Life never gave me so many opportunities. But it gave me a brother who made me see those opportunities. My brother was my best friend for life. My best buddy, and I wish one day in the future he could have become my best man. My brother was my biggest inspiration, my biggest role model. Elias has always been my guide and support.They said my childhood would be boring, back in my mind I knew I had the best brother who made my life more enjoyable. I perfectly know my troublemakers; my favorite is you, E. 

I press stop on my alarm. I put my hand over my face and my blanket over my head. I don’t want to get up today, I don’t even know if I can. I hear my mom coming toward my room. 

“Jazmin-” my mom says before I interrupt her

“Jazelen” I interrupted her.

”I know. It’s hard, but we have to be strong, okay? Right now I need you to get up so we can go see your brother.” 

“Fine. Just get out of my room” I say. 

My mom smiles at me and leaves. I get up and go to the restroom. I look into the mirror and suddenly I feel like just dying right here. I start getting flashbacks of that day, January 3. My heart starts beating so fast, I fall to my knees and start to cry. I hate this day, I wish this day never existed. I wish I never got into that car. I look up and say “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But I need you, E.” Just then my mom comes in and sees me on the floor crying. She kneels down and says 

“Aw, Jazzy. Calm down please. It wasn’t your fault, okay. We all miss him so so much.” she says

“But I miss him more” I say “Mom, I need my best friend back.”

My mom starts to cry. “I need him, too. He was the strongest one out of all of us” she says with a laugh. “But hey remember what he would say, whatever we may do-”

I laugh “You’ll be there for me” 

“And he’ll be there for you” 

I start to cry a little and hug my mom the tightest I’ve hugged her in a while. After a while I let go of her and smile. 

“Go get ready, okay?” my mom says.

“Can I stay home? Pleasee.” I ask.

“Jaz, you know I can't do that. You’re going to school today, that’s it.”

I see my brother’s grave stone and let out a sigh. I get to his grave, and close my eyes tight. “Hi” I say very shaky and quietly. “I miss you, a lot. Um,” I don't want to be here right now. I can’t be here, it feels like I’m not welcome. Like I’m unworthy of it. I shouldn’t be here, I’m just not strong enough. A tear falls onto the ground, I turn around and go to the car. I open the door and sit down. 

“What’s wrong?” My mom says.

“I shouldn’t be here, I want to leave.” I say.

“Hey! Don’t say that! You have every right to be here.”

“I want to go home”

She looks at me and sees I’m about to cry, so she says “Fine. We can leave, but you're going to school.”

“Fine. Can we just go?”

“I need to put these flowers out for your brother”

She shuts the door and I hold my tears back as hard as possible. I see her putting down the roses on my brother's grave. My brother would hate those, my brother didn’t like roses. He said they were too overrated. He also didn’t really like red, his favorite color was blue. My favorite color is blue, too. I open the door and shout “MOM!”

“Okay, I’m done! We can leave now”

“You took really long, you said you just needed to put the flowers there. Putting flowers and saying a few words doesn’t take that long.”

“Jazmin-”

“Don’t call me that” I interrupt her

“Don’t call you what? Your name? The name me and your father gave you?”

“Your father and I” I correct her. She looks at me through the rearview mirror and rolls her eyes. 

“When did you become my tenth grade English teacher?”

“I actually like English, so I’ll take that as a compliment” 

My mom rolls her eyes at me. 

“Don’t roll your eyes at me young lady”

“Or what?”

I laugh, and my mom looks at me through the rearview mirror and smiles at me. I look out the window, it’s starting to rain. 

I love the rain. 

My brother loved the rain. 

I’m home and in my backyard. I go up to my old treehouse where my brother and I used to play. I wouldn’t have come here but my mom asked for some arts and crafts supplies and knew they were up here. I just need to find them. I go up to the treehouse and there are old blankets and pillows. There is a rug on the floor and pictures taped to the wall. My eyes fall on a box, there is a key dangling from it. What is that?

“It’s a memory box,” I whisper, still looking at the box. 

I remember that box

I inhale and exhale HARD. 

 I bring my hand around the box and bring it to me. I take the key and push it into the lock. I turn it and the lock plops open. I take off the lock.. I shouldn’t do this. I open the box and there is a little picture of me as a little girl and a little boy. There is another picture and it looks like me as a teenager with the same boy.  There is a notebook, I open it and a squished iris falls out. I put the iris back in the notebook and put the notebook down. There’s little things inside the box, stickers, toys, Disney and Knotts passes, airplane tickets. I put the box down and open to the first page of the notebook.

To Elias, 

I close the notebook. I remember this notebook. My brother… I feel so dumb for opening this. Why did I open this box? Why did I read this?  I open the notebook again and continue reading. 

To Elias, 

Today is Sunday, January 5, two days after you died. It’s been really hard these past two days, I got out of the hospital yesterday. I cried the heck out of my eyes yesterday, I cried this morning too.  This morning, meaning two p.m, I still haven’t gotten out of bed. Mom tried to come in but I locked the door. I haven’t eaten, haven’t showered, I’m still in my pajamas. I don’t know when I will be able to get out of bed. I don’t even know if after what happened I could ever get out of bed. I’m really sorry.. I should’ve never done that. If you were still here I know you’d be telling me it was your fault and you should’ve never let me do that but I begged you. It was my fault.

January 3, 2021 we were coming out of the house, smiling, laughing, it was a normal Saturday. It was starting to get cloudy and starting to sprinkle. I asked you if I could drive because I was learning and you said no. I begged you to drive. I told you if I drive you could see how good I was.  When you finally said yes I was so excited to show you how much I had learned. When I started driving you were impressed, I turned on my signal before I turned, checked my side and rear view mirror, I never passed the speed limit. We were turning to go on the freeway and you asked me if we wanted to trade places so you could drive the freeway. I told you no and that I had gone on the freeway before, but I forgot to tell you that I only went one time on the freeway with dad  and got off at the next exit. We were one mile into the freeway and I felt confident. You told me to go on the first lane which led to where we were going but was the farthest away from the exits. I went anyway, and when we got to the first lane it started to sprinkle a little harder. I was starting to worry because I was so far away from the exits and it was now raining. You asked if I was okay and I said yeah just never been on the freeway when it was raining. You told me if I wanted to get off at the next exit, but I said no because we were only ten minutes away from our destination. A semi truck was right next to the car and I freaked out even more. I had heard so many stories on car accidents getting hit by semi trucks and getting hurt BAD. You told me to calm down and switch lanes. So I turned on my signal and went to the last lane. You told me to get out on the next exit which happened to be the exit we were supposed to get out on. You told me I did good that we made it to the exit we were supposed to get out on and that place we were going to was just right around the corner.  “ Jazmin, Jazmin, IRIS!” Your last and final words. The words I now hate the most.  My name. My real name. Oh yeah I forgot to tell you, my name is Jazelen Sandoval. Not Jazmin Iris Sandoval. I know you picked my name and you loved it. I  know when someone dies you are supposed to support and honor everything they did, but the things you did remind me of you and when I get reminded of you I get reminded of what killed you. That car, your car. Me. After you called out my name I turned to face you and I saw a car driving straight towards us then everything went in slow motion. I could see when the car hit your side and the airbags fly out. That’s the last thing I remember seeing. When I opened my eyes your car was upside down. Your arm was cut and your body was being suffocated by the airbags. I remember hanging from the seatbelts, my airbag had popped because of the glass from the broken window.  I felt so weak but I needed to save you. You were losing blood and you couldn’t breathe because of the airbag. The people who crashed into us were bruised and cut, one of them unconscious. I could hear them talking and that’s when I saw a girl running toward me. She was screaming “call 911” and “Dad they’re hurt really bad, I can’t get them out there, the car is upside down and they have their seatbelts on”.  I remember she knelt down and asked if I was okay, but I didn’t care I was too weak to scream or do anything but I knew you were hurt more than me. I told her to help you first and she said okay panicking. She went to your side and screamed “Dad! There’s a boy and he’s losing a lot of blood. I can’t see his face because it is being blocked by the airbag. Dad, I don't think he can breathe.” I remember she was cut really badly from her arm, her dad was cut on his face and his shirt was ripped but his wife was unconscious so he was helping her first. But what I really admired about her was that she knew we were probably hurt more than they were and we were. She didn’t know what to do. She pushed the airbag and finally grabbed a piece of glass and cut it and I saw your face and lost consciousness. I remember hearing police and ambulance sirens. Hearing the girl screaming “come quickly and they are hurt really badly”. They were asking her more questions and I could feel them lifting and dragging us out of the car without hurting us more. I opened my eyes and they’re was a girl and she was asking me questions but I didn’t have time for that. I needed to know if my brother was okay. I know if he was awake he would have made sure I was okay. I asked her where you were and if you were okay and that I wanted you here with me. I was crying and she told me to calm down. I lost consciousness again. I woke up and it was January 4 2021, I woke up and  the doctor was there. He asked if I needed anything and told me I was safe and okay, but I didn’t care. I wanted to know if you were okay.  A few minutes later mom and dad came through the door and were so happy to see me and I was so happy to see my family too but I wanted to know if my best friend was okay. Then I asked mom where you were and if you were okay, and she told me you died yesterday, January 3. I cried. I screamed. I didn’t care how much it hurt to move around. I thought they were lying. I needed to see you. I needed to know if you were okay. I need to see you smile. I needed to know how I could go with you and be with you. I needed you. The moment I needed you the most was the day I lost you. The day I lost everything. My brother. My best friend. My partner. My role model. My inspiration. My everything. I lost myself that day, too.