your cousin Breno begins collecting garbage. He rips the wrapper off your Sprite bottle, drains the brine from your Pickle-in-a-Pouch and keeps them, temporarily, in a plastic bag he carries wherever he goes. He transfers everything to the binder…
“When You’re Fourteen” is about how we remember the people we’ve lost, either through death or by simply growing up and apart. At least, it’s about how I remember them. I am only thirty, but already some of the most meaningful relationships from my childhood have been distilled down to three or four fuzzy half-memories. I can remember only the rough shape of conversations in basements or teenage bedrooms. I frequently forget names and faces. I have to try very hard to remember any of my high school teachers.
Other things, though, arrive in crisp detail. The way Mateus pronounced “Hoboken.” Emily’s cakey makeup and the octopus rings we bought in Chinatown. Why do I remember these seemingly meaningless things? Why can I not remember my senior prom, but everything about our meal at the Times Square McDonald’s directly afterwards? And why do I come back to these memories as I peel potatoes?
In this story, I wanted to capture these opposing qualities of my memory through a fragmented history of cousin Breno. Some sections are short. Others are longer and rendered in greater detail. The binder is one of those things remembered in disproportionate clarity. I meant for it to symbolize the distance between the cousins, a representation of Breno’s mind that is simply beyond your understanding.
The intimacy of second-person perspective felt particularly appropriate for this story. It is almost like you are being told a story about yourself and someone who once meant a great deal to you. The story could be about Breno. Or it could be about your best friend from grade school, the sibling you no longer speak to and you’re not quite sure how it happened.
Another quality of remembering is suddenness. The title of the story flows into the first sentence: “When you’re fourteen, your cousin Breno begins collecting garbage.” When I think about the friend who inspired this story, who died in the same way Breno died, it always takes me by surprise. I am peeling potatoes, out on a run, or otherwise occupied. Then I think about him sitting on the church steps, talking about IHOP blueberry pancakes. That memory begets the next one, until I am repeating the whole fragmented history in my head.
S. C. PIRES is a Brazilian-American fiction writer and designer from Newark, NJ. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Apex Magazine, 4LPH4NUM3R1C by NonBinary Review, and elsewhere. Her short story, “Jesus of Karrington,” was shortlisted for The Bedford Competition 2025 Short Story Main Prize. You can find her lurking on Substack @scpires.
