Word Count: 1058
The lake is still my favourite haunt in winter. I linger by the bulrushes, their stalks framing me as if I were meant to be part of some artsy photograph.
In none of Sunil’s snapshots had I ever been picture-perfect, though. And he took dozens, choking my neck in the crook of his elbow for a selfie or jumping out of closets to catch me in a candid. Ma used to stick his work all over the house. Images of my own face would accost me at every turn, oblivious to my shying away from reflections in mirrors and windows.
I wonder if they’ve been taken down.
Late at night, the sedges ripple from Sunil’s approaching footsteps. I’m surprised to see him here on this anniversary. Snow drifts onto his dark lashes. They look like tears in the moonlight.
He gazes into the water, then pulls something from his pocket. Pins it to the tree. It’s the photo he took of us last year, when he’d been about to start sixth form and I was finishing. His grin juxtaposed against my crooked frown. How very on brand.
He’s not smiling now. “I gave away my camera.”
“What?” I jerk toward him. “We saved up for years—”
“It was broken.” He skips a stone across the water. He’s deflecting, I can tell. Sunil is farts and giggles most of the time, but when the laughter stops, he doesn’t let anyone see him.
That’s why he’s here. In the dark. He scrapes the words past his teeth like jamming his bent camera charger into the socket. “I took a thousand pictures of you. Of the best moments of our lives.”
He pulls a lighter from his pocket.
“Don’t tell me you’re smoking again,” I hiss. “That shit’ll kill you.” If Ma doesn’t get him first.
He flicks it once. Twice. It sparks on the third try. He’s out of practice, a good sign. The flame dances in front of that last photo, distorting his smile. The corner catches and burns. The curling blackness consumes me first, eating at my unhappy face until I don’t have to look at it anymore. My shoulders relax.
But it keeps going. It takes my brother, too, and our out-of-focus parents hovering in the background. It goes and goes until there’s nothing left to hold.
“I showed you every image,” Sunil continues. “There was something different in each one. You know how you kept calling my orange trousers yellow?”
“They were yellow,” I mumble, because some habits are hard to break.
“Yeah, you were wrong about that. Then again, loads of people online couldn’t agree on the colour of that damn dress, so I figured, we’re just wired to see things differently. I got lots of angles of you, hoping the right one would click. I caught you in the high, the low, the Dutch. I even invented the drop-and-catch angle when you tripped me mid-shot,” he chuckles. “One of them, I’d been sure, would show you what I see in you. What we all saw.”
His voice catches.
“But you didn’t see it,” he says into the silent night.
“It wasn’t your fault—”
“So the camera must’ve been broken.” He tucks the lighter back into his coat, the one I bought him two birthdays ago. His wrists stick out of the sleeves, he’s grown so much since.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Sunil says.
“Shoot.”
“Baba thinks it was a misunderstanding, the way you left. But I found the note.”
“Oh, Sunil…”
“I can’t help wondering at the timing. If it was some kind of omen. There’s—a thing I’d been working up to tell you.”
“You can tell me—”
“A year ago, when I came out here looking for you and found this instead” —he fishes my letter out, folded and unfolded so many times, it’s falling apart at the creases— “I wanted to tell you I’m—I’m bisexual. I’ve never said it out loud before.”
He’s carried this secret even longer than my letter. I stretch out a hand that doesn’t quite manage to reach him.
“I thought if I told you first, it would help me approach Ma and Baba.” He runs a shaking hand through his uncut hair, which curls over his nape where the camera strap used to hang. “I met someone. Met his whole family, actually. Our parents will flip their shit when they find out I’ve been to Tariq’s four times without inviting him back.”
It’s true, they pride themselves on their hospitality. I ache for my little brother to let them in the way I couldn’t.
“I’ve been thinking—” He stumbles over the words. They must be sharp, painful, tearing their way up his throat like ground glass. “Did you have to leave because I wasn’t a good enough brother? Do you resent me for keeping this from you? Or maybe you didn’t want to know at all…”
“I’m proud of you,” I say, though I worry at my lateness. “God, I love you so much. It wasn’t you I needed to get away from. Or Ma, or Baba. It’s bigger than us. I couldn’t find another way out. Damnit, you’re my favourite person in the world. And if Tariq ever breaks your heart, I’ll—I’ll find some way to give him a strongly-worded warning—”
“I should go. Before Ma worries. She checks on me all the time since you left. Had to upgrade the family phone plan, even with one less user.” Sunil glances across the lake once more, eyes panning like a camera capturing every detail. His gaze passes through me to the fronds beyond. “You can’t listen to my rambling, anyway.”
“I’m glad you told me,” I say to his retreating back. “They’ll be happy if you tell them, too.”
He doesn’t hear, probably. I try to follow, but I can’t go far. This was the final resting place I chose.
Muddy footprints lead away from Sunil’s receding boots, the snow beneath mine unblemished and pristine.