I lie down in my empty flat. Scrunched up pieces of paper in my hands. I was too late.
A year too late.
I don't cry. I never knew my sister properly. But I feel like I'm going to cry. The hope that I had finally found a living relative had crumbled away for definite.

To think that just an hour ago when I first made that call, I was a right at rain. I didn't think that anything could get in the way of me finding my sister. Well here I am now, the cold floor against my bare arms. How wrong I could have been. Six years of searching and this is what I get back.

'How did this all start?'. You're probably wondering.

Well it's not that much of a complicated story. My father passed a few years ago,when I was fourteen. I went to live with my Dads best friend, who, coincidently was the mother of one of my best friends Maria.
I got along with their family just fine, but no matter what we went through together, I still felt like I was a friend to them and nothing more.

Ever since high school I clung to the faint memory that would change my life. The reminder that there was hope for me, to finally have some proper siblings. The vision I would recall often, me, as a child, sitting with my mother before she left me and my dad, a pink bundle of blankets being cradled in her arms as I lay my small head on her shoulder. Inside the blankets, a red chubby face was peering out at me, my sister barely a year old, but my sister all the same.

She was nearly a year old when my mother took off with her and I never saw either of them again. I never gave up looking though. I didn't want to find my mother who left me. It was her choice to leave, but it's wasn't my sisters. I guess finally after all these years of searching, from contact books to library computers, I found her details. I remember waiting eagerly as the dial tone rang down the other end, my mind sorting through the possibilities of how our conversation would go.

Would she be amazed?
Would I surprise her?
Would there be tears shed and promises made?
Maybe an 'I've been looking for you too! Nat, is that really you?'

I was the one who was surprised.

Hello ? Hello? Who is this?

I couldn't believe at the time, someone had picked up. It was a man. Boyfriend maybe? Step father? I swallowed and found the right words to say, just like I had rehearsed.

"Umm hi. I'm Nathaniel Benjamin Cameron-Diaz. I am looking for my sister. Her name would be Lillian Rose Diaz. Umm that's assuming my mother got rid of the 'Cameron' part of her name..."

I held my breath and waited for a reply.
There was an awkward silence down the phone.

Did you say you were a Cameron-Diaz young boy?

I felt my heart race speed up, and nodded. Then remembered he couldn't see down the phone and replied breathlessly.

"Yes."

Another long silence.

I'm sorry boy, Lily Diaz is dead.

Oh. No. No. No. No.
I've come to far.
Six years I've been looking! I can't be let down now! Not now! Just no. No. No. No.

"No."

I slapped my hand over my mouth realising I had said that out loud.

Sorry boy but is the truth... Lily and her family got in a very nasty accident. She and your mother Sumi are dead. I'm very sorry son.

I had no idea what to say. I felt my heart sink and lump rise in my throat. But I didn't cry. I never knew them.

"Oh... it's okay. I .. I'm sorry for wasting your time."

I was about to hit the end call button when the mans voice called out.

Wait! Listen boy, I know this ain't any good news, but I can give you the site of their burial, maybe you'd like to see them there and pay your respects to them? It's just a suggestion, I know this is not what you wanted to hear.

Somehow though, it was more comforting than not knowing where my sisters grave was at all. I guess I could finally go see her, even if it wasn't how I wanted.

"Uhh sure! Let me grab my pen and paper."

And so here I am now. The paper with the address to the graveyard my sister is buried in scrunched up in my hand as I held it tight to my chest. I needed to go see her. My baby sister. Lillian. What a lovely name that would have been. I felt sad and empty. I never had her, so I couldn't grieve her loss.

I wonder what she looked like. How had she evolved from that blanket bundle she was when I last saw her. She would be about sixteen now. Would she have gotten my mother pale skin like me? Did she have the traditional family brown eyes, or something weird like my stone grey ones. She probably had a few freckles under her eyes and across the bridge of her nose. She would have gotten those from my dad like me. We would probably have the same light curly brown hair, small lips and curl to our eyelashes.
I would never know.

My best friend Maria would want to know if I had found her or not. So would Dean...
But I really didn't know if I could pick up the phone and face them right now. I sat up off the floor holding the ball of paper in my hands. I walked over to the messy desk by my cramped bed and unscrunched it, smoothing out the corners and laying the paper down carefully.

The grave yard Lily and my mother were buried in couldn't have been more than a few stops on the bus away. I guess when my mother died she wanted to be buried near to her old home. I took a seat on the desk and pulled another sheet of paper out and began to write down a list of flowers I should buy to put by her grave. I crossed of the ones I didn't want till I came to the conclusion I should get her roses. Starts things off simple.

I got up groggily and dragged myself to my bed where I promptly fell upon my mattress. I pulled sheets around me and listened to the silence in my small flat. What a horrid January. I suppose I'll be spending tomorrow by my sisters grave.