The Time I Met Them Again

The first time I ever laid eyes on him... Man, I was only eleven years old. Granted it was in a photograph right after I'd discovered his band, but still. He was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen––and only a year older than me! So perfect... His golden dreadlocks, his pierced lower lip, his sparkling brown eyes... Everything about him was perfect. And what's more, he played guitar. Had been since he was nine, and was frankly one of the more talented people our age. He was from Germany, the country I had basically been obsessing over since second grade when I learned what an amazing country it was from my German Language teacher.
At my school, everyone had been forced to take the class from second through fifth grade, but I loved it right from the beginning and even joined the Deutsch Club, meeting others that were as interested in the place as I was during one of the two lunch breaks at my primary school in Australia....
Of course, all of the wonder wouldn't last for very long... My family soon moved on from our beloved homeland to Europe when my parents divorced. We went from France, to Italy, to Spain... to Germany. I was so thrilled with all of the sudden culture shock, and even more thrilled that I wouldn't have to learn another language.
Whilst we were traveling Europe, my mother had home-schooled me and my three siblings––two younger brothers and older sister. We'd originally planned to stay in Spain... but then my sister had died... It had been very sudden, and the worst event of my entire life... She and I had been as close as two people could get, only nineteen months apart in age, and best friends from the beginning. All of our mothers friends were amazed when they found out how well we got along. We had our ups and downs, of course, but most of the time we were way up there in the sky....
When she was found floating in the Ebro river, my mother went into shell-shock. Within the week, we'd packed what little belongings we'd had, having learned to travel light from all of the moving around we'd been doing, and were on a plane to Leipzig, Germany. We'd all had a good life there... My mother seemed to have forgotten all about her oldest child by the way she went about her daily life as if that had been how it always had, but my brothers and I could still hear her crying in the night.... Often times, without her knowledge, we cried with her from the next room.

When I was seven years old, my mother decided that Leipzig would be the place we would stay until further notice. She enrolled me in public school, knowing that I could handle the German language well enough to go, but kept my brothers at home until they'd learned enough of the language.
That was when I saw him... Of course, this was some time before the lip piercing, but he was still beautiful to me... He was unlike anyone I had ever met before.
I was so shy back then, not talking to anyone unless they spoke to me first, afraid I'd lose all knowledge of the German language and start blabbering gibberish. When He spoke to me... It was like magic.
“Hello,” He said, his German sounding out perfectly to my untrained ears. He sat down next to me at my lone quarter-of-table in the cafeteria.
I stared at him a moment before replying warily. “Hello...”
The boy with dirty-blonde hair eyed me up and down. “You're not very talkative, are you?”
I shook my head, no, and shrugged.
“Where are you from?”
I thought a moment before replying, desperately wanting to get the words correct. “Australia,” I told him. “But I haven't been there in almost a year.”
He tilted his head to the side. “Where were you between now and then?” He asked.
“France,” I told him, getting the hang of talking now. “Italy, and Sp––” I cut myself off, biting my lip so I wouldn't cry. I looked away from the boy so that he wouldn't see the glassiness of my eyes.
“Spain?” He finished for me, clearly not wanting to get into my personal life at this point. I nodded. “What was it like? Traveling the world? I haven't been many places, but I plan on doing a lot of traveling when I'm older.”
I sighed, not really used to going into detail about this. “It was pretty amazing. When my family and I left Australia, we were unsure of where to go, but ended up deciding on France. It was beautiful there...” I felt as if I was rambling and stopped talking for a moment, feeling blood rise to my cheeks.
“Please,” He said. “Go on. I want to know more.”
I hesitated a moment more before I was sure that I wasn't boring him. “The arts culture there was pretty intense, just what my mother needed to get her started on her career––she's got her own arts shop here now, and does a lot of arts and crafts shows. But we were all impatient to move on, none of us knowing much French. So we moved to Italy––” I was cut off by the sharp sound of the bell that announced the end of the lunch period.
He stood up and looked down at me, waiting for me to follow suit. “I'm Tom, by the way,” He told me as I stood up next to him and we began to walk. “What's your name?”
I stuttered for a moment, trying to comprehend why anyone would want to know my name. “Nerina,” I told him, after coming to the conclusion that he was simply curious.
“Well, Nerina,” Tom said. “It was nice talking to you. Do you mind if my brother and I sit with you tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “Not at all.”
He grinned. “Brilliant. See you then.” And then he ran off into the crowd.

Tom and I were just about the best of friends from that point onward, though no one could even begin to compete with his brother, Bill. The two were twins and had done everything together their whole lives, even planned on forming a band when they found the right people. That's what Tom had meant when he'd told me that he'd planned on doing a lot of traveling.
Then, just a short year and a half later, my mother’s father died--and we all moved back to Australia. It was a heart-wrenching time for the twins and I... Many tears were shed at the airport, both by the twins and myself. My brothers didn’t quite understand it, but they would later figure out that, for me, it was basically like losing Alice all over again...
“Promise you’ll write every day,” Tom ordered, eyes red from trying not to cry. “You know our address.”
I nodded in compliance. “You know I will,” I told him. “Every second I get. There’s no one else I’d rather talk to. Just so long as you call me whenever you get the chance.”
“Of course.”
I turned to Bill, who looked just as sad as his brother. I squeezed my arms around him, and felt his squeeze me right back. “Hey,” I said, noticing that he still wasn’t looking at me when I pulled back. “I’ll see you soon.”
Bill nodded and his lip began to tremble. I hugged him again as my mother told me again that we really had to go. I turned away, taking my youngest brother’s hand, and headed toward the security gate.
“Nirry!” I heard a call behind me and turned around. It was Tom, running towards us. My mother started tugging at me, afraid we’d miss the plane, but Tom managed to keep up. “Don’t forget me.” He said, then kissed me on the cheek. I blushed furiously, but promised him that there was no way on Earth that I would even consider forgetting him and his brother.

“Hurry up!” my mother called after me.
We were running through the harsh traffic of inner Birsbane, trying to make it to the train on time. I was straggling behind because of how many books I’d stashed in my backpack, and she wasn’t helping at all. It was the middle of the day, and we’d just gotten out of the airport. We were going to take the train to the Ipswich station, where my grandmother would be waiting for us. I held Bill and Tom’s address tightly in my fist, written on a scrap piece of paper that I’d pulled out of a notebook, along with their e-mail addresses.
The four of us hurdled through the station, only just making the train.
I looked down at my hand to make sure the paper was still there.
I looked down just in time to see it being snatched away by the automatic door.
I began to panic.
“Mum..!” I cried softly, not wanting to disturb those around us in the awkward silence. She waved me off. “But mum!” I insisted. “My paper!” She did nothing, just waved me off again and continued staring at the map in her hand.
I felt tears in my eyes. I’d promised them I’d keep in contact, but now the only information I had was gone. I slumped down on the floor next to the pram that held my brother, sitting next to the other.
“Maybe you can grab it when we reach the next station,” Luke said, having noted my situation.
I looked down at him. “Maybe.” But I knew that was impossible. The paper had been ripped to shreds in the tunnel and all that was left was the corner with their names on it, sticking out of the door and into the carriage.
I cried silently, wondering how on Earth I would ever be able to contact them ever again if I had lost all of the information I had in one go. You won’t, said a little voice in the back of my head. You’re never going to see them again and there’s nothing you can do about it.
As the tears streamed down my face, I heard the call for our station and stood up slowly.
Everything was gone now.