Let Me Walk In Your Shoes- Chapter 3

Chapter 3

When I first moved into town when I was five, mum had taken me around the buildings and houses, pointing out each one of them and saying things like how I should remember the streets so that I don’t get lost. My good memory was brought to work. In a few years’ time, I had remembered almost everything. When we were eight, our parents had gotten us to walk ourselves to our first week of Sunday children’s church service. They entrusted me to know the way to and fro and had told Luke to follow me. I was delighted to be given such a big responsibility but Luke did not see it as something to be proud of, to which I grunted at before leaving him behind in the church after the service.

Luke, who obviously did not share the same good memories and direction sense as me, was lost as soon as he stepped out of church.

Mr. Brookes was the one who sent Luke home that afternoon. Luckily, our parents were out so I did not get scolded for leaving my brother back at the church. Luke was red-faced when I opened the door and Mr. Brookes, being clueless about Luke’s decreasing pride, told me that Luke was lost and was panicking when he was found looking around the church, about to break down in tears. I teased my brother for a whole week after that.

My parents became good friends with Mr. Brookes throughout the years because of our weekly visits to the church. He had been invited to dinner at our house a couple of times and had always brought delicious snacks for me and Luke. After hearing him talking to my parents about his early years of being a history teacher in Paris, I had asked him to help with my history homework a few times. He was the best teacher I had ever had and I looked up to him. I had quite enjoyed the two times of being in his body, looking through his large collection of the books on Ancient Rome.

When I was fifteen, I had learnt that he had never been married before and still lives a single life by himself in his house close to the church.

“Mr. Brookes, why have you never married someone?” I asked him one afternoon when he helped proofread my assignment on medicines that were used in the ancient times. He stopped reading and looked up from the laptop.

“I never intended to,” his words sounded like they were carefully chosen.

“Hmm,” I put my hands on my cheeks and leaned on the desk with my elbows, “Why not?”

“Well, I've never had those types of feelings for someone, I guess. I once kind of liked this lady, but things kept us apart and we just never got a chance.”

I sat up. “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

He scratched his head, “It’s alright. I didn't see a future in us anyway. It was not like a crush, I figured that I looked up to her than liking her in more than a friendly way.”

The thing I liked about Mr. Brookes was that he talked like a teenager, which made it a whole lot easier to talk to him. Even though he is around the same age as my parents, he is way more fun than the old folks I live with.