I’ve known Jake and Ayden since I was born, their mother was my mother’s best friend and the pair had been inseparable since they had met in their freshman English class at Infinity High School, home of the Titans. Our mothers had married their high school sweethearts in their final year of college, and had been each other’s maid of honor at their weddings. Halli, mom’s best friend, had been the first to get pregnant, two years after graduating, giving birth to a healthy baby boy, Jake.
Jake had been two when Ayden was born, three when I came along, and had always looked after both of us as we grew up. My mom has pictures of Jake and Ayden snuggled close at the hospital Ayden was born in, and later on, pictures of him squashed between year old Ayden, and new born me, his face a happy, toothy, gleeful glow.
I can’t imagine what my childhood would have been like without them. They were my best friends, my adopted brothers, my protectors. Even though Jake and Ayden were older than me, it never affected us. We shared each other’s secrets and dreams, spent summers at my parents’ beach house in California, and winters at their parents’ cabin up near the mountains in our home state of Washington.
For my fifteenth birthday, they gave me a green leather-bound scrapbook filled with pictures of us together. My favorite picture, an old faded photograph of us when Ayden and I were toddlers; Jake was in elementary school already, at the summer beach house was glued and bordered onto the cover.
The sun was lit up behind us, making the ocean sparkle and our young faces glow like we were angels. My long, beach sanded hair looked aflame because of my red locks, and the sun’s rays reflected off of Ayden and Jake’s glossy black hair. Our arms are around each other’s necks, Jake in the middle with Ayden and I resting our heads against each side of his. I love that picture because it seems to capture our very souls. Each time I look at it, it keeps me believing that I can achieve anything I set my heart to.
Even though as I was growing up I had Ayden and Jake, I always asked my mother for another baby. I was kind of jealous of the fact that they were never out of each other’s company, which meant they had a stronger bond then all three of us together.
“What if I have another girl, and you have to share your toys?” My mom used to reply to my pleads.
I’d reply by sitting in contemplation before answering, “When she comes, I’ll be too big for those toys anyway mommy.”
She’d smile and shake her head before explaining to me that I was already perfect, and they didn’t need another baby.
Yet, two years after the picture of Ayden, Jake, and I at the beach was taken, my baby sister Lilly came into the world.
I remember waiting in the lobby while my mom was in labor and I wasn’t anxious or nervous like the adults were, just simply bored. I didn’t understand what the heck was taking so long, and why everybody was twitchy. Being five, I had thought that babies just appeared and my mother’s belly would just magically flatten again, job done.
I’d walked into the delivery room after my mom had given birth, and I had to cover my ears. My baby sister was just so loud! My excitement had left with that very scream, and I definitely didn’t want that thing coming home with us while it screamed out it’s lungs like that, no I did not. It took a few minutes for her to quiet down, and I finally got to hold her.
I instantly fell in love, my baby sister was so small and pink in my big girl arms, and I didn’t want to give her back after she looked at me with those big sleepy golden eyes.
Needless to say, our three-some had indefinitely become a four-some.