Seeing You Seeing Me

His Perserverance

Brent and I would continuously take Riley out most days. She started to smile more and she always talked about everything outside.
Riley's legs were quite weak because of the cancer, but we ended up getting her to go skating. We lifted her out of her wheelchair and we helped her walk a bit. She tried holding on to Stanley and walking. She wasn't terrible at it.
So we rented skates and Brent tied them on her feet. We then took Stanley and pushed him on to the ice.
Brent and I held up Riley in the middle of us and basically carried her. But she felt like she was free and she was skating.
"I'm doing it Brent!" She yelled happily.
And Brent looked at me. And we caught eyes for a few minutes. I thought time had slowed down because all I could see was his face shining bright.

We took Riley to the local marketplace. Brent held up a pineapple to his head.
"Riley? Where are you? I'm stuck in a pineapple!"
She would giggle and grab an apple and put it up to her face, her mask still attached to her face, and mock Brent.
"What should we buy to bring home to mom, Riley?" I asked her.
"Can we get some broccoli? I love broccoli."
"You love broccoli?" Brent asked.
"I do," she laughed. "I know most people don't like it, but it's really good."
"Oh, we should also make a fruit salad!" I suggested. So we pushed Riley to pick out any fruit she wanted.
The best part was that Riley was having the time of her life. Her smile was bigger than I had ever seen it. Her eyes looked less tired. And she was making jokes and laughing with Brent.
With Brent.
It was funny, because Brent wasn't the kind of guy that would hang out with little girls with cancer and joke about fruit.
What about when he would stand by the school and vape? Or look into the library and laugh? Or when he would walk down the hallway with a discontent look on his face. In a way, I missed the side that made me so interested in him. But it seemed like when he was with my sister and I, he was a new person. He was filled with love an happiness. He tried to make jokes and he would jump around dancing. My sister was putting a new hope into him. It changed him for the better. He had perseverance to help Riley and make sure she was living her life to the fullest. And Riley didn't truly know it, but I didn't think it was easy for Brent to do it. It wasn't easy for him to tell himself that he was going to do this, just because some girl that stared at him in school had a dying sister.
Maybe, in a way, Brent was interested in me as well. And that's why he decided that doing this was worth it.
"Alex, do you have the money?" Brent said, holding the basket of fruit, filled with bananas, peaches, and green apples.
"Yeah, sorry," I said, and pulled some bills out of my pocket.