when we got to the shelter. Look at all the colors!"
It was half his size. Yellows, reds, blues and purples blended together in geometric patterns. It was a traditional blanket my grandmother made for him when he was born.
Gad sighed and wrapped his shoulders in it.
"Sometimes I'll have dreams of her. I remember the toy boats we used to play with while she gave me baths, the smell of antiseptic in a hospital room by her side. Gracie told me that she was very beautiful. She said she didn't like her at first because of it, and that she was afraid she would take Julius "away from her." But, as you get older, those little crushes and loves don't really matter anymore. It becomes irrelevant and childish."
"But you learn things from them," he continued, "and you grow from those experiences, despite of the embarrassment you get when you think about some of them."
"Gracie has been like a guide for me growing up. She says that she's had a soft spot for me since she saw me in the arms of my sister all those years ago."
His eyes become glassy, and so do mine.
"I wish I could remember what she looked like. The last thing I remember about her was the words before she left. She made me promise to have a good heart, and then she told me 'I love you' in Navajo."
He wipes his eyes harshly, making the skin around his eyes red.
"Anyway...I want to show you something, whoever finds this."
He gets up and takes the camera, and the screen moves around with his steps. He walks out of the room and into a hallway, then takes some stairs down and into a cozy living room. In one of the chairs is a man reading a newspaper, but I couldn't see his face.
Gad walks past the living room and into a kitchen, and a snippet of a woman was shown for a few seconds, then the camera focused on walking out the back door.
A clearing of a throat was heard behind Gad just as he was going to walk out, then he slowly turned to see a woman.
She had her freckled arms crossed, her blue eyes twinkling with joy, and her thin mouth was curled up in a slight smirk.
I recognized her.
It was Christina, Brian's wife, Julius' older brother.

There were slight creases around her eyes and forehead, signs of aging.

"And where, pray tell, do you think you're going? And why are you taking your camera?"

The frame shifted slightly.

"Well...I was going to show the people who might watch this the...thing outside."

"Ahhh.." Christina says, "just don't be out there too long, okay?"

"Yes ma'am."

He turns, then walks out the door and shuts it behind him. 

"I forgot to mention one thing. I'm visiting Brian and Christina for the weekend. My foster parents don't go to church, so I stay with them on Saturday and leave right after service. They live about four hours away. That's why I stay for this long."

The sight of a treehouse comes into view, and he starts to climb up the steps that spiral around the tree and into the house.

When he reached to the top, he opened the small door and walked into a cozy little room. It had a small hammock in one corner, a wooden bookshelf filled with books and plastic baskets, and a rug in the center.  A shelf above a window was filled with a teddy bear, a tin box and toy train.

He walked to the shelf I was eyeing and grabbed the tin box, then took a seat crisscrossed on the rug.

"This is something Julius gave me just recently for my birthday. Gracie gave me the blanket, and he gave me this. I haven't opened it yet. I wanted to save it for this moment, while Christina's kids were asleep and not being so snoopy."

He opened it with his free hand, and inside was a small pile of pictures, the first one being an image of...

Of me.

I looked, was, so different back then. And I remember that moment, too.

I was partnered with Julius for a youth project in the shelter, and it was the moment I looked up to see him taking a picture, right before I reached across the table and tried to snatch it out of his hands.

The camera is placed on a surface, probably the bookshelf. I could see his face now, and his expression was full of shock, then slowly falling into a grimace. Tears started to fall from his face.

"Oh...oh my... It's..."

He covers his mouth, and wipes his eyes furiously.

I can tell that he hasn't moved on from my supposed death. This was about a year and a half ago, according to the date in the corner of the screen.

He takes out another picture as he carefully places the one picture in the box lid.

He chokes out a sob, and wipes his eyes again.

Gad holds up a picture of me again, this time holding little Gad up in the air in a hallway.

I remember that moment, too.

It was the day I was released from the Medical Wing in the shelter. My burn scars were fully recovered, enough so I could walk at least. Gad was so excited to see me out of the wheelchair, and I remember lifting him up. I was smiling, and he was laughing.

I never noticed Julius taking the picture, though.

He put the pictures back in the box, then said, "I'm going to have to look at these with Brian and Christina. I'll see you later. Bernstad out."

His voice was strained from crying, then he reached over and turned off the camera, the hologram disappearing back into the device in front of me.

I sat there for a moment, taking it the feeling of seeing how beautiful and kind my brother had grown up to be.

That feeling was euphoria.

It's been a long time since I've felt like this.