Lies within My Heart

By: Meilin Li

Disclaimer:  The credit does not go to me.

Rated: PG

AN: Nathan mentioned is not Nathan Scott.

Prologue

     Close your eyes

     And I will be swimming

     Lullabies fill your room

     And I will be singing

     Singing to only you

     Don't forget I'll hold your head

     Watch the night sky fading red.

                     --As You Sleep   Something Corporate

The sunrise used to be my favorite time of the day because it reminded me of a fresh new beginning.  It was the time when the whole world was born again, in the light of the sun.  Dew clung to the grass, birds chirped their welcome and everything was quiet and peaceful as people stopped to marvel at the beginning of a brand new day. 

I would scramble to wake up at five in the morning just so I could watch the sunrise with my older brother on days like that.  The ritual started when I was seven and he was sixteen.  We had a special relationship, since I was the baby and he was one of the middle children. 

His name was Nathan and we connected in ways we couldn't with our other siblings.  Even though he was so much older than I, he always seemed to find time just for me.  He was fond of all his siblings, but especially of me, the baby of the family. 

He would take the blame sometimes, for things that I did and get grounded as punishment.  I used to feel horribly guilty, but you know what he told me?  He sat me down one day and said, "Being grounded isn't so bad, I get to spend more time with my baby sister right Hales?"  This had warranted him a huge tackling bear hug from a slip of an eight year old.

My brother had an amazing voice.  The lullabies he sang to me used to put me straight to sleep.  Whether I was distressed, terrified, or miserable his serene voice used to calm me.  It amazed me then that someone could sing that beautifully and still be human.  And I used to tell him, "You sing like an angel!"  But he would just laugh in that rich voice of his and call me silly.  To me he was an angel.

I always got teased by him because my hair was a fiery red and his was a mahogany brown.  He used to say that I was probably picked off an apple tree because apples held the same fiery shade.  That always got a giggle out of me.  Sometimes, I would tug my hair and compare the colours of our hair and how different they felt.  Mine was bright, baby soft and his was dark, gelled spiky.  It just reminded me how much different we were, in not just age and gender, but also in how we see the world.  But there was one thing—we both had the same set of values.

My heart misses him so much that sometimes it hurts.  I miss his pearly white smile and his deep laugh.  I miss the way his blue eyes would shine whenever he did something he was proud of.  And I loved the way he had a nickname for me.  "My Stella," he would exclaim on occasion.  I would just giggle because the word sounded so funny and exaggerated.  I never understood the significance of that until I was ten and I asked him what he meant by it.  He claimed that I was a star picked out of the very heavens and bestowed upon the James family.  I had to smile at that.

I tutor whenever I have the time.  I hold a job at my best friend's mother's café almost every night.  I have enrolled in voice lessons every weekend since I was five.  I go to dance class five times a week.  Sometimes I wonder why I put myself through this.  Why I commit myself to so many things that sometimes the load is overbearing.  But other times I understand why.  It's because whenever I'm doing one of these things, I don't have time to myself and I don't have to think about anything at all.  I put my full concentration into what I do, so I could have a means of escape from reality.  It works you know.

Nathan was only 19 when he died of a hereditary heart defect.  He didn't even get to finish college.  He didn't get to travel the world.  And he didn't get to fulfill his dreams of owning a house in the farthest corner of the Earth, which to him was Australia.  There are a lot of things that Nathan didn't get to do.  Before he died, I promised him that I would do them for him.  He laughed that wonderful laugh and told me to never give up.

I will not die before I fulfill my promise. 

I will not die before I can prove myself.

I will not die …

     -It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.