He was born the October before her tenth birthday.

She thought he was the best thing in the world. Her mother had to stay home from work, to look after him, so she was at home much more than she had been before.

Not only this, but ten year old Brooke was over the moon that she had a little baby brother to fawn over.

She helped bathe him, and loved to read him to sleep. She would hold him when her mother wanted to go do something, coo at him, and blow raspberries on his little belly.

Then as he grew up, she would play with her toys with him, and play pretend. He would be her own child, and they would go to the shops and do all sorts of adult things together. She loved it.

He started to talk, and walk, and his little blonde curls grew into ringlets that bounced around his face.

The christmas before her twelfth birthday, when he was two, their parents planned to go away, get away from the workload that was so heavy on their shoulders.

A few days before they were scheduled to go, though, something came up with the company, some problem that meant their father was needed.

This ensued in a massive fight between him and their mother, over whether they should go without him or cancel the trip.

They went, miserably leaving their father behind, for the first christmas they wouldn't spend together.

It was the holiday that changed everything.

The kids were shipped off in the car with their mother. This was back before they had a driver, and their mother drove, complaining to Brooke the whole way down about her father, and how uncaring and inconsiderate he was.

James sat in the back, playing on the educational tablet he'd been given as an early christmas present from his dad. He had earphones in, and every so often, he would erupt in giggles from something funny on the screen. Brooke was trying to read a book she'd been given by her dad, about a fantasy world, but was mostly just listening to her mothers rants.

The drive was long, and tiresome, and by the time they arrived at the holiday house by the beach, the sun was setting, and James was asleep in the back.

"Leave him sleeping," Her mum had said to Brooke, "You can help me unpack the car before we wake him."

So they took the few bags they had and brought them into the little house, before pulling a tired little boy from his car seat, and bringing him inside.

Then their mother started dinner, and for a little while, everything seemed okay. Brooke was overjoyed at the fact the house was so close to the ocean, and was already daydreaming about seeing mermaids, and swimming through the sea with them.

Everything seemed okay.

Then, after their mother had served up a dinner of ravioli, and they were almost done, little James put his plastic toddler fork down and said, with a mouth full of pasta, "I wish that Daddy were here."

And those words seemed to shatter the peaceful atmosphere they were surrounded by.

Their mother sighed. "I know, darling. I do too."

Brooke suddenly felt a shift. As though nothing would be the same again. She didn't know why she felt it, or thought that. But she did. And it scared her.

The next day, the feeling was still resting there, in the pit of her stomach. Trying to ignore it, she just pulled on her swimmers, rubbed some sunscreen onto her bare skin, and pushed the feeling aside as she ran into crashing waves.

They spent most of the day at the beach, or in and out of the cabin. James would play in the sand, building sandcastles or digging holes, or he would wear floaties and splash in the shallow water.

Their mother sat in the sun on the balcony of the cabin, or laid on a towel at the top of the sand. She was always watching them.

In the afternoon, Brook went swimming in the bigger waves with James, the toddler wearing a bright yellow lifejacket. He was a good swimmer. Their mum had been taking him to mums and bubs classes since he was little, and he had pretty strong legs.

Brooke thought he could probably swim by himself, and the lifejacket just kept getting in the way, so, waiting for a moment when her mother wasn't fully paying attention, she unclipped the yellow jacket and took it off him, holding him steady above the water. He squealed in delight and laughed loudly, kicking and splashing at her face. She giggled back, and for a moment, it seemed fine.

Then their mother saw them.

"Brooke Keller, you get that lifejacket back on your brother this instant! He's too little, he's not strong enough!" She was furious, and Brooke quickly put the lifejacket back around James, and brought him back in to shore. James looked upset that his mother had gotten mad.

"I'm big, mum. Don't get mad at Brookie." He had said, grumpily.

Their mother had just shook her head. "Dry off and come inside, you two."

With that, she disappeared back into the cabin, and Brooke heaved James onto her hip, and trudged back up the beach.

The next day was just like the last, but the waves were bigger, and a storm was brewing on the horizon.

In the morning, they went out, to a movie theatre nearby, and watched some cliche animated kids movie that Brooke hated, and James found boring.

Their mother was in a sour mood, because she kept getting calls from the company, and her husband, for help with problems.

By the time they got back to the house, the waves were huge, and the sky was rolling with clouds.

"Can I go for a quick swim, mum?" Brooke had asked, to which her mother just waved her away nodding.

"I wanna go too! Can I go swimming, mummy?" James asked.

Their mother shook her head. "No, James, the waves are too dangerous. Brooke, don't go out too far, either. I'll watch from inside, I have to do some papers for daddy."

James was upset that he couldn't swim, but knew that his mother in this mood was not one to argue with. So Brooke got into her swimming costume, and James collected his bucket of sand toys, and they went out to the beach, while their mother got stuck into some paperwork for the company.

James grumpily plopped himself down away from the water and watched as Brooke ran into the surf, laughing as the waves hit her. Within seconds, she was diving under, jumping over, and swimming through the waves, letting herself feel each like an amusement park ride, lifting her up, and then down again like a roller coaster.

She took a deep breath, then slipped underneath the water, and looked up, through the blue, at the light streaming blurry through the water. She felt the waves move around her, felt the ocean lift her up and down, but felt nothing else.

Underneath the water, she lost all thoughts of her mother's anger, or the fact that her father had left them behind, or rather the other way round. Under the water, she just floated, and everything seemed blurry and out of focus.

She felt at peace.

Eventually, her lungs started to squeeze, so she rose back to the air. The moment she broke the surface of the water, she felt as though everything had changed. The clouds were truly rumbling above her, menacing, and the waves around her seemed to be growing.

She decided it was too dangerous to be in the water anymore, so she headed to the beach. As she rose out of the water on the wet sand, she looked around for James.

He was no where to be seen.

She frowned, looking to the red sandcastle bucket, and where all of his things were. He wasn't there.

Worry set into her, and she looked back to the cabin. "Mum! Is James with you??" She shouted, and her mother rose from her chair, confusion etched across her face.

That was when the panic started to set in.

Desperately, Brooke scanned the beach, further down, both ways. There was no trace of him. Her heart filled with dread, she had looked to the waves, the roaring, raging waves, that seemed to have grown even fiercer in the few seconds she was out of the water.

Her eyes scanned the water, her heart racing, thinking of James upset yesterday, when her mother had said he wasn't strong enough.

"No, no, no, no..." Brooke started to mutter, the worst thoughts and fears rising to her mind.

"Brooke! In the water! over there!" She heard her mother scream, and looked to where she was pointing, to where a faint red could be seen through the crashing of the waves.

A red like the christmas shirt James had been wearing.

Brooke ran, tears blurring her vision, furious fear, and desperate hope rising in her chest.

The closer she got the more she could make of his little body, being flipped and jerked in the waves. She dove in, and swam as hard as she could, salt and seawater invading her senses as she swam to the little boy.

She pulled him from the ocean, lifted his face to the air, and desperately swam him into shore.

Her mother was running down to them, phone to her ear, talking to an emergency operator. "My daughter has just pulled him from the waves, he's unconscious, please send help as soon as possible." Brooke heard her say as she climbed frantically from the waves.

Brooke didn't pay attention to the rest, she just carried his limp, cold, little body onto the dry sand and lay him down, brushing his wet curls from his face. He had blood on his forehead, a graze of some sort, from being scraped against the sand.

Brooke realised that he wasn't breathing and tried desperately to remember what she knew about resuscitation.

Then her mother was there, yelling. "Go get help, Brookie! Go to the other houses, find help! The ambulance won't be fast enough! We need to save him!"

So she ran off, to the other beach houses, the space holiday houses that lined the unpatrolled beach. She tried to do all she could, but no one was home.

By the time the ambulance arrived, it was too late. Her gorgeous little brother, the baby boy with the bright blue eyes, had drowned.

He was dead, and it was all her fault.