I spit and scream "what's done is done
Go make your peace with everyone"
They don't need to know about my brother's blood.
- Kevin Devine

The loss was the worst! It left me feeling like I had not just lost my brother, but also my own life. The night he died I remember everything: what he wore when he left the house, how his mood was and what he told me.

People claim they know what you're going through, they give you some sympathy, even look at you differently then what they used to just in case you'll break on them. I've never been a girl to share my pain with anyone, especially not complete strangers, hell! Not even my own family.

I caught myself at night, breathing heavily into my pillow trying to come to grips with the fact that Laurent was gone, it wasn't the pain that I couldn't see him again that bothered me, it was more the angst of forgetting who he was. I was scared of forgetting my big brother, so I started hanging out with his friends, wearing his clothes at some point, trying to re-live what Laurent was. It seems fucked up to an outsider reading this, but to me, it was perfectly sane.

You see my reality is different from yours, which doesn't necessarily make you any better than me or me better then you. My parents never noticed they didn't care about the drugs, the girls; or whatever the hell I was doing to myself. I was lost to say the least and the only thing I knew how to be was my brother's keeper.

This was until I met a man that changed my life; it happened right after school, I was packing down my things trying to avoid the rush of students that usually flooded the halls when the clock struck three.

Waiting behind, I looked at my watch, it was time to leave, so I pulled my jacket hoodie over my head focusing on getting out the door and imagining my exit out the school, it didn't happen like that. Instead I knocked over a set of books carried by a man in a tweed jacket, glasses and a set of steady shoulders, he kept on smiling at me as I continued to apologize, before he asked my name: -"George"
-"Mind helping me in with these books, George?"

I didn't understand what came off me wanting to help a teacher, most of the time I fled from them with their many questions and worried frowns like I was sick or something. The teacher introduced himself as Eames, just Eames; he said his first name wasn't something he was very fawned of.

By the first five minutes I had figured him out, he was charismatic, kind, and even a little feisty at the way he spoke about why he moved to a small town like this in Portland to teach teenagers English literature, something that Portland teens of Sheppard High School rarely needed.

Still I listened, to ever word that came out of that perfectly plump mouth of his, it must have been the first time I actually felt a genuine attraction to men, not just any man in this case: Mr. Eames especially. He wasn't asking me questions on why a girl would wear boy's clothing, cut her hair short or not wear make-up, seeing the hallway's being filled with that, instead he asked me about how old I was: -"sixteen" I answered, leaning my butt against one of the desks.

It was clearly a dangerous attraction, being infatuated with a teacher, especially a man late in his thirty's, still Mr. Eames didn't mind me, or our enormous age difference.

After that first meeting, he arranged for us to meet after school at a local café, his deal was to get me into reading one of Jack Kerouac's books called: "On The Road"
It wasn't on our reading list's for his class, because of the mature content, Eames made a deal with me that if I read this book and liked it, he would try and force the teachers to put it into the reading lists, stating it as an American Classic.

Sipping out of his cup of coffee I noticed the carefulness that intrigued me about him, this showed when he accidentally bumped his hand into mine as we were walking home from the café.

It didn't bother me as I laced my pinky into his index finger watching for his reaction, he didn't seem disturbed by it as he breathed out smoke from the cigarette between his lips. I eased my hand completely into his; it was warm, strong and inviting, just like him.

-"You're gonna get us both into trouble, love" he grinned at me, his British accent was tainted with some American northern accent's I couldn't recognize, but the word love still sounded profoundly British.

-"Nobody really cares what I do, Mr. Eames, its only just for a moment" I bit my bottom lip, still not letting go of the warm hand in mine, it meant a lot to me as he walked me to my bus.

I knew it wasn't a date or anything; I hadn't been on one of those before. Whatever this was, I was sure he would change my life just being present in it.

As the weeks passed, I started dressing up more, stealing some cash from my mom's wallet to buy me a pair of proper jeans and a nice sweater, it wasn't much, but Eames noticed, so much so that he let me sit and have lunch with him in his apartment.

This time he had bought a new book, it was named "Farwell to arms" by a man called Hemingway, the patterns of the books Eames gave me always had a romantic undertone in them which made me think that maybe he needed someone just as much as I did.

-"Do you think dead people can hear us?" I asked while he was biting down on an apple, grading a paper infront of me. The mouthful of apple filled his cheeks, making it impossible for him to respond without a soft scuffing of the apple against his teeth: -"Of course I does, darling, anyone around you can hear you if you speak loud enough, any point to why you're asking?"

-"I just" my voice felt heavier then I intended it to be, so I corrected myself on the wooden chair underneath me, swallowing shortly gazing up at his blue eyes behind those black rimmed glasses.

-"My brother Laurent, died three months ago, my parents keep telling me that the way I'm acting, like a boy, is because of his death, I know it is, I just, I want him to know I haven't forgotten him"

Eames put the pen he was holding down, along with the apple he was chewing on, glided his glasses off to the bridge of his nose, cocking an eyebrow at me; -"My friend Arthur has the same ordeal, he keeps telling me that his mother speaks to him in his dreams, so he has this nervous tendency to always have his clothes properly put together before leaving the house, in the constant fear that his mother will reprimand him for it if he doesn't"
The glasses went off and Eames reached for my hand, squeezing it over the table:
-"Arthur is a nutcase, love, don't follow his example will you? I can only comfort one of you at a time"

I wouldn't be able to tell you for sure that Eames was send by God to help me, or if this was just pure coincidence, him getting assigned by his former job in London to take an opening position as an English teacher here in Portland.

Whatever it was, I was grateful. That's all I knew as I looked at the man before me; grading papers and chewing soundly down on an apple. He was something though, Mr. Eames, that I could tell you for sure!