"Eleanor, I need you to stay away from me." He says as he holds tight onto my hand. I look up at him in confusion and hurt. No hint of anger is in his eyes.
"What, why?" I ask, voice breaking.
"I just need you to trust me okay? I don't want you to g...
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Camden had been deployed for about 7 months now, but his absence was a constant force. Mr. Lahey would talk to anyone that would listen about how proud he was of his eldest son and how proud his wife would haven been. Camden being active in war never scared Mr. Lahey, he always assumed his perfect son was invincible. How could a straight A student with a killer butterfly stroke and an undeniable charm ever be harmed? I knew Isaac wasn't worried either. As much as his father would clearly favor Camden, it never once dampened Isaac's idealization of his brother. And honestly even I, a 12 year old girl who only briefly wavered from her love of fictional characters to appreciate just how wonderfully handsome her best friend was, idealized him in a way.
No one expected him to fade into the faceless army of fallen soldiers, to return home in a American flag clad coffin or to end up buried in the grave next to his mother far before his time. It was that day, the day two soldiers came knocking on the Lahey's door interrupting the fictitious world of indestructible brothers with the harsh reality of death that everything began to change for us. The look on Mr. Lahey's face when the news was first broke to him fades in my memory, but I can still see the look he gave Isaac when he asked what was going on. The look on his face when he realized that it was this son, the one with the lanky uncoordinated body, the difficulties with school and the painfully shy personality, that was alive. This son was all he had left, and it wasn't enough.
