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It had been a long time since I had visited. Five years ago, on this same day, with this same weather, I had left someone very important to me. A little girl, of age eight, who knew nothing of the real world and still lived in fantasy. We were the greatest of friends, despite me being three years older. I would walk into the room, and she would light up. We would always play together, we would always laugh and laugh and laugh until tears ran down our faces. We would run and run until the sun beat down on our backs and we could't move. We would live life to its fullest.

Then I had to leave her. She was so stricken with grief when she heard we were moving, the tears hidden behind her eyes. She had always been strong, never crying even when she broke an arm. It was because she had no love from her parents, just from me, her "brother". She said her earliest memory of love from her father was: "Being on his shoulders and reaching for the sky!" She would say it with such conviction, all I could do was hold her. That day when I left her she was crying, tears running down and down her face.

Now I was back! We could be together again! I ran to her door, knowing she was waiting, and threw it open. What I saw was not what I expected. There she was, in the flesh, looking young and fresh and full of life. She had grown to be even more beautiful than before, her hair cascading down her back. When she turned her head, a smile lit up her face, one of the most breath-taking he had ever seen. But her eyes….they were dead.

There was no life in them. She smiled with all she had, but her eyes were like ice-blocks, nothing in them. It was as if I was staring at a pretty doll. She walked close and held out her arms for a hug, smiling still. "I missed you, brother!" She always called me brother, and even now it struck me deep. Her continuous smile unnerved me and I wondered what happened to the girl who's eyes were so full of life and passion and romance that you wanted to take her in your arms and say, "you will live!"

"What's wrong? What happened?" I asked immediately, searching her face, my hands on her shoulders. Something flickered in her eyes and that smile dropped, only to be picked up and brought on full force. She seemed to pause before saying, "I've been by myself all this time. I just missed you, brother." Her smile broke something in me, and I didn't utter a word but seeing the sadness and the heartbreak hidden deep in her eyes, I simply brought her tightly into my arms, so tight she could probably hear my heart beating against my chest, beating for her and all she hadn't found.

All this time, she had been alone. She had no one, no parents, no friend. I had been her friend, and for some reason she had only waited for me. Somewhere along the way she put up a wall, kept it all in, was strong and brave for everyone. Suddenly we were both crying, her sobs shaking me as well as my own. I was crying for her, for everything that she didn't have, and I didn't know what she was crying or. Maybe for me coming back, for not leaving her alone. And we held each other, basking in the light and letting it shine on us and letting it soak our skin and tears so we would always remember this moment, letting it breath into us the life we both lost.