He used to tell me, "I wish I could shed this skin, this life. I wish I could *be* something, someone different." while looking out into the wide expanse of the night sky. I would turn to him and promise that we'd make it out of this place together.
We applied to the training facility together, brother and sister in solidarity. What's the worst that could happen, we rationalized. We told no one of this at the time, but our answer came in the form of a message. I was accepted. He was not.
Suddenly it felt all too real. I didn't want to leave home. I especially didn't want to leave with my sister's necklace and brother's bandana, but the two allotted weeks passed and I boarded the ship to new horizons.
I studied hard at the training facility. I studied until I was the top of my class, then studied harder because everyone hated me there. Studying was my only solace. I waited for messages that came every three days, then every week, then every month, then stopped all together. Still, my communicator lay beside me every night as I waited for my mother or father or one of my many siblings to call. I hardly slept.
When I was assigned to my ship, I was glad. Finally, I could go out and experience the galaxy. I'd tell my brother all about it when he called! Weeks passed with no word from home. I stopped waiting for it at some point.
Out of the blue, I had gotten a message on my communicator. I checked it in my quarters, as is protocol, but the news was rather troubling. My father had gotten in an altercation with the neighbors. When the police had tried to stop him by force, the setting on the taser was for the wrong species. The guard had been let of with a warning and my father dead. I thought it would stop there, but it continued to say that my mother had been diagnosed with a terminal illness while I was away at the training facility and, upon hearing the fate of her husband, died from shock. I couldn't keep myself from tears that night.
I was allowed a brief time to grieve and visit my family. At night, I sat on the roof with my brother and stared at the stars as we had so many times before. I said, "You could be something else if you wanted to." I wanted to tell him that I was living his dream, that he should be up there instead of me.
"Don't be naive," he said, turning to me. "It was stupid to think I'd ever get out of here, and it's stupid to think I could be anything else." He laughed. "You lived my dream. You succeeded and lived my dream, and what did I do? I did what I always had because I was too scared to change. Whatever. Dreams aren't worth the trouble."
He stood and made to leave.
"But," I began, stilling him. "But what if I told you what it was like up there? I was always willing to share your dream. One day, I'll take you to see the fruits of it, I promise."
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