Never Stop Believing

“Barbara, did you see my letters?” – I asked my lovely younger sister, Barbara, while I was looking for the letters in all corners of my bedroom.

“Which ones? The letters you had in your desk or your school’s letters?” – She answered me, landing against my door.

“First ones.”

“Oh…”

“What about that face? What happened with my letters, Baba?”

“Nothing… I just… sis, I have to tell you something…” – I turned to face my lil sister. She was with her ​​little hands hidden behind her back, and swung from side to side. Usually she does this when she's nervous or when she’s hiding something. I know my Baba. I walked towards her and she looked at me with a sad and worry look that made me think about the worst.

“Oh my God… what happened, Baba? You know you can tell me anything. I won’t be mad with you.”

“Yes, you will.”

“Did you torn the letters? Did you burn them?”

“No… I read them”

“Oh, little girl… you should ask me first. But I’m not mad with you.” – Oh! What a relief! Those letters are very important to me. I actually compare them with my own life. And, definitely, they are my life. I don’t talk about them to anyone. Neither to my mom, neither to my brother, neither to my little sister, even have I talk with her about anything. Sometimes, children are like unknown people. We talk with them about everything and they give us the best advice that someone could give us.

“Really?”

“Really. Now tell me… Did you like them?”

“I love them. Who wrote them? I would like to know him.” – There’s others questions witch I’m always running away. ‘Who wrote them?’, she asked. Who wrote them, I hope, is thinking about me right now, is maybe writing another letter which I won’t receive, I won’t read. ‘I would like to know him’. My God. Those words came inside of me like knives sticking in my stomach.

“Well, do you want to play or take a walk?”

“Why did you change the subject?”

“Baba, please… okay, I know you’re sick of hearing this but… you’re only 7. When you’re older I told you everything, deal?” – Lie! (Or maybe not).

“Deal!”

I took my sister and went to take around the city. If you asked where I came from, well, I don’t know what I could answer to you. My dad passed all his live travelling and taking us with him. My mom never had a normal job because she was always firing herself because we had to leave to another country or city. My brother and I don’t have lots of friends because we are less than a year in a city and then we move once again. My brother always was a womanizer so he didn’t have problems about to tell a girl that he just had sex with her just because it had to be.

About me?

Well, I never did strong friendships with girls, neither with boys. Except with one person. I’m a very difficult person and I don’t trust in anyone. First of all because I have a big, I mean a very big fault, in other words, I can know the people just looking at them in the eyes, just looking at the way they look at the others. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I’m never wrong about what I think about someone. My little sister didn’t have born yet when my parents divorced. Lucky girl. We were in London when they divorced and till now we still here. My dad is now in Ontario, Canada. Maybe we go there in the Easter, my mom too. Nonetheless, my parents still friends. Yes, I said maybe (if my dad doesn’t go to other country).
Now, I’m 24, my brother 28 and my lil sister 7. My brother Phil has a girlfriend and any day he goes to live to his girlfriend and, who knows, marry her. I hope so. It’s something that makes me very happy. My little sister Barbara is a happy girl, she’s also very smart. She’s knows speak Spanish and English perfectly and she’s learning French in her school. My mom is already working, luckily for life. She’s a famous translator in London and has lots of work to do and sometimes my brother and I help her with the translations as we are very good and languages too.

The last but not the least, I’m studying in the University of the Arts of London. I’m doing a graduated in Fine Arts and Artistic Studies. I must say I’m a dreamer because I’m spending money in something that only gives future for who that is really good on it, namely, plastic arts, music and cinema.
What made me believe I can do it? The letters. Those letters made me believe in what I am now, in what I do, in what I wanna be. People judge us because we live dreams. People are always judge me saying I wouldn’t get it, the paradise on earth only exist in dreams, in our head. Some years ago, I believed in it. Now? ‘The most important thing you could ever do is follow your dreams’. These words don’t come out of my mind. I read them over and over again just to be able to hear his voice one more time. He was so perfect, so talent, so carry, so crazy. My God, bring him back to me once again. I beg you. Bring him back!

I was 14 and I had just arrived to London. It was June. Before I came to London, I was living in Ibiza, Spain. It was a beautiful city with lots of beaches, young people and tourist. It was good for me to improve my Spanish, English and French. I was becoming used to that city. I was feeling very good there. We moved to London and the first thing we noticed was the differences in weather conditions. Here, in London, the summer doesn’t seem to be summer. The air is cold and damp. And the houses are all equal. My first contact with London: this city is bullshit!
Yeah, I thought that but quickly I changed my mind. When we were taking our stuff out of the car, I noticed a blond boy, with a beautiful blue eyes was looking at us with a naughty smile like he was planning to do a bad thing to us. Kids! We took all the things to the inside of house and my parents and my brothers went there to check the thinks. I walked towards the boy who was now sitting on the ground with drumsticks in his hands, rotating one of them only with his fingers in circles. I sat next to him; he stopped rotating the stick and looked at me.

“Hi!”

“Hello.”

“I’m Violet, but you can call me Vi.”

“Vi? Vi isn’t a name. Don’t you feel ashamed of your name?” – he said in a bad tone. He wanted to hurt me anyway with his words but my curiosity was bigger than anything he could say to me.

“No. why did I feel ashamed of my name? What’s yours?”

“I’m Jimmy.”

“You’re not English, are you?”

“I’m American. And I have a band with my best friends.” – He said with proud on his voice. I smiled at him showing how interested I was to know more about his band and about himself.

“Oh, do you?”

“Yeah! I’m the drummer of the band. And I’m sure I’ll be the best drummer of the world. You’ll see.”

“You should show me.”

“What? Why? I don’t want to impress you.”

“I don’t care. I wanna hear you. If you say you’ll be the best drummer of the world, I want to have my opinion.”

“Okay, but my house is haunted!” – He whispered, approached to my ear. I feel electric shakes over all my body but I don’t know if it was because I was afraid about what he had said or if it was about her soft voice and his breath in my skin.

“Really? Have ghosts here?”

“Yeah, mine!”

“You jackass!”

“Chicken!” - He ran, coming into the inside the house and I ran behind him. I remember to see a woman in the living room. I stopped to look at her and she looked at me and smiled but I was so scared that all I did was still running upstairs. Later, he told me, that woman was his mother. He was faster than me so I didn’t know where his room was. I started to call him but he didn’t say anything. - “Jimmy? Jimmy? Where are you? I’m scared, please, appear!” – I kept walking, opening all the doors that I was finding and I heard something coming of a little door that was next the toilet. I took the risk and opened it. But when I opened it, Jimmy appeared, jumping like crazy in my front with an ugly mask, making me scream. He started laughing as hell but I couldn’t help and started crying. Bit by bit, Jimmy stopped laughing and looked at me with a worry look. He approached me and put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a kiss on my cheek while he was cleaning my tears with his longs fingers.

“I’m sorry. I was so stupid. I was just kidding with you. I never thought you believed me. You seemed so… courageous and strong.”

“I am! But… I was sca-red with the haun-ted house s-tory… and I saw a woman downstairs…” - I said, stuttering. He took me to his bed when he sat on it. I was looking at my lap and I sniff because of I was crying. I could see he was looking at me with a sad look and he was hitting his hand slowly with one of the drumsticks as if was nervous or something. Until he got up of the bed and put on squatting in my front leaning on my legs placing his hands on them. As I did not look at him, he brought his hands up to my chin and made ​​me look at him, raising my head with his fingers. His touch was so soft that made to stop my breath for a few seconds.

“Violet it’s a beautiful name… as you!” – He smiled at me and I couldn’t say a word. I just started at him and follow him with my eyes when he walked to his drum and sat on a little seat. He took his drumsticks and played something very quickly that made my tears run away and I got up, amazed with his fastness.

“My God! You’re really good! Can you teach me?”

“Sure!” – He got up and walked towards me taking me hand. He pushed me near the drums; he sat on the seat and pushed me again this time to his lap. We stared at each other for some moments but then I broke the silence.

“So… this pedal is for this drum, right?”

“Yeah… and this one is for the cymbals. Now, put your foot on the drum pedal and play it several times always with the same rhythm.” – I did what he asked me to do while he put the drumsticks on my hands, and putting his over mine, he started playing as he was me. – “See? It’s easy!”

“Oh Gosh! This is so funny!”

“Do you like it? You can come here every time you want. I teach you.” – I look at him and smile. He didn’t do anything. Just stared at him a serious look. Those crystal blue eyes were made me feeling something strange in my stomach. It was like someone was tickling me on my belly but that left me nervous. I wasn’t able to do nothing. It was like I was hypnotized by his eyes. He took his hand to my face, stroking my cheek, sliding his fingers down to my lips. I closed my eyes and I just opened because Jimmy’s mom appeared on the room saying my mom was looking for me. I looked at her and she smiled again stared at Jimmy and I. I said I was coming and she left us alone. I looked at him and we started laughing because his mom thought we were dating or something. I have to confess that later I thought about that. What would happen if Jimmy’s mom didn’t appear?

“Well… I have to go.”

“I’m sorry for that… I didn’t…” – I stopped his speech landing my finger on his lips.

“That’s okay! See you around!”

I left the house and went downstairs. I found my mom with Jimmy’s mom on the living room talking. Like I understood, she was inviting us to dinner that night. And I was right! We went dinner to the Sullivan’s house and I spend the night with Jimmy and with my brother Phil.
Some weeks later, Jimmy and I were already best friends. I knew all about him and he knew all about me. He was living in Huntington Beach, California and his best friends were Brian, Matt, Zacky and Johnny. They seemed to have a big and true friendship. I would like to have friends like them. I had actually. Jimmy. And I was very happy with him in my life.

Three months passed and everything in my life changed. I never felt so happy in my life. For the first time in my entire life I met someone who love me as friend and worry about me. Jimmy was my best friends and we were like brother and sister. Or maybe more of that. In the beginning I felt a little weird because He was completely crazy, in an amazing way. He had a way of live the life that impressed me somehow!

We were used to go to a big green garden near our houses which has a lake with ducks. I loved went there with Jimmy. We had a big passion for ducks. I mean, he had a big passion to scare the ducks. It was very funny run behind him to try to stop him to scare the ducks. We rolled on the turf. We passed hours and hours at night looking at the sky and talking about life and stuff.

But one day everything changed. Jimmy dinner with me at my house and then we went to the garden. I knew something was wrong with me but every time I asked what had happened he changed the subject until we arrived to the garden.

“Jimmy, can you tell me now what’s wrong? You’re worrying me.”

“Vi… it would be difficult…”

“Fuck, Jimmy! Can you tell me what’s happening or not?”

“Vi… tonight is our last night together…” – I was mute for a while. I felt my eyes fill with tears and I neither looked at Jimmy. Neither had he looked at him. We stayed there, sitting on the park bench, looking at the ground while some old people passed in front of us. Some minutes later, I saw Jimmy’s hand approaching at mine. Unconsciously, my hand ran to his one. We held hands and he kissed mine. – “I promise I’ll write you every month.”

“Promise?”

“Promise! But promise me you’ll write me too.”

“I will.” – I did a long pause on my speech and then when I was about to speak, Jimmy gave me a tightly hug. A silent tear ran over my face. My hands were holding Jimmy’s back and his hands were caressing mine. We move away a bit so we can look at each other. “I’ll miss you.”

“I won’t forget you. You’re very special for me. You’re my best ‘girlfriend’ ever. I have to confess that sometimes I look at you and I think I’m falling in love with you but… you’re Brian’s type.”

“Brian?”

“Yeah! Believe me. You’ll know him sometime. I’m sure you’ll love him.”

“But I don’t want love anyone else, Jimmy, but you.” – Those words got up of my mind making me regret of that for some seconds. Yes, just for some seconds. When I said that, Jimmy looked at me with a surprised look and grabbed my cheeks with his both hands and gave me a deep and passionate kiss. Feeling his lips on mines was the best feeling I ever feel in my life. I felt all my skin crawl up like a chicken without feathers but when I put my hands over his arms, I noticed his was that way too. I smiled in the middle of the kiss. Slowly, we were stopping the kiss and we stood looking at each other like to little kids who had just kiss and suddenly, we started laugh harder. We both understood that we weren’t made to be boyfriend and girlfriend. He was my brother. My best friend. And we stayed like that. Just best friends (at least for now).