#togfic

“I remember daddy walking me to that hospital room and seeing some bald, scrawny, weird-looking creature, and I remember saying: that’s my little brother?” Nile teased until Damon got up to chase her around the room. 

Damon had no idea if she was telling the truth or not. But this is what he did know.

He knew Nile was the smartest person in the world. She knew the shortcuts to get them home from school on time, she knew where the best and cheapest candy store was, and she knew which dogs in the neighborhood were the nice ones that he could pet. (A chihuahua bit his chin at age six, but that never deterred his love for dogs, even after he needed eight stitches.)

He knew Nile was fun. When he complained about being bored after school, she was the one who invented games for them to play. Once, she even got a bunch of cardboard paper and made a life-sized “playing board” that winded around the whole apartment. 

She’d lead the younger kids in the neighborhood on games of freeze or hide and seek, and she’d keep track of every one of them until it was time to go home. She’d get Damon to help her with her art projects, too, letting her trace his hands or stick his quarters in paint to get the cool, psychedelic, and colorful effects she wanted. Nile made everything out of nothing; that was why she was so much fun.

And he knew that Nile worked harder than anyone else in the world other than their mother. In high school, she practically ran them to the L to get him home from school, before she turned around and immediately got back on the train to one of her two jobs. He walked her home from the library in the dead of night, when she looked like she was about to keel over, but insisted that she needed to do well on her exams. She didn’t even give herself a day after graduation before signing up with the Marines.

Of course, they had their share of fights going up, but the one that day was the worst. He was proud of remembering the word “sanctimonious” to throw at her. He wasn’t proud of the shouting match that followed.

Damon iced her out for weeks leading up to her deployment, but he couldn’t bring himself to not say goodbye. He slipped a note under her bedroom door the night before, apologizing for the things he said, and the next morning, Nile pulled him in for a hug the moment that she saw him.

“This is the best thing,” Nile promised, “For all of us.”

She cupped the back of his neck, fingers brushing his dreads, and said: “I know this is scary, but I’m always gonna be there for you. That’s kinda my job.” 

He had gotten taller than her a long time ago, but this was the first time in a while that she felt like a big sister again. The one who hid him behind her back when they heard gunshots on the way to school. The one who held him as he cried in bed after their daddy’s funeral. The one who always made him feel safe, first and foremost.

And even though Damon flicked her ear and she shoved him in return, Damon believed her promise, because as much as he gave her shit, he also knew that Nile didn’t lie. Nile was consistent, reliable. Nile was the one sure thing Damon had in his entire life.

In part, she ended up being right about the Marines being the best thing. Her death was the reason he could go to college and why mama could buy a house. It just didn’t work out for her. 

He visited her every Sunday, even when he couldn’t bring himself to go to church. Damon always found a few daisies, her favorite flower, and put them in the cemetery where his sister rested. And this Sunday wasn’t any different. 

“I remember the day you died,” Damon muttered to her gravestone, tears falling from his cheeks and onto the dirt below. 

“Yeah. Me too.”

Damon turned around and saw a ghost. 

The ghost opened her arms wide, and Damon didn’t care if she was real or not. The daisies floated in the air when he ran over and threw himself into his big sister’s arms, crying harder than he had even at her funeral.

“How?” Damon muttered.

“I told you, dumbass,” Nile said with a wet chuckle, “I’m always gonna be there for you.”