The Road Less Travelled By

Chapter 1

I’ll start with this- My parents received me as a surprise and on November 25 1995, I was born at 5 pound 1 ounce at the Royal Women’s and Brisbane Hospital. I’ve spent my life growing up in a loving family and when I was six, missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints knocked on our door. My parents were baptised and when I turned 8 I was too. There are four of us- me, dad, mum and my little sister Laura.

I met Liam through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he and his family moved from Richlands to Brisbane. We were thirteen years old at the time and teased each other a lot. I got made fun of for my astounding shortness and him for his likeness to a giant. Even at 13 he was extremely tall.

He had an air of superiority that made me dislike him at first, but really, it was a façade. He’s very intelligent and makes the stupidest and funniest jokes of all time. Give him a chance and he’ll be your mate for life. He’s very unafraid to put himself out there and he likes to make people smile and feel better about themselves and he has one of the best work ethics of anyone I’ve ever known, though at times he runs himself to the ground.

Liam basically became my best friend roughly around June 2011. It was just that one day, quite easily, we clicked and everything became as simple as breathing. 

Regan is a sixteen year old from Kennewick, Washington in the United States of America who moved here in August 2011. I saw her, and automatically knew I would love her until the day I die. Regan was delivered to me in a time when I knew that I was going to need someone new, who knew. She was bought to me after having grown up in very harsh circumstances. Her childhood was robbed from her, and so coming to Australia has given her the chance to blossom and to experience what she never had. To be a normal sixteen year old girl.

When I first met Regan, and she can’t stop me saying this, she would not take compliments at all, in fact for a while I wondered if she knew what they were. Now, almost a year on, she smiles and says thankyou and while there is still a long way to go before they really get to her, she is taking them in. One by one, which is really all it takes.

We are as close as can be, and only of late realised that soon we will need to come to terms with the proximity of our future. In a few months all three of us will quickly have to take on the roll of adults, grow up, and begin to take care of ourselves. Regan and Liam both graduate high school at the end of this year, while I continue on with one year to go. From here, we separate. Literally separate.

Liam will follow his family to Perth were his father is currently working, Regan will head back to Kennewick to begin her life again, by herself, and I will be stuck here. Watching life pass me by and wishing that I could pick up my life and leave too.

It does sound incredibly selfish but look at it from their perspective for a second. Both Liam and Regan will pick up and leave and probably never come back to Brisbane. This is their home. Regan finally got what she needed here, and Liam has lived most of his teenage life here. There is nothing special in this city, or in this state in fact, nothing that will aid their futures. There is nothing here but the best years of our lives. Our memories and each other.  Now look at it from my perspective; I have no money, no way to escape, and the only reasons I really pay attention to the monotone of my daily routine is because they are in it.

Believe me, I have been presented with many opportunities to escape but all of them leave the country before Regan and Liam leave. My first option was a school trip to Africa, but it leaves at the end of the school year and gets back just before Christmas in which time Regan will be back in the United States. The second is an exchange to Japan next year. This seems perfectly fine, and it is, and it will allow me to feel like I’m getting somewhere. However, my father has a few… restrictions. Namely, I’d have to go at the end of this year for a taste before I spent a semester there. That means missing both Liam and Regan’s planes. Not to mention going on exchange for a semester puts me behind in the requirements for graduation next year.

At the moment, nothing seems like it will work for me to see them again or even just get away from this place. I love my city, really I do, but there is too much of it infected with them. It’s plagued with memories of getting lost and catching late buses and trains. Its very buildings reek of the secrets we shared and memories made.

What I’ll miss most though? Breakfast on seminary mornings with Regan, parties and gatherings at Liam’s where it was him and me as the only ones left and sitting out on the deck while we discussed our fathers being away for work. Or even before that when my dad couldn’t get a job.

I’ll miss Regan playing piano every Tuesday night, or the way her brother Jensen made her laugh so hard she cried. I’ll miss Liam driving all of us out to Toowoomba to see Harley and his family. I’ll miss watching them wrestle like brothers, with their brothers.  

I’ll miss spending Saturday nights with Regan and having to call her mum to come pick me up from work because my family forgot.  I’ll miss Liam playing ukulele at every possible moment. I’ll miss dances and late night drives home from Karawatha in the X-Trail.  

It seems barely possible to say goodbye but as the weeks progress and we learn even more about each other its looks impossible. But you know what I’m scared of the most? I’m scared of forgetting even the smallest moment we had something together. The smallest moment our minds worked in perfect harmony.

I’m petrified of forgetting my brother and my sister.