Part One

“Aubrey!”

“Aubrey!”

“Aubrey!”

She kept yelling my name, but I couldn’t hear her. I was standing there, soaked and wet, in disbelief. The water had pressed my jeans to my skin like jeggings. I don’t even wear skinny jeans, but it looked like it now. My shirt clung to me like sushi rice sticks to seaweed wraps. I could feel the weight of the water drenched in my clothes. It was pulling me down. I used the last bit of energy I had to keep standing. That’s about all I could concentrate on anyway. Falling down now felt like it would be defeat. That I would have to accept the reality of what happened. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Not yet.

“It wasn’t really possible. Was it?” “Did this really just happen?” I thought to myself.

“Aubrey, I need you to come with me,” Alissa demanded as she grabbed my arm and guided me away from the scene.

“We have to try and get you dry and make sure hypothermia doesn’t set in,” she explained.

I started stuttering and shivering simultaneously.

“I, dy, dy, dy, dy- don’t need shu-” I tried to say as my words slurred and died off.

“I know you don’t, but I am here anyway,” she exclaimed.

Alissa is my older sister. She is who found me. I had made an attempt to un-alive myself, so everyone believed.

The truth is. I wasn’t trying to die. I didn’t want to un-alive myself. Not in any physical way that one might think. Just metaphorically.

I guess I need to start from the beginning.

It all started a year ago. We used to live in Highland Beach, FL. We as in my older sister Alissa and I and our parents, Sable and Dawn Ellis. I was still 12 years old then and Alissa was 15. She didn’t have her license yet. Life was much different than it is now.

Our parents worked a lot so we spent most of our time as children with our live-in nanny/housekeeper, Beatrice. She was a kind and soft-spoken woman from the Caribbean Islands. She was small in stature, with smooth and soft cocoa-complexioned skin and long wavy gray hair. She always wore it up in a bun. She never yelled or said much, but when she did it always left a lasting mark.

We spent most of our free time laying on the beach. We lived in a gated community off Ocean Blvd of about 10 or so homes in a row. Though we explored the whole coastline of the community, each home had its own private beach. Alissa and I would either hang by our pool or near our fire pit in the sand. Of course I had to disappear when her friends came over, which was quite often. “No little brothers allowed,” she’d always say.

With my parents always away, my sister hanging with her friends, and no one else to talk to, I spent a lot of time around Beatrice. Mostly just observing her as she did her daily tasks and chores.

I always paid close attention when she would cook. She kept a box of spices and different types of liquids she’d use in her dishes. I was so curious about what they were, I’d sometimes get in her way trying to see them.

“Bwoy get out a mi kitchen. Go play rounda back,” she would utter.

I never really knew exactly what she was saying to me, but I knew gestures and I understood enough to know when a popping was coming. Those wooden spoons could hurt sometimes.

I had video game systems, tons of movies, and all the streaming apps. We even had a billiards room in our home equipped with a dart board, pool table, giant wall-mounted scrabble game, chess, checkers, you name it we had it. State-of-the-art home gym, home theatre, and a ton of other things that are only useful when being utilized by the family. I feel like our parents surrounded us with a lot of awesome stuff to help with the reality of their absences.

My dad was some famous surgeon who traveled around the country performing rare and intricate operations and procedures. He also gave a lot of lectures and spoke at conferences. My mom, on the other hand, was a business consultant. She is who you call to save the company from going belly up. So yeah, that also meant she traveled a lot as well. She would even leave the country sometimes.

Most of our relatives lived in other states, so I didn’t see them much. The occasional family reunion and family trips we would take to see our grandparents. Our family vacations were always very grand and in very exotic and remote places. When my parents got time to take off from work, they didn’t want to be bothered by crowds of people.

Don’t get me wrong, my mom and dad were very busy people, but Alissa and I knew they loved us and we felt it. Sometimes you just want them present more. I’m twelve years old, what do I really know anyway, right?

-Part One-

I noticed the house next door to us was up for sale. I remember my mom and dad saying that homes in this community don’t go up for sale often, and never last on the market long. This time was no exception.

One day after school I was sitting by our fire pit on the sand, waiting for Beatrice to come and light the fire. I noticed a kid down by the water I had never seen before. He looked to be around my age and even was my same color. That was rare to see in this neighborhood. I had to know if he lived here or was just visiting. This could be my chance to make a friend.

I started off walking towards him confidently, then my pace slowed and my confidence started dropping.

“What if he doesn’t think I’m cool?” I asked myself.

“What if he thinks my name is funny?, or…” I murmured questionably.

“What’s up man!,” a voice yelled.

It totally startled me and pulled me out of that train of thought. Good thing too, because I wasn’t helping myself out at all. I looked up and noticed he was looking in my direction and waving. I waved back very awkwardly and responded.

“What’s up?!,” I replied very hesitantly.

I noticed he had already started walking in my direction. We came face to face much quicker than I anticipated we would. He had already extended his hand in a gesture for a handshake. I extended my hand as well.

“Hey, I am Malcom,” he quickly announced.

“Hi, I am Aubrey,” I countered.

“Is that a British name?” he requested.

“Not that I know of,” I answered.

“Where you named after Malcom X,” I voiced inquiringly.

“Actually I was!” he exclaimed. “That’s a good guess”. “Most people ask me if I was named after that character from ‘Malcom In the Middle’,” he blurted out in disbelief.

We both laughed while we stared at one another. Taking in a full analysis. The head to toe glance over. That’s the look you give when taking inventory of someone to determine if they make the cut.

“I am glad you know who Malcom X even is,” he mentioned. “I bet we are gonna be good friends,” he said with a smile on his face.

“Yeah, my parents are huge on black history,” I said.

“Before you ask, I am not named after Drake,” I remarked.

“Dude!,” Malcom exclaimed. “I didn’t even remember that was his name,” he expressed while laughing and waving his hands back and forth in a criss-cross gesture.

We both laughed out loud again. There was so much I wanted to know about Malcom. I figured I’d make sure he would even be around for me to learn about. So I asked.

“Do you live in this community,” I inquired.

“Yeah,” he retorted. “Right next to you.”

That actually made me feel much better. I also got the impression he was just as in need of a friend as I was. I was thinking I should invite him over to join me at the fire pit, and ask Beatrice to bring us something to snack on.

“Hey Malcom,” I started to say.

Just when I was about to ask him, I was interrupted by someone calling my name.

“Aubrey!,” someone yelled.

I turned around to see who was calling me. It was Alissa. She was signaling me to come back to the house.

to be continued…

…Part two coming soon…