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You don’t know Sabre’s leaving until he’s already almost gone.
You didn't realize Sabre could leave until this exact moment. He’s your older brother, your role model in everything from manners to vocabulary to clothing style. You realize now that he could have left at any time – after all, most people start college at 18, not 21 – but that only sinks in once it’s too late. You only fully realize it when you’re standing in the hallway of your house, staring at the suitcases and wondering how you missed it before.
You’re so caught up in your thoughts that you don’t notice Sabre approaching from behind you until he speaks.
“Hey, Hussar,” he says, ruffling your hair. You used to love the nickname – a shortened form of “Hussar Sabre”, that being a type of miniature sabre (a Polish one, sure, but nevertheless). No one else calls you a mini sabre except for Sabre, and you always thought of it as the highest compliment. The sort of nickname only given to the best of little sisters.
Now, you can only think that you don’t want to be a miniature Sabre if it means leaving someone who loves you.
When you don’t respond, Sabre steps around in front of you, crouching down slightly to be on the same level as you. You’re getting closer to his height every day, but you aren’t quite there yet. You look to the side and down, refusing to meet his gaze.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asks, sounding worried. You gesture listlessly to the suitcases, and he makes a noise of understanding. “Oh, you’re upset that I’m leaving. It’s okay, Hussar. You don’t have to worry. I’ll be back, alright? It’ll be less than six months, and you can call me whenever you want to. Sound good?”
He smiles reassuringly, ruffling your hair again. You don’t smile back.
“It’s show time,” you mumble, hoping he at least remembers that.
“I know, Hussar. I know. We’ll just have to save it for when I get back, yeah?” You nod, not really caring about the show the two of you are watching together. You just want to find a way to get him to stay.
“I’ll be nine when you get back,” you try. “You said you’d be here for my birthday.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t know how this would line up. I’ll bring you a present, though. A nice one, to make up for not being there. And I will definitely make it to your tenth birthday. Okay? I can’t miss double digits!”
You nod again. You can’t think of any other way to convince him to stay. So you stand there silently, thinking and thinking and trying to come up with a solution to a problem you never thought you’d have to worry about. He said he’d be there with you forever, and now you’re wondering what other things he lied about.
Before you can say anything else, Sabre checks his watch and frowns. “I’m sorry, I need to start moving these to the car. Wanna help?”
“If I don’t, will it be longer until you leave?”
Sabre laughs.
You exhale, unsmiling.
Today’s the day. After months and months of waiting, Sabre’s finally returning from college. You’ve called him practically every day since he left, and you can’t wait to actually see him again.
You haven’t been able to do anything all day. You’ve just been sitting around, waiting for the keys to jangle in the lock and your older brother to step in the door. He’s bringing someone, he said – one of his friends, you think, but possibly a girlfriend. Either way, you won’t have him to yourself, which is a bit off-putting. But, regardless, you get to see your older brother today, and you’ve never been more excited.
Finally, at around two in the afternoon, you hear a car pulling into the driveway. There's the telltale sound of his broken platform boots clopping up the driveway, followed by prolonged jangling as he struggles to find the correct key, as always. You don’t wait for him to find it. You jump up and run to the door, unlocking it and flinging it open.
“Sabre!” you shout, launching yourself at him in a hug.
He laughs, hugging you back. “Hey, Hussar! How’s it going?”
“I beat your level!”
“Oh, no way! The one I made for you? Expert-plus?!” You nod proudly. Not even Sabre could complete that level on Beatsaber; not on expert-plus mode. “That's great! How long ago?”
You glow with pride from the stunned and awestruck tone in his voice, face still buried in his chest. “Almost two months ago. I wanted to surprise you!”
“Well, you’ve certainly surprised me! Wanna show off for me and Cat?”
You realize, then, that there’s another person, a girl, standing slightly behind Sabre. You step back, blushing, and smile at her.
“Hi,” you say shyly, eyes on the ground. “Sorry.”
“Oh, you’re fine,” the girl, presumably Cat, says with a laugh. She turns slightly and looks at Sabre. “Introductions?”
“Oh, right! Cat, this is my little sister – you know, Hussar. Hussar, this is my girlfriend, Catherine.”
“Everyone calls me Cat,” Sabre’s girlfriend adds.
You nod silently. Suddenly, you’re not as excited to be with Sabre as you have been. He’s brought someone new with him – someone who knows you as Hussar, which is Sabre’s nickname for you and Sabre’s only. And Cat doesn’t even have a sword nickname! What happened to Sabre nicknaming his eventual girlfriend after some type of sword? The two of you could talk about that potential nickname for hours and not get bored. And yet, here’s Cat, who knows your sword name and doesn’t even have one of her own. And, from peeking around Sabre’s shoulder, you can see that he didn’t even bring any of his actual swords back with him! He promised you he would, and that he’d have a new one to show off by winter break, but it seems that that’s just another broken promise now.
Before you can gather the words to say any of this, though, your and Sabre’s mom pushes past you in the door to say her hellos and introductions. You slip away quietly to your room.
It’s going to be a long, depressing few weeks.
“Yo,” Sabre’s voice echoes from the speaker on your phone. “Congratulations, you found me, good job.” The words are delivered flatly, which used to amuse you to no end. Now, hearing them makes you want to cry. “Except I’m not here,” the prerecorded message continues. “Leave a message if it’s important, text me if it’s not. Or reverse it, or whatever. Email, Discord, you’ll find some way to reach me. Probably.”
The message cuts off, and you start talking. “Hey, Sabre. You said you’d be here. I thought you were planning on being here. Double digits, remember?” You stop and take a breath. When you resume talking, your voice is shaky. You hope he won’t notice. (If he ever hears the message.) “But you won’t even pick up the phone. I know it’s too late for you to be in class. I know you didn’t get a new phone number, you texted mom five minutes ago. Are you just ignoring me?” You inhale shakily, trying to sound like you’re not about to cry, and probably failing miserably. “Please call me back. Or just text me. Email, Discord, any sort of thing.” You almost laugh at your own joke. Almost. “Whenever you can. I miss you. I know you were just here a couple months ago, but I miss you.” You consider carefully.
“I still love you,” you whisper finally. “But I don’t know if you still love me.”
You hang up, for the thirty-first time today.
You aren’t sure if you want him to come back home anymore.
The voicemail from Sabre is either the best or worst thing you’ve ever gotten. You can’t decide which yet. So, you play it again.
“I’m coming home,” he starts, with no preamble. That’s not right, it’s not nearly in his character, but you ignore it. You just simply don’t care anymore. “Today. Tonight. Tomorrow. I don’t know when. I’m leaving as soon as I can, though. I can’t stay here. Tell Mom I’m sorry I wasted her money. I won’t leave again. It was a bad idea.”
The end is as abrupt as the beginning. It makes you nervous. You don’t know what’s going on, haven’t been able to puzzle it out through dozens of listens, haven’t gotten him to pick up his phone. He hasn’t read your texts about it. You don’t even know why he reached out to you instead of your mom directly.
You hope he’s changed in the months since winter break, but you know better than to count on it.
As you start the message for the billionth time, you hear a car in the driveway, and shoes on the sidewalk. It can’t be Sabre, though – his broken platform boots make a distinct thunk-clap, thunk-clap, thunk-clap pattern as the back half smacks into the separated front half. It must be a delivery driver or something. You don’t bother getting up from the couch.
But then keys jangle in the lock. Someone fumbles them, and then the door swings open. It is Sabre. You can't decide whether you should laugh or cry, so you do neither. You simply stand, staring.
“Hey, Hussar,” Sabre says, crossing the room and enveloping you in a hug.
But it’s not a Sabre hug.
He’s too short. He has regular tennis shoes on, and you’ve grown since you last saw him. The top of your head comes up to his nose, now, not his shoulder, how it’s supposed to. His arms are loose around you, as well, whereas he always used to squeeze you until you could barely breathe. And the smell is all off. He smells like alcohol and cigarettes and something else that you can’t quite name but that you know is completely and utterly wrong.
This is not Sabre you’re hugging.
Not anymore.
“You smell like Dad,” you mumble, arms limp at your sides.
He steps back, frowning. “Don’t say that, Hussar.”
“I’m not your Hussar anymore, Samuel,” you tell him sharply. The name feels strange to say. You’ve never called him Samuel before – it was Sammy, first, when you were two or three, then Sabre, once you were old enough to be in awe of his massive collection of swords.
He physically recoils at that, looking hurt. “I- I don’t-”
“You smell like Dad, and you’re too short, and you aren’t hugging me how you’re supposed to hug me, and you’re just- you’re different. You aren’t my Sabre anymore. Sabre left before I turned nine.”
“Look, I’m sorry I missed your birthday,” he tries, but you refuse to give in that easily.
“You missed more than my birthday. You missed three birthdays! I’m not your little Hussar anymore, Samuel. I’m eleven now. And I know you don’t want to know that, but it’s the truth.”
He stands there, dead silent. Then: “I’m sorry, Molly.”
And, like that, you know he’s done. He’s done arguing, he's done trying to fit himself back into Sabre when he’s just Samuel. You wanted him to fight, to try and makes things better, but you realize just as he does that he can never return to being your Sabre. He knows he made a mistake. He can’t tell just how many mistakes he made, and neither can you, but he knows there were many.
And you know the answer to your question from earlier.
Sabre's return would be the best thing to ever happen to you, but Samuel’s return is the worst.
You don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
So you turn your back on Samuel and run.