She had been running away, but when she saw the ocean, she couldn't help but go down to rest for a while.

It was a beautiful morning for sitting there, and the man a few feet from her was making it even more so by playing his guitar. She listened for a while and was utterly amazed.

The girl didn't know who Jackie was, she didn't even know Jackie was his name. If she did she might question things a little more, she might say to him that she once had a big brother named Jackie. Things might have happened that would change the rest of their lives.

As she watched, she started to love him, not as a lover of course. This was something she couldn't quite place, but she knew that it was normal to love him, natural. She should.
She just didn't know why.

He sang of beautiful moons far away where this world can't touch him. He sang of wasting away in the most glorious forests, or burning up on luminous ice planets.

Jackie had a sister once, when he was very young. Her name was Leonie.
They used to play hide and seek all the time and make castles out of play-doh. They had ice cream fights in the summer and in the winter they built kingdoms out of snow.

But when Jackie was fourteen and Leonie was twelve, something happened.
Something bad.

A stranger took Leonie away, one day when they were at the park. He took her away and they never saw her again.
He did things to her that would shatter even the most brave people, and Leonie, while very brave for her age, was still only twelve.
He raped her. He raped her body, her heart, and her life.

Boy, if Jackie had the slightest idea of, he would kill that vile man, he would have made him pay. Of course he would have, Jackie loved his sister to no end, he would have died for her, and that man took her away.

The girl near the ocean sits and listens to Jackie, and she smiles to herself, trying to place his voice. She knows she's heard it somewhere before. And she's been locked up for five years, recognizing his voice means she must have heard it long ago. But she still doesn't know. She hasn't figured it out.

They don't know it, but they are brother and sister.
Leonie stares at her brother, five years older, and she doesn't get it. She can't place his voice.

If Jackie looked over, he would know, He'd spent hours handing out pictures of her when she went missing, and even though Leonie's face was completely different, he'd remember her if he looked into her pale green eyes.
Even if part of her was almost completely lost, Jackie would find it.

Leonie could go up to him. She could tell him her name, they could recognize each other for who they were. Leonie could explain where she had been for the last five years, and Jackie could tell her she was right to run from that sick man.
Leonie could have felt the warm, safe feeling that only a brother can give.

Or she could stay where she was and watch him, wait for him to come to her, as he surely would have. Jackie could sense his sister, he just didn't know what the feeling was.

But Leonie did neither, instead, she left. Unknowingly walking away from her brother who was singing of his childhood.

She didn't follow her heart, her heart that was screaming at her to turn around. Because she just didn't trust it anymore, not after that horrible man messed with it.

But the fact remains that both of them were at the ocean today.

And both let the other slip gently away...