Silver

You are wearing a grey headband and playing on the playground slide, running up to the top instead of sliding down it. The headband is a matte grey made of tiny black and white squares and because your hair is so short, it didn't so much as pull your hair back, as make the little tufts stand up crazily. Later, you told me it’s part of your school uniform, because you go to one of those fancy private schools that makes preschoolers wear a uniform. It makes you look stupid. I tell you so, and you punch me. Then I tackle you into the playground tanbark. As beginnings go, it isn’t bad.

Your shoes were pure white once, but since you bought them at the Target that has all the evergreen trees next to it, they've been coated in dust from running on the sandy track in PE, and the color is a bit duller now. You want to draw on them, you tell me, while you reach into my bag, and draw out my yellow sharpie box that I got for Christmas last year. It has every color in the rainbow, plus a few extras for the in-between colors. You pull out a green sharpie and immediately go to town on the top of the shoe, doodling what looks like a dragon, but might be a radioactive dog. I carry on doing my math worksheet (because I'm a good student,) until I finish with problem seven, and I look up, and you're sitting cross legged, trying to rotate your already-bent leg backwards and upside-down to get at the outside of your shoe.

I grab your foot (“Hey!”) and yank your shoe off so hard I accidentally bump it against my chin, leaving your sock dangling half-on and half-off your foot. I reach blindly into my backpack, grasping one of the black sharpies that always seem to be floating around in my bag regardless of how many times I relegate them to the yellow sharpie bag, and scribble something that looks like a butt on the heel of the shoe. I add wavy fart lines coming out of the butt, for good measure. I'm halfway through writing down a fart noise, (‘pfffffrbbbbrrrrt’) when you snatch it back from me. The sharpie flies wide and draws a line across the side of your shoe.

You look at me, eyebrows raised high and mouth gaping in apparent shock, but you only hold out for few seconds before you glance down and see my drawing and start giggling. The giggles are high and breathy and they surge forth from you in rapid bursts of noise. It's shrill and grating, but I laugh too, and you toss me a red sharpie and we set about decorating your shoes, math papers scattered on the linoleum floor. We find that gold looks good, silver doesn't show up properly, and red bleeds too much. We draw loops and swirls curling around your ankles (and around my earlier masterpiece, which you elected to keep,) and I color one of your shoelaces to look like a green snake with yellow diamonds on its back.

Recess ends too early, as always, and you're eager to show off your new shoes to your classmates, so you run back to your classroom, colored soles slapping against concrete. You are blatantly violating the 'No running in the hallways' rule, but I don't tell anyone. I walk quietly back to class, and my classmates must think I'm insane, because I can't stop smiling for the rest of the day.

When we’re in high school, you and I both go through a book phase. You read Neil Gaiman, I read Stephen King, and we get into hysterical screaming matches over which author is superior, in which stray copies of Fahrenheit 451 and War of the Worlds go flying through the air and smash against walls and windows. Afterwards, we curl up together on the beanbag in your room, and take turns reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to each other, because that's one book no one could hate. In those moments, watching you wearing your green and grey Slytherin scarf, as you imitated Hagrid's gravely voice and screeched out the squeaking monstrosity you used for Draco, I felt that this is what living is for.

You're fresh out of college and I'm a year behind you, and your absurdly successful, pride-and-joy-of-the-family older brother just gave you his old car. It's silver and compact and sensible, and you shake the bright metal keys at me. Pride is etched into every line on your face as you jabber on about its unique make, model, and number, and how that makes it superior to all other cars of its type, but I don't hear a word you say, because you're grinning ear to ear the whole time, teeth flashing.

You look different for the years we've been apart, your face longer, jawline sharper, and forehead steeper. You wear sunglasses now, and while I'm not sure why, I am fully in support of this decision. You swing open the driver's door and get in, practically pulling me into the passenger's seat. You never stop talking the entire time you're driving, but by now you are a responsible driver, so you never stop looking at the road. That's good thing for me, because the entire time we're on the road, I never stop looking at you.

You're crying because someone that I had never even bothered to learn the name of left again. I have a tub of Ben and Jerry's slowly melting in my lap while California Dreamin' plays on repeat in the background.

I lean in to press a kiss to your forehead but I miss and end up on your scalp. You only drop the spoon and sob harder, each breath sounding painful and wet. The silverware clatters on the tile floor. I murmur soothing words while the song plays on in the background. If I close my eyes, your sobs almost sound like laughter.

A laser tag arena opens near your apartment. The neighborhood isn't right area for that kind of business, but you are determined to take advantage of it until the owners either realize their mistake or go out of business. You purposefully plan your outfit to be all white, so that under the black lights of the laser tag arena, you will glow. You insist I don a white shirt as well.

There's no one else there, so we play against each other, which is more fun, in my opinion. We scream war cries and charge each other, but my aim is atrocious and you're like Legolas on steroids, so you obviously win. I manage to shoot you one time, and afterwards, you kiss me for the first time. Which was not my intention, but I can't say I was disappointed.

You are puttering around our kitchen, looking for salt when I spot the offending object. It's an unassuming neutral ash color. It's shiny, sleek, and modern, and it has about fifty times more buttons than I know what to do with. As well as some suspicious blades poking out of it. I turned to you and raise one eyebrow, a trick I perfected through dedicated practice and by watching countless hours of the original Star Trek. It never fails to make you laugh, and sure enough, you do.

“It's a coffee machine,” you explain. “It was on our wedding gift registry.” Who's idea was that, I wonder. Neither of us drink coffee—you prefer tea, and I hate hot beverages. I look at the death trap with apprehension. The coffee machine has enough blades attached to it that if it ever went HAL 9000 on us, it might actually stand a chance, which is worrying. Why does it even need one blade to make coffee, much less seven? You must see something on my face, because you grin and press a kiss to my cheek.

“Relax. I already put it on eBay.”

I smile.

I don't know what makes me say it. It just comes out.

“Do you want kids?” My heart is thundering and I'm sweating more than is socially acceptable. I don't know what answer I'm hoping for. You snort into your tea and your hair falls into your face. It's longer than you usually keep it, and I've been nagging you to get it cut soon.

“Hell no.”

I relax back into my armchair. “Me neither.”

You pick up your wii remote and start another round of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

The night air is brisk, but not unpleasant. There is a thin stripe of silver-white hair running across your hairline. It glints in the moonlight. Your hand flies up, self-conscious, when you feel me looking at it. The retirement party continues inside the house behind us. I pick my way across the lawn to where you’re standing.

You look at me. “We got old.”

I pull you closer and gently tug your hands away from your scalp, trying to examining the new addition.

“You look like Rogue, from X-men.” You seem to laugh without meaning to, and it’s lower and rougher than I remember, but exactly the same in all the ways that matter. You smile as I trace a finger down your jagged streak of gleaming hair, and we wait outside for a little while longer than we have to.

The hospital’s fluorescent lights bleach color from everything. The circles under your eyes, which I swore were brown or tan in the daylight now seem a sickly grey and your skin is pale. I had assumed your recent lack of movement was merely an increase in laziness and entitlement as you aged. Here, your lack of movement is no longer endearing and slightly irritating, but suddenly sinister. The room smells sharp and it makes me anxious for reasons I can’t explain.

The machine is breathing for you as you look up at me, silent. Your eyes are a glassy, dull grey and I am abruptly struck with the need to know if your eyes were always this distant and pale or if it is another twist of the lighting. I curl my hand around yours and your eyelids twitch as your pupils track the movement. Your hair, fully greyed out now, is flyaway and tangled and spread out in all directions on the pillow.

I am afraid to blink. Then, your hand squeezes against mine and your lips lift slowly and weakly in a small, but clear, smile. And oh, my dear. Even then, even there, you were so beautiful.