Sometimes I spend my Saturday nights babysitting my younger brother and his best friend. Most nights I’m up and about- searching frantically for them as they run blissfully around the house. These nights are usually… special.

“Hey, I can’t imagine life without you guys.” He tells me one night after my younger brother leaves to the bathroom.

“Really?” I say, slightly amused and slightly honored.

“Yeah, life would be so boring without you”

You see, my brother’s friend is soul searching. Not in that life partner kind of way. He’s only 8. Yet his voice speaks with such confliction, confusion, and most of all: the desire to belong. I witness the uncertainty in his eyes. Where he used to belong- is no more. He visits his father every other weekend, and back at home the weekdays fly by. Naturally, he was a reclusive individual. Prior to meeting us he would curl up within corners, and submit to the rushing flow of emotions. He withdrew from conversations; it became difficult for him to reside his faith once again.

“I’m not sure what I would do without you guys” he adds on.

When I pray, I pray for the repealing of my sins. Of course it’s a foolish idea- expecting a metaphysical force to revoke the immoral actions I’ve committed. It’s difficult to conjure up. I mean did my presence bring light to his life, or was I being awoken to a newer, deeper connection of feeling?

He says, “I love you…” and pauses.

I’m not quite sure if I believe in god. It’s quite a daunting matter. Yet somehow his next move instilled years worthy of value that devotion could never emulate.

I am lying next to him on the rug. He turns to me and since years, I have never endured such emotional tension. His eyes deem precocious. His face calls upon the intensity of which only a brother would know.

I replicate, mimicking his motion. I now lay parallel to him.

He reaches over and binds his hand across my back, whispering gently in my ear, “Don’t ever leave me”